Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness with Elise Loehnen

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

What if being a “good partner” has been quietly costing you your aliveness? We’ve been taught to shrink, to please, to perfect, to wear the mask of goodness so well that we forget what it feels like to truly be. We keep trying to be the “good partner,” the perfect child, the devoted spouse, the reliable coworker, all while losing touch with the fire that makes us feel alive. In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Elise Loehnen, author of Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness, to explore how centuries of conditioning have shaped women into believing their worth depends on how selfless, small, and compliant they can be. Elise’s work builds on the success of her bestseller On Our Best Behavior, but this time she offers a guide for transformation that takes you from awareness to real, embodied change. We dive deep into shadow work and the ways women unconsciously inherit narratives that limit their freedom, from “I shouldn’t need help” to “I’ll only be loved if I make life easy for everyone else.” Together, we explore how to spot these stories, name them, and finally release them. We explore: Why being “good” often means abandoning your true self How inherited stories from culture and family silently shape your choices The difference between worth and value and why it changes everything What the “core process” reveals about fear, control, and the desire to be needed How to distinguish facts from stories and reclaim your power The real currency of abundance and how to break free from scarcity thinking How to recognize your personas, from the overfunctioner to the pleaser, and set them free Why self-care isn’t indulgent but sacred maintenance for your aliveness Remember to check out Elise’s new book Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness: A Process for Reclaiming Your Full Self. You can also tune into her podcast Pulling the Thread or join her Substack community for more reflections on living fully and authentically. Want to connect with her? Visit her website or find her on Instagram. And if this conversation moved something in you, I’d love to hear it, share your thoughts or story at [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and celebrities about love, sex, and relationships from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. And that way, my goal is to awaken your mind, body, and soul. It's time to become fluent in the language of love.

Elise Lunin is a New York Times bestselling author and the host of the podcast Pulling the Thread, where she interviews cultural luminaries about the big questions of today. She's a New York Times bestselling author of On Our Best Behavior, The Seven Deadly sins and the price women pay to be good. She was also the chief content officer for Goop, where she co-hosted the Goop podcast and the Goop Lab on Netflix. She has now written a new book, which is almost a workbook of sorts, taking a deeper dive, called Choosing Wholeness Over goodness, a process for reclaiming your full self. If you have been feeling exhausted, seeking more potential and power in your life or relationships, looking to really claim new

levels of freedom and joy in your life, if you're feeling tapped out and depleted or shut down or hopeless, this is a podcast for you. We're getting into the details of how we can create shifts in your life by looking at the stories about you and your life and what's possible that, for the most part, you've unconsciously adopted, and how to blow up those stories to create more freedom for the life you really want. I can't wait for you to listen to this episode of The Language of love. Elise Lunen, thank you so much for joining us on The Language of Love. Thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. You know, I'm really excited about this book, Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness. Even the title, you know, is so powerful because like in your first book

on our best behavior, that was a bestseller. You're really sort of guiding us or guiding the reader into recognizing all the ways that women have been sapping their aliveness, not living wholly, you know, and feeling enslaved or being enslaved, not even realizing we're enslaved to these ideas of what a quote unquote good woman is, whether that's a good daughter, a good wife, a good whoever, coworker. And we're doing that over being our true, authentic, alive selves. And so it feels like you're taking a much deeper dive into it in this book and getting into like, okay, so you've recognized this and we're going to review it a little bit and remind you of it. But like now, what the hell do you do with that? Yeah. And so that's really what it feels like

this book is about. But tell me if I'm right. Yeah. Yes, that is accurate. What do you do once you become aware of the ways in which you're delimiting your own lives and shoving everything that you've been conditioned or programmed to believe is sort of quote unquote bad away from your conscious experience, right? And to disown all those parts of yourself and not only disown them, but in some ways live in fear of them, right?

Because there's such a threat to this identity of being a quote unquote good woman. What the hell is a good woman? And you kind of, you divided according, which I know was a theme in your last book, according to these seven quote unquote deadly sins, but yeah, ways in which we make ourselves small, you know, contort ourselves into pretzels unconsciously carry these stories. We'll be getting into that. And it really is a workbook around how to, it's taking a really deep dive

into some of your unconscious beliefs, guys, some of the limiting beliefs and stories you don't even realize you're carrying that are sapping your potential, your aliveness, your energy, your joy, your connection, your ability to really show up in your life. And we were talking before we started recording, I almost forgot to press record, but we were talking about how, you know, basically you divide it into the seven deadly sins, and then you're getting into kind of this core process, which is a really beautiful process. And I can attest is extremely an effective process because we have this, you know, shared connection. You speak a lot about it. You know, this core process comes from the conscious leadership organization, which was started

by Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman. And Diana Chapman is a really dear friend of mine that I've known, I don't know, like 20, 25 years. And the reason I met her is because my husband had been on a retreat, I believe with Jim and he was blown away. And this, we were maybe, we've been married almost 25 years. We were married, maybe married a few years by this point. And, you know, I'm a therapist, but he had never been in therapy. Maybe when he was 10 years old and his parents got divorced, he had never been into personal

development. but this guy, Jim got him totally inspired. And then he said, you know, who can I work with? Cause Jim wasn't really available. Who can I work with? And Jim referred him to Diana Chapman, who was a new coach at the time and had been studying with gay and Katie Hendricks and with Jim and all of that. And so my husband started working with her and he completely turned our relationship on its ear and miss recovering codependent here who was actively codependent back then. And so manipulative with it, you know, by the end of an argument, I could convince the person who I, who was angry at me that they had done something wrong, you know, just to like

save the peace in the relationship and not be the bad guy. Right. Like he just all of a sudden started setting all these boundaries and I was freaked out and I knew he was working with her. I'm like, who is this woman? He's like, she's a coach. And back then, like coach, you know, I got two masters and a PhD. You know, you don't just like hang up a coach moniker, call yourself a coach

and turn someone relationship upside down, like WTF. And I was like, let me have a session with her. And I was really just planning on debunking her and being like, who the fuck, you know, like, who are you little girl? You know, coming out of my relationship and my relationship dynamic. And by the end of that session with her,

I was like, holy shit, like this woman is good and knows what she's talking about. And she continued to develop what is now, you know, these core in large part, these core principles that are so beautiful. And I can tell you of all the people, and I talk about this all the time, she knows this of all the people who have helped me in my life and who I've worked with. And I worked with her for years until she eventually fired me from coaching because I was not willing to go as far as I needed to go in service to my aliveness. And she's like, well, I'm not really interested in working with someone who's not willing

to put their aliveness first, you know? And I was still in codependency back then. So we stayed friends after that. And I ended up, for other reasons, diving into codependency recovery, which I've been in for about 15 years. But we stayed really dear friends. And of all the people I've worked with,

these principles that you're taught, she, but also these principles that you talk about and that you help us work through are fundamental to my mental health and my well-being and my personal growth. So that is a very long way. No, it's so helpful though, because I am not a coach. I'm not a facilitator or a therapist. And I have deep reverence, I will say. Similarly, like deep reverence for therapists and healers and particularly those who have really put themselves through the paces because opening up someone's psyche is a huge responsibility and not something to be undertaken lightly. But after Honor Best Behavior, to your earlier point,

people were coming up to me and asking, and I would do sort of very small workshops around even just getting women to say what they want, which for most of us is an impossibility. It comes out as sort of like meek and mouse-like. And then if you keep going, you can sort of move them 900 yards down the field towards something that might be like actually what they really want, but there's so much shame. There's so much anxiety that comes up. Many of them have never even considered it or use themselves as any sort of GPS or navigational device. You also hear women just even struggling to say, I want, it goes to, I would like, and then they, the tendency also not to pick on women. This is just in my observations is to triangulate what they want.

or to put it on someone else. So I would like my child to get into their first choice college. I would like my husband to start cleaning up after himself. Right, they're all dependent on external factors, understanding and meeting their both needs and their desires.

And to state it overtly is very, very difficult. So I was doing that type of work after Honor Best Behavior came out and everyone was like, well, what do I do? And I was, I didn't have a practical solution. And at the time I had met this woman, Courtney Smith, who's very close to Diana Chapman, works with her and is like in one of,

you know, they're very, very, very tight. And then Courtney works with the Enneagram. And so, and as part of the sort of like that whole CLG world and her work as a coach. And she was like, well, I know how to take, this is all fundamentally about story, obviously, our own and cultural stories that we've imbibed hook, line, and sinker, right? Again, about what it means to perform this goodness in the world, to be a woman who needs no rest, a woman who needs no praise, attention, or affirmation,

a woman who doesn't have any wants because she subjugates those wants to other people's needs, a woman who has no appetite because what's food? Like her body is small and disciplined and tiny, right she's not desiring she's just desirable she's not sexual she's just sexy right like well you know all of these scripts and they yes they map to the seven deadly sins yeah and she was yeah she was like these are stories and they're running our lives and so here's the process she took a lot of CLG tools and Katie Hendrick work and Byron Katie is in there and some Alexander technique and Hale Dwoskin and the Sedona method, they're all in each other's sphere, which I love, and put together, strung together this process for taking those stories that we're

telling ourselves, which often are very similar to other people's stories, and making them really big, really conscious, really committing to them, and then recognizing all the payoffs, all the costs, and what it might look like to choose something else instead. As you were just saying, it's actually like incredibly powerful process. It's a really beautiful and powerful process. And we can, I want to drill into some of the elements of the core process. You mentioned story, which I think is one of the key fundamentals. And you go through each of these kind of seven deadly sins, which are essentially,

my interpretation, are kind of ways in which we tend to tell ourselves story. Like you were saying that, you know, I don't need food. I'm tiny. I don't have needs. and most of these stories, some of them may be conscious, but the truth is most of them are unconscious. I feel like until we're asked to question what the story is, they're not conscious. You know, we're not choosing them. We're not signing up. We're picking them up from our mothers, our aunts, the culture at large. You can think like, I don't believe in this. I like,

I consciously disagree, right? That a good woman, quote unquote, has a good body. That's like teeny tiny. Like I hate that. I reject it. You know, I have so much anger about it. Right. But the reality is it's like lurking in your subconscious directing either the reprisal against it or your enforcing of it in the world. And so we don't like these stories. Again, they're not consciously chosen and you don't get a pass because you don't like them. Yeah. And they're sort of internalized yeah and and they're contagious and they're contagious yeah our culture is very contagious we whispered into each other's ears it's like all the norms and we police you know ultimately women are not only enforcing these stories and their own behavior but we

enforce them with each other we are the first to police other women for deviating from these these ideas. The first. At women are the worst. We would be more supportive of each other. I guarantee you men would not have the power to. No, because women are exceptional. Like we've been outperforming boys and men in school for a century. We can outrun them. We win all the ultra ultra marathons. We win all the long distance swimming competitions. We give birth with our bodies. We create life. We outlive them. Like women are exceptional. It's not a debatable, it's a way of, it's like a fact. Yeah. Culture. Yeah. You know, I don't know why I'm thinking about this, but I always just follow what comes up. I'm just thinking about sort of society

contagion and the way that we develop and the, when we start telling ourselves or adopting these stories, which is probably as soon as we're conscious at all. But I remember, and this was many years ago when I was on the Oprah show, I was a, whatever it's called their love, sex and relationship expert. And I did this one show with nine and 10 year old girls. And we were talking, it was about sex, like sex education. And this was before social media really became, it was just coming out then Facebook and things like that. So it was mostly texting and emailing was the biggest technology thing, but we were talking, somehow we got into the story of naked selfies and why send. And then as I was asking them, they were like, well, you know, let's say a boy

asked for a picture and I don't send it to him. Then he's going to go on to another girl. He's going to stop communicating to me. And so I started kind of taking them through, okay. And then what? And then what? And then what? What's the fear? What's the fear? And so I was getting them to their story about why they felt out of their power. And I didn't know what the story was. I was curious. Like that was really my impetus for asking more and more what it finally came down to, which I think is so true. And so fascinating is that their story was especially the high popularity, desirable boys on the football team, you know, the equivalent of the football star or whatever the equivalent is in your, in their environment, I have to

keep their attention and they have to want to me around because if I am popular with the boys, that is what makes me popular with the girls. What I really want is friends who want to be around me, who won't be mean to me, who won't turn on me. And the only way that's going to happen is if I am a doorway that gives them access to the boys, then I will be desirable socially. So in order to get that social capital, I'm going to objectify myself, do things I'm uncomfortable with, push past my boundaries sexually in order to somehow capture the

attention of this boy, not for the boy, but for the girls. I just, I don't know why that's coming to. I think it's just such an insidious story and something, and an example of how it might happen so young. No, it's such a beautiful story too, because what it gets to that, and then, and then, and there's, you know, the fact versus story is the first tool in the workbook to get people's unconscious going. So they start to actually do some of that. And then, and like, what's the real story driving this behavior? What is the story that you are actually structuring your entire personality around, right? And which is like, I'm going to be a desirable girl to the boys so that

I'm popular and I won't be bullied. I won't be excluded. I'll be okay, right? And then in the process and the work that you were doing with these girls, you're ultimately getting to the underlying fear, which drives so much of this personality, which is this fear of loss of approval, fear of loss of safety and security. I think the third one they use at CLG is fear of loss of control, but really they're all about safety and security, right? And that need to belong and that need for social capital, social approval. Had to be abandoned. Yeah. And for girls and for so many of us, and I'm sure men too, the story becomes, who am I if I'm not serving this function? Who am I if I'm not this sexually desirable 10-year-old girl? I would be nothing.

yeah yeah i will it's so heavy it's so heavy and it's so complicated and insidious and it's just one layer of what we are all so conditioned to not even getting into the way that social media has come in i don't even i mean yeah i'm that rabbit hole in terms of adopting stories and but it gives you an idea of like how much juice like the ones that are really potent right and in the process of like doing this core process, some will have more oomph than others. And if you do it again, you'll get to a deeper story, but you start to understand, oh my God, I have, this has like been this story, which I have taken as fact, right? I've substituted as an immutable fact and an immutable reality that will never change has defined my entire life all my relationships it's

like an operating principle and so you get clear on this story you get clear on you know is it a fact or a story right and I want to ask you to distinguish between that and then how you kind of feel when you are believing this story and then you get into the fear right what is the fear I have if I were to disregard this story, if it were no longer my operating principle, what might happen? And that's where you get to some of those core fears that most of us are unconsciously carrying

that limit us so deeply. Yeah, but you start to really understand, oh, that's the payoff. Like that's this story that I've been laboring under. My belief is that this is the story that keeps me safe. And it's not true, but like it takes a minute to get there once you sort of start to see what you're up to which is very intelligent right like these 10 year old girls are being highly intelligent and adaptable

to a culture it's not correct it's not fact but you understand like I see why I did that I understand why that made me feel safe and there's this incredible payoff and a huge cost yeah cost in many ways than payoff. Like I had this story for most of my life until I went into recovery of codependency, still in recovery, still pounds of time to time is my, the kind of headline is, if you need me, you won't leave me. Right. Yep. I would 100% and partners who were broken little birds who I could fix who needed me. And my story was, if you need me for yourself, I mean, I didn't put it in these words at the time, but in the way we understand today, if you needed me, if you need me for self-regulation, for a sense of safety, for navigating the world, for your acts of daily

living, even for taking care of your life in the form of a relationship, you know, then you wouldn't dare sacrifice me or leave me because you need me to survive. Yeah. And boy, was that like that. Just to give you guys an example, I mean, I gave you a teenage example, but just an example that you may have, you know, maybe I'm sure at least you have many examples, but that you may have an adulthood that you don't even realize you were carrying. Yeah. Of course, that was leading me to sacrifice my own needs, exhaust myself emotionally, tap myself out, taking care of everybody else, constantly being surrounded by people, not that I could learn on, but who were leaning and sucking off of me. Yep. And I have a very similar story. This is the story in the

workbook, I sort of, Courtney and I each work a story relevant to that sort of quote unquote sin. And my flaw story is I'm the only one who can do things right. So I should do them all, which might sound on the surface a little different than yours, but the end result is the same, which is what I came to understand. So this means like extreme over-functioning in all parts of my life so that I'm sort of the only one who has the passwords to the kid's school hot lunch. And I'm so quick to respond. I'm the only one that the school will call if a kid is sick, et cetera. All the actions I've taken in my life to ensure that I have complete control and essentially an over-functioning, under-functioning dynamic with my husband,

which I am definitely the one promulgating and pushing. And when I did this process with it, even though this story, I can get so irritated and so sort of resentful, I had to, through the process be like, oh, this is a core story to my personality that shows up at work. It shows up everywhere because fundamentally, similar to you, who would I be to anyone if I didn't make everything easy and efficient and they don't have to think. I'm just like on auto drive for them. They're outsourcing all their executive functioning to me. Like, why would anyone love me, Laura, if I weren't making their lives so easy? What do you have to offer if not that? What do I have to offer? I've got nothing. So this gives you an example. I was like a highly

performative child seeking approval externally, et cetera. And this is how I've structured the first 45 years of my life to keep myself safe. And it's not a fact. It's a story. I can definitely do things differently. And I am doing things differently now. Yeah. And my husband's not going to leave me. Guess what? He didn't marry me because I'm so competent. He's going to turn to you and say, sorry, I know because you are no longer taking care of the hot lunches and I'm out of here. I'm done. Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman. I've been a sex love and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous

relationship? Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not, check out my free course on quantum sex. It's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level, capable of full body orgasms, how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner just go to drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the home page the quantum sex free course check it out let me know what you think you talk about i forget which chapter it was in maybe in the green chapter about and i want to get into some things in there because I wasn't expecting to, I was, I was like, yeah, I get that

one, but I found you're like, I've got no money stuff. What are you talking about? I definitely have money stuff. I felt like I understand all the money stuff, but there were some really good pearls in there. But one of them, one of the things you talked about, which you're reminding me of is this idea of worth versus value. Value. Yes. Can you speak to that even in with regard to the example? Yeah. Yeah. This is this idea that so much of our lives, like we decide what something is worth based on an external estimation, right? Like we're taking our stuff out and saying like, what is this worth? Tell me what it's worth. And this is how we sort of judge ourselves. This is how we judge our own value, which is actually sort of an internalized idea

that is priceless. And as a more concrete example, like you can think about the things to you, the value of things that are priceless and yet have no worth, right? Like have no discernible quote unquote value or worth in the external market. Like a last letter from a dying parent, your grandmother's purse, right? That she managed to save through the Holocaust. Like whatever it is, there are these artifacts. The last snuggle with your child before he was like, I'm done with you putting me to bed mom it's gonna happen so we could yes no yeah like that last family vacation when when everyone's still living under one roof these are things that have like the most value in our lives and yet they fail the worth test and you know it's it goes to with this idea of money

like it's never about money right it's about what money symbolizes and the stories that we have about money. And so part of that chapter, some of the, it has this, the workbook has this core process that you work your stories. I have a lot of stories about money, like everyone else and around scarcity. And then there are these expansion tools that are different. Those are good. Yeah. And some of them are about like, actually, where's the abundance? What do you actually put so much value on that has like no worth, right? Like proximity to nature, a body that's like highly functioning and athletic, wonderful children, like whatever it is, a voracious appetite to read books and like a really fast mind. These things that we all have in different ways, like an artistic

ability that we just don't, we don't value because we, there's no way to externally give them any worth. Yeah. And it's so powerful that, and also, well, you're kind of speaking to it, these other currencies or resources that we have that aren't about money, like friends, kindness, family, and then also needs versus wants. Yes. Needs versus wants is another great exercise. And the last thing I would say too, about like those currencies is I think, and this is sort of what I've discovered in doing this work. So often I get sort of like, I don't have enough money, right? Or I need money. And then it's like, well, what's the actual feeling? What does that money represent to me? It means like freedom, space, access to nature, not being enslaved to

work that kills my soul. So part of the process of doing this work is actually saying, no, that's what I want. I'm assigning it to my bank account, but it's somewhat unrelated. Similarly, I think once versus needs is a really potent exercise that I did with this woman who's sort of one of my spiritual teachers. And I had just left my corporate job. I was totally freaked out. It was COVID. I had my book deal and I've always had, you know, been one of those people who's like ghostwriting book, people's books on the side and doing a lot of other work. So I wasn't completely high and dry, but I had never not had a job with a salary that came every two weeks. and I was spinning and I got on the phone with her

and I was like, I'm just like, there's just not going to be enough and I don't know how I'm going to do this and I'm the primary breadwinner and like, you know, this breathless like panic. And she was like, slow down. What do you need? And I was like, well, what do you mean?

Like a budget? And she was like, well, that's kind of a version of it. Yeah, like, do you have an Excel document? Like, do you understand? What's the total of your like essential needs? And I was like, I mean, I guess I could figure that out. I'm like a little scared, right, to look. She was like, look, look, do that.

She was like, the people always come and they're frantic that their needs won't be met, but they can't actually articulate what those needs even are. And they conflate needs and wants. So please go get clear. What are your needs? What are your wants?

Two tabs in Excel. The divine is very good at meeting needs. a little more hit or miss around once, but like very good at needs. So I did what she told me to do. I, but I had so much anxiety and fear even about like looking at numbers. And then I saw the figure and I was like, oh, I can do that. Like I can get my arms around this. And what was really interesting in the once column is there weren't that many things that I wanted actually. and it was like i want to take my kids to montana twice a year i'm from montana i want i can't even remember what was on there but it wasn't a lot it wasn't a lot and no shame if like you have a lot

of ones too because i think so many of us are shamed about that but i was like like claim what you yeah yeah but i was like oh i can do this no problem and it was so calming to my nervous system just to make it, to concretize it and to distinguish between the two and to make my ask of the universe. This is what I need. Can you make this happen? Yeah, I love that.

And I also think it speaks to the story thing, right? Cause I have a lot of, I think most of us do. I think very few of us, I'm always so fascinated. I have a girlfriend who, she doesn't make a lot of money and she often, you know, she has very little in savings, but she has no scarcity energy around money. Like it always comes, everything always gets paid. And when I watch her, I'm in such awe

because I would be shitting bricks in that situation, you know, and she's just totally calm. But I think a lot of that also comes from the stories we adopted, right? Like, especially I think our generation, You know, my dad's parents were raised and came of age during the depression. Yep. Great depression. And so I think that's part of it in his family and maybe in my mom's as well. But there was it was nothing was ever going to be enough. You couldn't always run out.

They were always so scared of out and push, you know, always from the time I was little. you got to do something. You got to support yourself. You know, there was just all of this pressure. And I really did adopt that. It's a really deeply embedded story that there's never, you know, that you can run out. You can run out. There's never enough. The rug will be pulled out. Yes. And again, it goes to this idea that we think of money as solving safety and security. And in some ways it does, it can solve your money problems, but this is like a much deeper and more existential fear that will never be fully resolved by bank balance. Look around and people are always like, but why does Mark Zuckerberg need more money or Elon Musk? And it's just the

same stories of scarcity, limitation, and lack that is driving these guys. Yeah. Or that you can have all the money in the world and still feel like shit about yourself and your life. Lord knows I've dealt with half my clients. Yes. No, it's so deep. But part of it is recognizing, oh, I'm trying to solve an emotional problem with a physical solution so that I can feel a certain way. And not that they're disconnected, but that that's not how it works, right? Yeah. And one of the things, you know, in the core process, you don't get into this too much, but it's inherent in the way you lay out the exercises. And I know it's something that Diana Chapman promotes a lot of these kind of shift moves to shift yourself out of, in this

case, fear a little bit so that you can work with the story. Because when you're in a really activated place, even just neurologically, your amygdala is taken over, your prefrontal thinking part of your brain is inactive. It's hard to even think clearly to dissect the story until you've shifted a little bit. And there's all kinds of shift moves you get into, including persona play, which I love. I've got to talk about personas too. But one of the things that just on the money thing,

I'll say this as an offering, a really simple thing that I have found so powerful, even when there've been times in my life where we're skirting the edge, like I'm not sure we're going to be able to pay the mortgage. I mean, there have been periods in my life where that was the case or the rent or whatever. And what I will come back to

that for some reason immediately helps me calm my nervous system along with moving my body some is in this now moment right here right now which by the way is the only thing that's real because who the fuck knows what's going to happen five minutes from now and what happened yesterday is just a story we have right there's no real it's not here anymore so in this now moment which is the only moment that is real. Do I have everything I need? Yeah. Yeah, I absolutely do. I am fine. And it just like, even as I say it now, if something about that, and I've shared it with others who say the same thing, not that there's any magic bullet, but something about it brings my activation down enough so that I can start working, you know, with the core process or

whatever else I'm, you know, which I, I'm just offering that. No, it's beautiful. And I think so essential. And I don't know what it reminds me of too. It's like, is my tendency when I get activated in that way. And that's a great way to break the spell. And my husband would tell you that I use scarcity or I manufacture scarcity in order to move into my sort of overworking compulsive workaholism, self-soothing, which again, like money is so important again, because of what it symbolizes, not so much like the actual bank balance, but the story that I will then get going on is future-based to your point. Like I will not be okay. I will not be able to pay my kid's tuition bill. I will not be able to pay my mortgage. And my husband knows

enough to sort of shift me back. I'll come to him and be like, I've been asked to do this project. The money is really good. We really need the money. I need to do this project. And he'll be like, okay, all right. I'm not going to stop you. And like, did we need the money yesterday? But it gives you a sense of like how you use these stories to start again, scaffolding your personality and justifying the action that you're going to take where I'll be like, I didn't to have scarcity yesterday and I'm not going to have scarcity tomorrow, but I like will have scarcity in the future. Therefore I need to do this project, even though it's taking me so far away from my Dharma, my mission, what I want to be doing with my time, this desire for freedom

and space and expansion, but it catches you. These stories catch you. I catch you. And we talk a lot. I'm going to have to send you my book, not the most recent one, but my last book, Quantum Love, because I share a lot of these principles in that as well. But one of the things that I, you know, it's all about how to harness your body's energy, energetic frequency to create the reality you want in love, but really in all realities. And what's happening when, you know, what you're describing of really staying in that place of flow and optimism, essentially, is what it is. You are holding a much higher frequency when we live. So from an energetic law of attraction standpoint, when we're living in a state of fear and scarcity and those stories of scarcity, it tends to kind of create more of that. For sure. So I think even on an energetic level, making these shifts also shifts your energetic frequency, which is shifting what your frequency matched.

And I think we're drawing to us the confirmation of our stories, right? Like we're putting it out and it's like, confirm the story for me, universe. Confirm the story for me. Like confirm me, make this true. And I feel like the universe will confirm it for us, right? This is, I'm sure, a huge part of your work. like these dynamics that we cultivate in our relationships romantically and professionally. Yeah. Until you're like, I hate this. I cannot, there has to be a level of discomfort

before you're like, I'm ready to call bullshit on myself. Like I cannot do this anymore. The cost is too high. I cannot sustain this. I cannot support this. I am living completely muted and feeling somewhat sort of enslaved again to these stories. Yeah, I always say that the pain of being in this situation and the story and the pattern has to be greater than our fear

of shifting it or leaving in order for that change to start happening. And this process that you take people through is a way to do that in bite-sized ways where you don't necessarily have to,

you certainly don't have to, nor are you asked to blow up anything in your world. But it will change you. It'll change your boundaries. It'll change what you say yes and no to. It'll change how you communicate. And one of the things that I love about this process and why I share it in Quantum Love is I wrote Quantum Love, I think it was back, it must've come out in 2017, but I think I wrote it in like 13 or 14, right around the time that I was really going deep into codependency recovery and trying to find my voice and power in a relationship with a man who I am still with all these years later, who's an amazing

human being, but a huge, like powerful force and really difficult, not anymore, but at the time, really difficult to have a voice with, without all my shit coming up, you know, which is in part why I chose him. Right. Yeah. No, we are very intelligent, I think. And what we pick to force our expansion and growth, you know, it's all purpose on a metaphysical. Yeah, for sure. We choose it. We choose it not consciously, but in part of it is like, you need this medicine. You know, this one's going to push me over the edge of really creating the shifts in my life that I want, which it did. But what I found is so much of these shifts and changes, and I get into the energetics too. It's not just elements, and I don't do it the same way you do, but elements

essentially of the core process as you describe it, is that when you go through these things and you process things this way, it creates a roadmap for change. It doesn't just highlight the problems as we said, but it gives you a path of externalizing the problem a little bit so that you can look at it and work with it and then get really, really clear on what you want and how to set boundaries to get what you want, how to take action to get what you want, and how to not stay stuck. It's sort of like what I do with women. This is a really simple example, and it tends to be more women, which is why I'm saying women, but I have done it with men too, who are super sexually inhibited. Like you wouldn't think this exercise I'm about to describe is that powerful

for someone who has these really deep sexual inhibitions about, let's say what nice girls do and do or women do and don't do sexually. But I will have them make a three column list in the first list, brainstorm every story you have about what good women, nice girls, however you want to say it do and don't do sexually we don't give we don't receive oral we don't initiate we don't whatever it is all those certain positions actions behaviors desire all of that and then in the second column where did that story come from you know oh it was when my hand got slapped away when i was touching myself to fall asleep or it was when the sister in my catholic school told me i'd go to hell or whatever it was and then in the third column what do you want to keep or release because some

of these things, as the adult woman, you're looking at it now, you might still say, you know what? I still subscribe to that. So keep it right. But they're most of it. They're going to end up releasing. And just by virtue of doing that, they have now externalized the inhibitions. So the next time they start to feel a little cringy when they're receiving oral, let's say they're like, oh no, that, you know, that is when sister Mary Margaret told me I was going to hell. no, she is not in the bedroom. I do not subscribe to that anymore. And they, you know, and there's a shift that happens. So sometimes just externalizing the story and getting clear on the story can be so powerful, but then you going through the process of change of,

of looking at the story, of looking at the fears around the story of questioning the fears around the story. It's a really beautiful kind of cognitive process for externalization. If that Yeah. I mean, it's the whole nut. It's the whole nut, I think, is that so many of us don't realize it's all unconscious. We don't realize why we're behaving in the ways that we're behaving and that these are stories that we actually believe. It's why that first tool, fact versus story, is like, in some ways, if you just do fact versus story as a concept and you apply it throughout your life, you can save yourself from A, so much conflict, but B, you start to get your unconscious going. And you're like, holy shit, Mary Catherine's in the, in the bedroom. Like

I did not know that I believe it. But when you see that story or when you say it, you're like, whoa, hi. Oh, this is it. And some stories you're like, I don't feel that so much, but others, you're like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This is it. This is like, this is what I have been holding onto and sustaining. And then you just, as you said, it's exact, this is the exact process. you consciously commit to it. I still believe this. I'm not ready to let it go. I don't want to put this down or out, get out. I don't believe in you. Bye. I love you. Thanks for all that you've done to keep me safe. Yeah. Yeah. You Marie Kondo that. I love that. You've done a good job. Thank you. Thank you socks. I'm done. Yeah. Thank you old socks. Yeah. Is that, you know, and it will

keep coming up, right? It sort of reminds me of Phil Stutz and the tools, you know, he talks about part X and part X, which is that voice in your head. That's telling you these stories essentially here is never going away. No. So every time it comes back, you're going to have to be like, so it's an ongoing, you know, this is what we're talking about when we talk about shadow work, which I know you mentioned. My favorite thing. Mine too, I love it. I love it.

It's so powerful. You bring them to the light, right? When you bring your shame to the light, that's when it starts to evaporate. Absolutely. And the whole book, honestly, and choosing wholeness over goodness is an acknowledgement of Carl Jung

and this whole concept of shadow and wholeness versus these ideas of goodness or badness. And the whole book is about shadow, which is that on our best behavior was really about the cultural shadow of women and what we've been conditioned to believe is bad, like our own sexual desire, right. Or, or need our desire for sexual pleasure or wanting to receive or any of these things. And so we've kept those ideas as far away from our consciousness as possible because they're quote unquote bag. They are, they are in like our hefty bag of shadow and they're still part of us. Like these are all

the human urges, instincts, desires that make us human and alive and make being in a body so enjoyable and interesting and wild. And so part of this process is like, what is in this trash bag? What's the gold? It's full of treasure. And how can I reclaim all of this as part of my wholeness and wholeness is a much better goal than quote unquote goodness. Yeah. What was his quote? I'd rather, well, simple. I'd rather be whole than good. Than good. Me too. Exactly. That's it. Choosing wholeness over goodness. That's the quote. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And this, and that means like owning those parts of us that we would have previously said, like, that's bad. That's base. That's unsavory. Like get away from me. That's a threat to my identity

as a good girl and a good woman. You know, I always like to like that. We had this old house we lived in when I was younger for a little while, and it had this really dark, dank, scary basement down a bunch of stairs. And the door to the basement was in the kitchen. And I was so freaking scared of that basement. There were monsters in that basement. I would zip by the door when I was walking through the kitchen. Like I was scared of even the door to the basement. And I thought of that metaphor so often when I think about the shadow self or the parts of ourselves that we're kind of displacing and not willing to look at and be with, which are the most gold and most powerful parts is that it's like, you think they are monsters. You think

there's like this evil darkness, but when you open the basement door and turn on the light, it's not monsters. It's these young, sweet little parts of yourself that just want to be seen and recognized and protected and honored, which you can absolutely do as the adult self you are now. and once that happens you you develop a whole new relationship with it but until you're willing to look at it you're just going to run past the basement door and that which you can't be with will run your life yeah a hundred percent it's always so it just like the looming and the subconscious is so much more terrifying and the amount of energy that we spend keeping that trash bag closed right or the attic door shut and we're like we're just bracing against it we're resisting

it with all of our might, sure, it's going to just sort of like chaotically burst through and swamp us. And the reality is when you open it, you're like, oh, there's one so much energy here to be regained both from like not resisting. So there's like that reclamation. And then you're like, oh, these are all like wonderful things that I've cast down here that I like will make me feel more alive. Like I can trust myself to be around food without quote unquote, you know, so many of us have this, like, I'm going to be out of control. I'm going to, you know, that's one of my stories with food. Actually, like I can trust myself to moderate and to honor my appetite. And like, I'm not some depraved lunatic who needs to be sort of like bridled and put in the stable,

right but yeah there's so much energy there so much gold i think you know carl young would say all the gold all the gold is in the shadow it is and so much to be learned there so there's so many resources guys in this book we didn't even get into the drama triangle or personas that those parts of ourselves that sort of personify what you know like i had one when the kids were young around homework that i felt like if i didn't really come down hard on them they weren't going to do well. And it was, you know, homework just became this battle. And so I finally sort of dove into some persona play with it. And I developed this homework Nazi. So I would start marching, you know, goose stepping around the living room with a, you know, a German Nazi, like a

characterization of a Nazi accent and being like, you will do your homework or you are going to the can't, you know, I would just like, I was like evil around home and they started, you know, just became this funny thing, but it also created a shift for all of us where they were then able to go and focus a little more. And I was able to kind of get out of the grip of that persona. So just quickly to that, because I feel, yeah, so this is, and the workbook includes Katie Hendricks persona interview, which is really fun, but it's this idea. And it goes to what you were talking about with the basement, these parts of ourselves. It's very aligned with IFS too, that there are these parts that hijack us in these moments often of stress. Although you

can have positive personas too. And we talk a little bit about that as well. But for example, my mom went on Donahue in the 80s to talk about her fear of becoming a bag lady, which was so random. I grew up in rural Montana. It's like, I'm still not sure how she ended up on TV with Gloria Steinem and Lily Tomlin talking about her fear of becoming a bag lady. But this was like, not only a meme in my small town where people were like giving her shit for it for years, but it was true. Like this was like a real anxiety. So one of my personas is bag lady, Bethy and bag lady, Bethy comes whenever I've overspent or I'm being sort of generous with myself and I can like feel this part of me that's like, you're going to be homeless. You are out of

control. So you give it a persona. You're like, hi, bag lady, Bethy. There's a whole process for sort of engaging in conversation. My husband knows about bag lady, Bethy. So he can say like, hi, bag lady, Bethy, you know, after we've had a really nice meal. And then suddenly I'm like, preventing the cost. Yeah. I'm like, we can't, we can't afford it. He's like, okay. Okay. Bag lady bethy i understand it's okay bag lady bethy like elise has it we're good she's really good at making money she's really good at paying bills on time like we love you go away but it's very powerful to start to give again these stories it's like the a physical embodiment and name for these stories people pleaser polly you know we give a million variations and examples to sort

of get the reader going and in defining and naming their own personas but when you do the persona interview, it's very deep. It's very beautiful because again, like it comes from a desire to keep fear away. It comes from a desire for safety and security. It's overplayed, but your homework monster was just like, you're desperate to keep your kids safe and secure and to guarantee their future. Right. So it's just trying to keep fear away. It's not helpful, but it doesn't know that. Yeah. And there's something about embodying it and interviewing it and playing with it that once again, externalizes it a little bit. Yes. So you can work with it. So there's so many amazing processes, examples, there's this core process, but then they take you through all these different

elements that are really holding you back from living the aliveness, the freedom, the joy, the self-expression, the authenticity that all of us deserve. The book's called Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness, A Process for Reclaiming Your Full Self. I'm so grateful to you for writing it. And I know, I can tell just from what you do that you, like me, are a heal, learn, teacher, right? I like to heal, then learn, then teach, right? And you do that as well. So thank you. So kind. Thank you for you.

Anything that you want to say in closing that I forgot to ask you? No, this was wonderful. It was really fun to go so deep with you into Diana Chapman land. Yes, we love Diana Chapman. And I'll put all this stuff in all your contact stuff, your website and everything in the show notes. But just tell us how people can get. Yeah. So I have a podcast called Pulling the Thread, which is similar, but conversations with,

you know, thinkers, theologians, therapists, et cetera, typically around sort of big questions of the day. In fact, I have an episode coming with Katie Hendricks about personas, if you want more on that. And my first book is On Our Best Behavior, The Price Women Pay to Be Good. And I have a sub stack called Pulling the Thread, eliselunan.substack.com, which is a weekly newsletter. And I'm on Instagram at eliselunan, but don't, let's not go there. And we'll put all of that in the show notes.

Thank you. Thanks for watching!