Nuanced. - 108. Kylie Bartel: How to Approach Self Care & Family Conflict

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Aaron and Kylie Bartel dive into the importance of self-care. They discuss what self-care is, how to create a self-care plan, and the value it can bring to your life. The two also tackle the tough topics of family conflict and political conflict and share tips on how to find peace in these challenging situations. Kylie is a counselling therapist and rider mindset coach with a passion for horseback riding and the great outdoors. She specializes in helping horseback riders overcome challenges such as pressure, stress, performance anxiety, and relational communication, empowering them to connect more deeply with their horses and achieve their goals. Chapters:0:00 Self-Care & Coping Mechanisms7:00 Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms10:28 Epidemic of Loneliness13:28 Responsibility17:37 Finding Purpose34:24 Treat Yourself Like Someone Worth Caring For40:56 Tradition48:39 How to Approach Family Conflict 54:18 How To Approach Political ConflictSend us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron. Have you heard the word self-care more and more? My guest and I dive into what that actually means, what it looks like, and whether or not you should be doing that by yourself or with your community. We also dive into how to resolve family conflicts, how to reconnect with people, and how to start to overcome some of the polarization we're starting to see. My guest today is Kylie Bartow.

Kylie, it is such a pleasure to sit back down with you. Episode 80, we went for three hours. We dive into financial stress, how different therapies work, how to support people, how to grow as an individual, different types of counseling styles. I'm wondering today if we could start with coping mechanisms. We hear about self-talk and self-care and trying to grow ourselves. And a lot of people say, I'm working on myself, but I'm curious as to know, should we be doing this alone, should we be having normal coping mechanisms? What are your thoughts on this

concept? Yeah, for sure. I think the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to coping mechanisms is there's a wide variety or a wide spectrum of different ways of coping. And a lot of times we would place, you know, there's some that are more healthy and adaptive and some that are more unhealthy and create more problems for us. Maybe they help in the short term, but they hurt or harm more in the long term, I would think, maybe on that more healthy side, getting outside, some of the self-care practices, exercise, lots of different methods of coping, maybe calling a friend, things like that, maybe some of the less helpful ways of coping, maybe starting to rely on substances, some of these other things that maybe make us feel good

in the short term but can damage our relationships in the long term. But there was one thing that one of my professors said, actually an undergrad, that stuck with me, thought it was quite good. She said, when I'm working with folks, I never try to take away one method of coping without offering something of equal value or something better in its place. Because that coping is serving a purpose. Usually coping, whether it's addiction or other ways or healthy ways, it's usually some kind of response to pain, right? Like to be able to acknowledge that that's where it starts and that's what we're trying to navigate. So we're navigating stress, pain, discomfort, uncertainty, something's there that's important to pay attention to.

And if we aren't, if we don't have healthy coping strategies, it might either overtake us, get us stuck, or just overwhelm us. So I think that idea about being able to offer something better in its place is important. But I think it's an interesting question you raise, do we do this on our own or do we need others around. And I think the answer is both. I do notice in our culture, we tend to be a little more individualistic in North America. We have this idea that, you know, it actually, it requires a little less vulnerability when it's all on me. I have full control over when I go places, what I do, how I do it. But I forget, I cannot remember where I heard this or who said

initially, but I think there was some quote to the effect of if you want to go fast, go by yourself, but if you want to go far, you got to take people with you. Wow. Like that idea, that community is really important. So, and are you looking for like a sprint, a short-term thing? Or do you have a longer, a longer goal or a long-term goal in effect? And I think, at least for me, I don't really notice there's like always a set answer for everyone.

A lot of times I like to chat with folks. And first of all, I ask like, what's working for you? What do you find is really helpful? Are those things more on their own or with community? And then I try to figure out how do we find more balance? Because for some folks that maybe they really like working out by themselves and having quiet time by themselves and all the things they like to do to cope or by themselves, you know, I do think the introversion and extraversion, some people need more people and some people need more alone time to really recharge. And also, like as human beings, we don't tend to thrive in isolation. You know, we were, uh, we, we, we survived throughout history and tribes and groups and we,

we don't have big teeth and big claws to defend ourselves in the wilderness. Like we need people to back us up. And so we are social creatures, uh, in so many ways. And so, um, yeah, I think that it can be a little seductive actually to be like, oh, my self-care. Like, I got this. It's all on me. No, no, it's fine. I got it. But at least for me and my personal walk of self-care and coping. I would say even going through grad school was like a huge endeavor. It was really challenging when I was doing my master's of counseling psychology. I went to Trinity Western University and that program really focused on. They wanted us to have great academic knowledge, understanding of theory. They wanted us to be excellent counselors for practicing

on other people, but they also wanted us to do the work ourselves. This idea like if you're going to put someone else, if you're going to like steward or guide someone else, through the process of healing and self-growth, you've got to have some proof in the pudding. Like, you've got to be able to experientially go through some of that process yourself. And I'll tell you, like, trying to, I think some of my preferred methods of coping heading into grad school would be escaping with Netflix. Sugar is a favorite one. Workaholism, which can be really rewarded in school, but maybe really detrimental to relationships.

And I had, you know, I was doing my best, but being able to. to just start to shift my thinking around. Maybe I can ask for help. I actually found that coping with the stress of writing papers, one of the key ways that I was able to be more effective was I would find a friend that was also pretty studious and be like, hey, can we go sit at a like Denny's till 12 at night? And like, we won't talk, or we'll talk a little bit,

but you write the paper there, I'll write the paper here and that looping someone in, that community coming together really helped. So I think that, but it's vulnerable. It's vulnerable to reach out and ask and say, hey, I'm having a hard time focusing on this. Can you come and just sit by me? I don't need you to do much, but your presence actually makes a big difference. And so, yeah, I think that idea of presence in coming together helps us go farther, even if it might feel a little slower in the short term.

From the perspective of people looking in on people with bad coping mechanisms, we see the amount of overdoses happening. And a lot of judgment and a lot of why would people do that? They obviously don't care about their own well-being. People who have, like, suicidal tendencies, we look at them and go, you're wasting your life. Like, what are you doing? And it's hard not to judge because you look at the extreme decisions they're making. And it's hard to have empathy and understanding.

How do we as a community support people in these dark places using perhaps unhealthy coping mechanisms? That's a great question. I think that being able to have empathy and put yourself in the other person's shoes starts with curiosity and non-judgment. Sometimes I think because I'm in the counseling world, that is a kind of a gold standard or a foundational practice of how we approach folks that are struggling. And sometimes I forget that that's not like a default way of approaching when you're walking down the street and you see certain things. things. A few phrases that have been really helpful in my growth and my understanding of those kind of spaces, Dr. Gabor Matei will often reference if you see, if you know of loved ones struggling with addiction specifically, he always asks, like, he doesn't say why the addiction,

he says, why the pain? Like, because there's a pain, there's a piece of pain there. And I've actually found a lot of hope, and it makes a lot more sense to me those questions when you look at this through a lens of internal family systems. So that's a type of therapy where we realize that even though we are like a complete being, we often have parts internally in our inner voice and our inner dialogue. It's like part of me wants to be happy and wants to have a great life. And part of me really wants this substance or part of me wants out. They want to die.

And sometimes it's scary to let those parts speak or be heard because you're afraid you're going to get judged or you're afraid people are going to freak out. and that's not generally very helpful for progressing the conversation forward. But there's another person I love a marriage and family therapist, I believe. No, a licensed mental health counselor down in the States named Matthias Barker. He's got a pretty big Instagram account, and I really like his work. He talks a lot about internal family systems, and one of the things he'll kind of share is that when he works with suicidal parts, the reality is that sometimes in life, when things are hard,

we have a tendency to deny, we have a tendency to minimize, oh, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, when it's not actually fine, but that avoidance or that minimization is our coping. And there could be part of us, it's like, it's fine, but there's another part that's like, it's not fine. And that part that might be suicidal, I want out, I'm done. That part is probably the part that is most aware of the pain. It understands the pain. It's not so numbed out from it.

And so a lot of times if you can, instead of like berating that part or being shut up, stop it, you know, shutting down that part to be able to talk with that part and say, hey, I hear you're in a lot of pain. I see it. I acknowledge it. And then to say like, you know, I hear that you feel like this is maybe the only way forward that taking your own life would be the only way forward. What if there was another way that we could talk to the pain, that we could maybe reduce the pain that didn't require leaving this world? Would that, would you be interested in that option. And so being able to have dialogue skills, super important, and being able to understand that sometimes things are a little more complex, but when we turn towards the complexity and are willing to look with curiosity and suspend judgment, we can actually get a lot farther quite quickly. The other question I have, because it's hard for me to square. It seems like we're in the best time. We have the most technology. We have the most access to information in terms of psychological supports, resources, counseling online, counseling in person. It seems like this is commonplace. Yet it seems, I think one of the ministers just came

out and said that there's an epidemic of loneliness. Yes. And so I'm curious, how do we think about this when we look around and say, nobody's starving to death right now in BC? Like, people have a high quality of life. Yes, some of the places people live in aren't beautiful, but they're higher quality than you would have had a thousand years ago. How do we square this idea? Yeah, I think that this kind of makes me think of, so an existential analysis, we'll talk about there's a difference between an outer yes and an inner yes. An outer yes is I'm doing the motions, I'm going to work, I'm showing up for family events. But an inner yes is do I like to be there? Do I want to be there?

Do I feel like I'm engaged or do I feel like I'm a little disconnected and checked out? And I think when I look around at culture today, I think like I have this very interesting. like when I think about, uh, fact that I was born in 89 and I remember in my childhood before cell phones existed, before the internet existed. And I remember when dial up came into our home. And then when my parents got their first cell phones and they were T9 and you could only do so much on them. And like I've kind of, my development has been, uh, as my brains developed, technology has developed simultaneously. So it's, I'm kind of like that last generation that knew what it was like before everything was right accessible at our finger.

tips. And I have heard from a lot of folks, you know, we're more connected than we've ever been, but we're more lonely than we've ever been. And the reality is that I think there are pros and cons to everything. Technology creates a lot of pros, a lot of opportunities to connect. I love being able to see my nieces and nephews over in Ontario on a video in a way that I probably never would have been able to see on FaceTime prior to the invention of the internet. And it's also not the same as a hug, right? Like there's kind of, sometimes we can experience the illusion of connection but if we don't really feel someone's presence it can still feel really lonely and then we kind of get caught in this unfortunate um you know comparison game

where on social media we're all kind of seeing everyone else's highlight reels and and that doesn't really feel real to our lives and so um that that idea that just we can be more connected than we've ever been, but more lonely than we've ever been. I see it all the time. And I think as much as I have to laugh, because some of my friends, I will joke, you're like, oh, you've got like a baby boomer's heart. Like, you just want to pick up the phone and call someone or you don't really want to do the text thing. You want to sit and have like a coffee and look in someone's eyes. But I think those skills are going to be more and more valuable moving forward as we realize the repercussions of not having them as a given all the time. Yeah. I think it's so challenging because

it seems like there's a part of duty and, like, responsibility that we've also pulled back on. Yeah. The idea that perhaps maybe you don't agree with the underlying belief systems of a church, but the idea that going there and being around people and being forced to interact, even if it's not about the belief system, there's still a level of connection. For sure. And it seems like now we're so much more, as you said, independent, that we don't look at those as opportunities. We go, oh, so many people, I don't agree with them.

They're wrong. I'm right. I'm not going to go. Yeah, well, it seems a little polarized. You know, I think like it's either it has to be all aligned or not. Like, we, I notice that it's hard sometimes for folks these days to sit in the tension of two things that might both be true but seem to not fit at a certain moment. And I think. Can you give an example of that?

That's a good question. Where my mind was going was looking at the polarization. One of my favorite documentaries. is the social dilemma and just explaining how sometimes the algorithms from social media push us to more polarities. But for a specific example of two ideas that seem to not fit, you know, if you use the church example, the church is supposed to be about love above all things, love for everyone. And then there are certain populations that often don't feel very loved by the church.

And so how do you stay in some of those places? Can you engage in communities? Actually, in the horse world, a lot of times there are a lot of populations that want to have a more relational approach where the horse is really acknowledged as a sentient being that has feelings. And we work with that kind of in a more balanced, like as far as power differential in a more balanced way, where other folks are a little more dominance perspective. They're a bit more performance perspective. They see their horses like employees. When we go to a show, you have to perform in this way. as opposed to a family member where we connect and in the horse world.

Sometimes it's even tricky for me. I think I just got back from Horse Expo Canada and Red Deer. It was such a fun event. It was great. But there's just like a very wide range of how people approach horses and what they do with them. And sometimes, you know, you sit in conversations with folks and you hear how they look at things and you're like, I probably wouldn't do it that way. But does that mean I have to like shun you and walk away and discredit everything you have to say? That kind of polarity of like, I'm going to throw the baby out with the.

bathwater. For me personally, and I think I'm just a little more leaning towards us, probably because of my training as a therapist and also just as my nature on the enneagram, I'm a nine, so a peacemaker, which means that I have a little bit of an easier time seeing the world through multiple people's perspectives. And that can be a superpower because I can see things from multiple perspectives. It can also be a challenge when there's more internal conflict about when people are like, well, where do you stand? I'm like, oh, that takes a lot of energy sometimes for me to get there because I kind of have to see the world through a lot of different perspectives. But I think for me at least, I have found so much richness in being able

to be like, hey, I don't maybe necessarily see something the way you see it. But there are things that you've got going on that seem to be working really well. Tell me more. Like, I would love to hear more. And I think a lot of times when I can approach conversations in that way, I walk away feeling less lonely. I feel more connected, even if I don't have to necessarily entirely agree with how something's happening. Yeah. The one follow-up I have to this is I'm thinking of like my indigenous culture and the idea that we're from these tribes, 200 people maybe, and everybody would have a role within this.

And it wouldn't be that you have to get it right every time, but there would be people elders and they have a responsibility and hunters and gatherers and people and they know what their title is, they know what the best outcome might look like within their culture. And right now it seems like you can do anything, you can be anything, you can go any. And so that doesn't place at least a direction. You might not want to be the CEO of a company, which you could say is a successful direction, but what is in that direction? And that comes with money and comfort and financial stability and confidence in yourself

that you've contributed something. And it seems like we're not giving people at least a pointing direction, a star to look up to. Yeah. Well, what you described there with the indigenous culture, I was just struck by the sense of belonging, right? Like you're connected to about 200, like I think there's, I forget where it came from, but they've studied, like, how big do groups need to be where it feels like you're connected to something bigger than yourself, but not so big that you're lost in the crowd and no one knows you, right? And I think that that 200 mark is in there, where you can feel like you belong to something important. And sometimes I do wonder for young people today that there's so much freedom that they feel a little lost. And there isn't maybe, it's like, you can be whatever you want to be. But no one really leans in and goes, hey, you're really good at like math. What are some options that you could apply this strength that I see in you specifically that's different than every other person that we

could put you to a purpose and not for the sake of using you, but for the sake of like empowering you, helping you find your niche where, you know, you could wake up and do something that helps put food on the table, but sometimes it doesn't always have to feel like work, like it feels like you're skilled for it. And I do think I had one cousin of mine who we have some good discussions And she's like, I think there's like two groups of people in the workforce, one that are really passionate about purpose and their work and they want it to be quite meaningful and like resonate with them and other folks who just want a job that's comfortable enough so that it can pay the bills and give them the freedom to pursue their real passions and their free time.

And I was like, I really liked that because I think sometimes, you know, there are certain jobs where people maybe look down on them a little more or think they're maybe not as meaningful, but they're integral for having our society function. I'm so thankful for garbage men. Like, you know, and I don't know if they really find it super purposeful. Maybe they do, but I'm super thankful for it. Yeah, there's certain things where I really don't. I like being able to honor and appreciate all the pieces of the puzzle in the society as we need it.

So, yeah. It's not glamorous, but it's admirable. Yes, yeah. And this is where I think finding that inner yes. is what I'll often talk about with folks when they get stuck in places where maybe it's hard. Maybe there's, you know, so the outer yes is I'm going to work every day. And the inner yes or no is I have, if there's an inner no happening for people, it's usually I have to go to work, I should go to work, I must go to work, but it's not, I want to go

to work, I get to go to work, I like to go to work. And if everything is driven by a push, typically that's the most fertile soil for anxiety, depressions, all the struggles to grow. And the more I try to help people engage in life and find like awesome lives and meaningful lives. I'm like, what do you wake up before your alarm to go do? What are you like, I'm jazzed to go do this? And so sometimes even with like day jobs that maybe I remember I heard a quote from Mark Groves as a relationship coach online. He's got some great resources for folks looking to better their romantic relationship skills. And he was like, you know, when I was building my business, I saw my date. He's like, I always knew.

I wanted to be a relational coach. I find this job really meaningful. I really enjoy it. But at the beginning, it didn't pay the bills. He's like, but my day job, I just had to look at my day job as an investor in my future career. And I was like, I love that. It's just like there's a greater yes. I know where I'd like to get to.

And this moment might not be my forever yes. But if it aligns and helps me get to the thing that really does touch my heart and matter to me, then I can give my inner yes to this thing because it also aligns with that greater, greater purpose. What I love is you didn't say happiness, because that seems to be predominant right now, is go do what makes you happy. And that can become, as we've kind of talked about, very short-sighted, very immediate. And you keep saying the word meaningful instead. What does meaningful look like? Yeah, that's a good question.

I, you know, I've always been drawn to this idea of purpose and meaning because I, at least in my own experience, I just find happiness a bit fleeting. It feels like an ever-moving target. Like, for example, last night, I got a chance to go to the Schneider Twain concert in Vancouver. It was so great. And I was very happy to go. But, like, it's one evening and then it's back to work. Like, you know, it's, I think happiness, it's interesting. The more I learn about emotion, emotion-focused therapy and the role of emotions.

Emotions are just clues. They're just feedback to whether things are going your way or not. So when you're happy, it's a valuable piece of feedback that your needs are being met. that you're on the right track. But it doesn't, it would be impossible to be happy all the time. In fact, if I think about people who are always happy, sometimes it starts almost feel a bit fake. Like, where's your range?

Like it would be weird if someone like had a loss and then they were like, if they lost a loved one or something and they were like sad for maybe a minute. And they're like, nope, but I need to be happy or I'm happy they're in a better place. And you're like, well, you know, the sadness says something important too. You know, the sadness tells you that that person really mattered, that you're really going to miss them. And so these emotions, I notice that regardless of which emotion it is, when people are kind of stuck in one emotion all the time, it doesn't feel like a really healthy and thriving life. It doesn't feel like there's like movement to ebb and flow with the seasons of life that inevitably come. So I think making the goal of always being in one emotional state, if that's your goal,

I'm super curious if people are like, no, it works for me and it's great. I'd be like, please tell me more. That hasn't been my experience. For me, I find that I feel a lot more grounded when I am pursuing meaning and purpose. A good friend of mine from grad school, she's writing a book right now on, it's on me. She studies a lot of the existential philosophy. Her name is Sarah Kubrick. She's a millennial therapist on Instagram.

And it was great in one of the posts she recently shared, she was saying, people just need to know two questions in life, who am I and why am I here? Like, what am I all about and what's the point? And so that's probably if you're the short answer of what does meaning mean for you. Why am I here? What's the point at the end of the day? If I got to my 100th birthday, what kind of things would I want people to say about me? What kind of legacy would I want to leave?

because the only guarantee is that we came into this life and at some point it's going to end. And between that, there's a lot of freedom and choices. So how you make those choices. For me, maybe I just, I'm like an old soul and I always have been. I always enjoyed when I would be in, I miss being on university campuses where all of a sudden you're just wandering by a professor's door and they're like hanging out and you just, hey, I remember there was one that had a rocking chair in the corner of his office. I would just randomly be, if I had a minute, sit down and we'd just start talking ideas and that old kind of old soul idea of thinking some of those things. It's always drawn me in. It's always appealed to me.

Is life suffering? Is that some way to look at life? Because it seems like maybe we're, if that's true, we're avoiding it. But is it true? I don't know if life is suffering. I think that I don't You hear this in some places

Yeah for sure This is a fundamental idea of existence I do think that at least I can speak from my experience No one rides for free Like this life always has hard things There's hard realities of it for sure And this is a piece from

I don't know if I could I don't know if I ever get through a chat with folks without mentioning something from Brunay Brown And so here it comes, but this idea of that, if you want to be brave in life, if you want to have a meaningful life, she has this awesome, awesome talk on YouTube called Why Your Critics aren't the ones who count. And she talks about her, she's been really influenced by the man in the arena, quote by Theater Roosevelt.

And the idea is that, you know, if you want to do anything meaningful with your life, you got to show up and you got to be willing to put yourself in the arena. The credit doesn't go to the person in the stands who's in the cheap seats yelling criticisms. Then credit goes to the person in the actual arena of life. They're getting their face sweaty and dirty and they're in it. And the thing is, she's like, you can either show up in your life and do your best to live bravely and live authentically. Or you can stay in the seats watching your life pass you by and then wake up later and wonder what would happen if I showed up. So she's like, for me, it's hard, it's scary.

Every time I get in that, like, the tunnel that leads up to the arena, I feel myself gets sweaty and it's challenging. She's like, but I always want to show up in there because that's how I know I can live my life to the fullest, essentially, that's how I would interpret the way she says that. And she's like, and the reality is if you choose to show up in the arena as opposed to stay in the spectator seats, it's not a question of if you'll get your, I don't know if I can say butt kicked, but if there's not a question of if you're going to get your ass kick. it's it's when like there there's it's never going to go 100% in your favor if you if you're willing to

risk if you risk if you risk the chance of going for success failure is also an option and so this idea that struggle suffering failure uh you know it doesn't I think a lot of times we we worry about that and we avoid showing up um but I actually think that uh you know I think it's hard because some suffering, you can see it's like part of the labor of growth. And some suffering makes no sense to me, to be honest. You know, you hear about little kids that get diagnosed with cancer. Like, really? Like that kind of stuff, I just, I don't have the answers for those things. But I'm thankful that in those spaces, I've been taught the value of grief and the idea of being able to feel the feelings that are congruent to the degree of what's going on in front of me.

And even if it's not pleasant, I do find that by turning towards our emotional, and turning towards the people that matter to us, we can make it through in a way that might take us to the next mountain range, so to speak, if we're thinking of life like a hike, instead of getting stuck in one place and just wondering what could be coming next. I want to tie this back to the first question around coping mechanisms because it seems like there are good arguments out there that it's the little things. It's not the big steps.

It's not like I have clients who go to treatment. It's not there that they develop all their skills. It's once they start to play a meaningful role in their family's life, when they start taking care of things. Jordan Peterson talks about this idea of making your bed, of doing those little things that build up to who you are. Because if you can do that, then you can do the next thing. Then you can do a bigger thing. Absolutely. But we kind of look at people and go, why don't you go to university and get a four-year education?

And that's a big ass with a long payoff. People need the building blocks to get somewhere like that. How do we think about developing and what? does self-care really look like? Yeah. Well, it's interesting, whether it's self-care, so it's whether it's for yourself and coping, whether it's in your relationships. The Gottman Institute is a, is a resource for any folks looking at like romantic relationships and they have a slogan, small things often are what keep relationships feeling great and connected. And I think whether that's between you and another person or you and yourself, which is kind of the self-care component, the small

things often make a big difference. I notice that, yeah, like the making your bed thing, that's a big deal. I'm thankful that that one flows fairly well for me in my life. I'm not as good at the like office like desk clutter one. I'll often notice that like my, the amount of like how well I'm coping with life is directly related to how messy my desk is. And that idea that for me, it all, it all comes back to boundaries actually and priorities. You know, I used to be a lifeguard after high school and there's this principle that like you if someone's like struggling you don't and then drowning like if you jump in there and they pull you under and you have two drowning two drowning people is worse than one drowning person so if you want to help others you got to make sure that you can

stay safe yourself and actually have bring in tools or bring in things to get you both to safety and that principle I think sometimes applies when it comes to self-care and how we navigate these pieces around balance because I know for me I would love to keep my desk organized. I would love to have my space organized. Those are totally values to me being able to take care of the little things often that make my mind feel like there's less cognitive load. So if we have messy spaces in our houses that tends to increase our cognitive load and make it harder to cope with stressful situations or things, things that pop up on a day-to-day basis. But if I think about what are the things that get in the way of the self-care?

it's for me it's usually other people oh i need you could you come do this for me could you help me with this and and i have a heart that's a it's a value it's been instilled in in me from my family and and my faith just being able to try to love others well is something that matters a lot to me but i do notice that there's a line around if i give up myself so much that i've depleted myself to the point where no self-care is happening my whole life is in shambles and i'm always focused on the external or trying to help others, it almost is like, uh, you can't, what was the phrase? Like, you don't want to, don't, don't buy a shirt from someone who's shirtless. Like, there's kind of like an incongruence. Like, if you don't really have that

balance figured out for yourself, how can you really trust the help you're receiving from another? Um, and so, uh, being able, this is an interesting thing that, um, I think that there is a difference between being selfish and selfful or self-connected. And it comes, this is kind of an interesting piece because there was a time I kind of, I was raised, I grew up in church, church culture and that instilled a lot of valuable pieces for me. But that idea of always thinking about others above myself made it really hard to practice self-care and find the balance with coping. And it led to a point where I was extremely, burned out in my 20s and really struggled with some depressive episodes and things like that

because I was just spent, I didn't know how to say no. I didn't know even how to feel in my body enough to say like, hey, maybe this is my line and my limit. And so, at least from the way I see it, and because I have a relationship with God, you know, for him to say like, why, if you're so willing to help all these other people, but you're not willing to like receive that same rest for yourself, receive that same love for yourself, there feels like there's an incongruence there. And it has to come back to you. And also, like, if he loves everyone equally, then I'm not, I, like, I count in that. Like, I need to be able to let myself take up space and essentially be connected to the heart he gave me. I think that, you know, whether it's God or creator or

higher power, if that's part of your belief system, I think there's a beauty. I find that, like, when I reflect and think about the unique pieces that I bring to this world, and if I can lean into those and let those take up space, I tend to find my path a little easier. That's why I've leaned to really hard into the horse piece. I mean, people like to joke, oh, you're like, are you just one more horse girl that's like super fanatical? And sometimes I can be. But for me, horses were something that no one ever taught me to love. My folks aren't into horses. No one ever had an agenda for me. They were just kind of in my DNA and no one really knew why. But every time I kind of get off track or get really busy or feel overwhelmed when I come back to that, I find myself and I find, like, being your own animals in nature is where I find my peace and my grounding. And so that's a huge part of my self-care. And if I don't let that take up enough space in my life, I don't do as well. I don't handle the stresses and the other things that come at me as well. And I just got a chance to interview some awesome high-level clinicians at the Horse Expo this past weekend. And then one of them said, like, if I spend too much time on the concrete instead of in the saddle, I start to lose my center of who I am and how I want to be in this world.

So there's this idea of treat yourself like you're someone worth caring for. Totally. And it seems like that's really difficult, particularly for people who are dutiful, who do understand the importance of community. There are people who seem more geared towards asking for help. For sure. And then there are the people who are willing to provide that help. Absolutely. they somehow lose themselves in that mixture because they see the value add in helping people.

And it's difficult to find that value. Yeah, yeah, it makes me think of one of my other favorite Brené Brown videos. She's got a video on her website called The Anatomy of Trust, another 20 minute, great little resource. And she goes through this acronym, the word braving for different components of how to build trust in relationships in general. But the end stands for non-judgment and this idea that I love to be able to like, people about this, if people are willing to help another person but not receive help for themselves to start to like parse that out a little bit because that's not a balanced flow. It's kind of like, oh, so it's, and I think a lot of people, especially the helper hearts or the hearts that are for

service, they, so if you are happy to help someone else, but when you need help, you're like, no, no, no, I reject it. I don't want it. Chances are on some level, whether it's conscious or unconscious, you feel like your value is somewhat bumped up when you help others. Like there's kind of a like, I feel better about myself. I'm more valuable when I can help others. And by, like, she does a, Brené does a better job of breaking it down and explaining it. But this idea that we kind of, when we get some value from helping, we sort of put the help, the person who needs the help in a bit of a lower position, not out of, it's usually not conscious, but there's some kind of a power differential shifting there. And so if we want to

be able to truly, like, be able to help in a sense of non-judgment and a balance, we have to be able to receive in the same way that we want to give. That's really brilliant. And I think we're thinking about for a lot of people who are in those situations and the impact that it can have. So I put out, it's my first time, I put out an Instagram poll seeing what people wanted to hear about. Oh, cool.

And so there were four different options. The main one that got the most love was how to resolve family conflict. What does that look like? Because with Mother's Day, with different events coming about, people have disagreements with family. Perhaps they're longstanding. Perhaps they've been existing for years. And I've dived into it multiple different times. But I'm interested. How do we think about this? When there's tensions about different values within families, it seems like these are the people we should be going to the most. But so many people and not in a bad way are going to counseling instead of looking within. their family dynamic to rebuild some of these bridges. Yeah, yeah, great question. I wrestle with this one myself often and when I walk alongside people, I think the first question when it comes to family conflict is off the bat, you always have to look at, is there any abuse happening?

Is there any type of thing that's like legitimately unsafe where there just needs to be a boundary in space, hard line? What is abuse? Because we use that word now a lot. We can say that like not passing the potatoes is a form of. disrespect. Sure, sure. I'm mostly when I'm talking about abuse, I come back to, I have done a, in my past, a fair bit of work with children. And so, like, what would we classify abuse of reportable abuse for children? Because some people don't know that anytime you hear of a child, anyone under 19 who's in an abusive situation, any adult is legally required. It has a duty to report that. Regardless, if you're a counselor or a grocery person or whatever, we all have a duty for that. And the way they would classify abuse in that situation when you're looking at children or a vulnerable adults is anything physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect. Those are kind of the four main categories, and they have pretty clear ways of breaking those

things down. That's why things like in domestic violence or things like that, that's kind of where I start. I think that I do try to not throw the word abuse around lightly because when you sit with folks and who've been through a lot, yeah, if you get that. kind of gut sense of like maybe you've had a hard time maybe you've been traumatized by interaction but you know um yeah it's it's a it's a hard line to draw like what is abuse what is it not um but i i do find having some clarity and some structure some of the verbiage that i draw on from mcfd and things like that around child abuse and then how would that expand to the general

population is kind of where i start um and then as far as jumping into the conflict pieces um i yeah, if it's safe enough to be there, you know, and it's safe enough to engage with an individual, then it kind of becomes around conversations, like good dialogue skills. I think that there's a couple different ways I approach dialogue. Existential analysis has one approach, the idea that we have to be two differentiated beings. Like if we're in mesh, it's really hard to have good dialogue. If it's like my survival depends on you, it's really hard to maybe hold a bit. boundary or talk to the conflict a lot of times we just go along and people please that leaves

us feeling kind of yucky after so that's not ideal but then we can maybe swing all the way to the far side on the opposite side of enmeshed or being a little more self-absorbed distant disconnected maybe some folks need to be able to soften and listen a little more and in attachment theory they'll talk about different ways of attaching and a lot of times when it comes to family conflict I notice a lot of patterns between anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, anxious avoidant or secure, and just noticing what those core needs are. So, you know, that's one thing I look at. And sometimes then if it's more of a question of like we value different things but we're

trying to spend time together, I will ask like, is there a common yes? Is there a greater yes to coming together? Is there a value that we both share that we can find a bridge. point on. And unfortunately, sometimes there's just not, sometimes the most loving thing to do is to say, I hope you can be free and find your people. But I feel like we try to exhaust or we try to find other ways of bridging back connections before we get to that point. So this ties into, I think, something we discussed last time, which is this idea of like a healthy family dinner, which almost has nothing to do with talking, but the design of how you lay out the evening. And it seems. like this is an area, maybe tradition is starting to fade for us, this idea of having a schedule time, having appetizers, having drinks, creating a space. It's something that Rebecca and I are kind of very meticulous on because we don't want people, like if there's a couple, we don't want them sitting way far apart from each other in the room. We want them to be able to sit

together if we're going to break bread together and thinking about those very, very minute things that might not seem like they matter, but seem to make up the evening. on people's ability to be comfortable. Seriously. How do we think about maybe having a healthy family dinner? Yeah. I think that the power of intention is a big deal. Like, whether it comes out as like trying to make space for two people to sit together

or making sure that you knew that someone's favorite food was this or if they had a food allergy, took that into account or consideration. A lot of ways it comes out looks different, but the intentionality behind hospitality, and in-person connection, I think, is an art that is less and less of a given, but more and more appreciated in our culture. Like, I think about when I go to, like, craft breweries that have created this, I used to work at Fieldhouse, and they just did, I was so blown away by the intentionality of the owners and the staff to make spaces that were comfortable, that people felt like

they could sit and connect and they didn't want it to just be about selling beer and food. They wanted it to be a place for communities to gather, music, have something common to look at, you know, have different, uh, different things to make it cozy. And so, um, you know, you think about the difference between going and sharing a meal where someone's put some intentional effort and thought into how to put this together as opposed to a haphazard conversation or even just grabbing fast food in your car as you're racing from one moment to the other. Like that eating experience changes drastically. And I, you know, I, I enjoy, I think my dad said this at one point. He's like, you know, sometimes I wonder how do you connect more

with certain folks in your life or certain family members that you feel a little more distant from? And he's like, well, everyone's got to eat at some point. Like there are certain points of the human experience that as much as we create more freedoms and more choices, which I think is great as a whole, uh, there are certain things we can't get away from. And so finding those bridge points back to each other, uh, with intentionality. It's actually something that I, I notice when I'm around friends or families or folks that just have that gift of being able to make people feel taken care of and welcomed in and that hospitality gift. And it's something, I say this to a lot of folks.

Like, none of us get, no, none of us show up in this world with skills. Like, I mean, some people I think are a little more dispositioned well towards certain tasks, but we didn't come in with communication skills. We didn't come in knowing how to be fit or how to eat well. We didn't come in knowing how to have good conversations or host well. but these are all skills that can be learned. And this is the pro of being at a technology age is that there, you shoot, you jump on Pinterest or you find an influencer on Instagram or YouTube and like the information is

more readily at your fingertips than ever before. And I think that sometimes young folks or any folks today, we can almost get a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of information available. But if you take a moment and just pause and instead of the dialogue being like the consumer, the advertiser at us, you need this, you should do this. You should be eating this food. You should be cooking this. Just pause and, like, create a bit of space and be like, what do I want to cultivate more of in my life?

What do I? Where do I feel lonely? Do I feel alone? Do I feel, you know, and then think about what could be a bridge forward. And if you go and actively look at all the stuff out there and start to, like, reach for the things you want, as opposed to all the things that are reaching at you, it's why I actually often keep my phone on, do not disturb, even when I'm in session or not in session, because I want to reach for my phone on my terms when I need to look for something as opposed to having it continually interrupt my flow

of thought throughout my day. So this idea that when you can bring your sense of agency and bring the things you value into the things you're trying to, into that kind of chaotic world of online, like, endless information at your fingertips, I think we can start to shift that back and really pull the gems out of all the things out there that matter to us. So, yeah. I think of trying to make sure that if you're going to have a relationship with like a family member, that you balance it with conversation.

Totally. But you recognize like a percentage. And I'm big in numbers. So I think with some people that I'm not, we're not going to share a lot of common verbal ground. We're not going to agree on a lot of issues. So keep that at like 20%. Totally.

And find something else, whether it's going golfing, mini golf, finding an external thing to do. common activity or interest piece, music, going to a play, going to a movie, and then talking about it afterwards, you know, finding those common grounds. I think, I don't know if it's, I think we have more in common with each other than we like to think a lot of the time. But sometimes, whether it's growing up in grade school, I just noticed like for me growing up through middle school and stuff, it seemed like common enemy intimacy was so seductive for bridging connection. It was like, I don't really know. And you're kind of awkward going through puberty. You don't really know yourself yet and you want to make friends because

that's important, but you don't always know how. And when you don't always know how to reach for like, hey, we both like this thing. Hey, we both value this thing. If you're not totally sure how to have that conversation, it can be so quick to hotwire connection by being like, well, look at her outfit. Oh, we both, like, we're both going to hate on her. And then all of a sudden, we feel really close because we have a common enemy. But if you took that person away, we actually don't have anything really substantial to ground our friendship or our connection on. So the more I kind of get older, the more I'm hunting ways to find common shared value that draws us together because I think that's when the storms of life come and things get hard. Like, that's how you find

your people. It's how you find the things that like the people that will show up when you really need them. There's nothing I love more than a perfect lead-in to my next question. Awesome. And so you say this idea of people find common ground in amongst hating something. And we're seeing a heck of a lot of that right now. We've got a potential run in the United States that has people completely polarized in terms of some people say, do whatever it takes. Don't let this goober run. And other people say, look at the individual who's in power now. Maybe we need somebody else. We've got truckers who have come across Canada that flared a lot of emotions. We've got a freedom of expression bill that's being, like our freedom of expression is being impacted with this new

bill on whether or not people feel like they're going to start being censored online. When we see people posting about things, it's going to be impacted by algorithms. We have a lot on the agenda. And it seems like we're really inflamed to say this person's wrong or this person's right. And it just seems like the easy thing to do is find somebody else who agrees with you and then rip on that person. And I get it because there's a sense of community in that. There's a sense of connection.

As you said, it feels like we're all on the same team fighting the same battle. But it's so dangerous because it's a different form of a civil war coming where we cannot spend time with people we disagree with. And I interviewed Michelle LeBaron and she said one of the greatest accomplishments that she got to see in her work on negotiations is two people who are fiercely, one was fiercely pro-life and the other was fiercely pro-choice. Sure. And they said, the thing that I've taken out of this dialogue with this person is I need to keep talking to them. Ah, I love that. I actually, and that's one thing I often find in my day-to-day life, even when I find, when I find folks that have extreme views that don't resonate super strongly for me, I like to lean in and hear more because I'm like, is there something I'm missing? Is there something that's really important that I just didn't see for whatever reasons, you know?

But I, yeah, I think that I worry for the future at times when I see things set online and that kind of, you can almost feel it. It's almost like buzz of like a bees nest or something when it starts to swarm and things like that where people are created, their hot wiring connection based on common enemy intimacy. And for me, one of the litmus tests I always try to include, I almost think back to the way you described an indigenous community of about 200 people where everyone has their role. And like if you said something to someone's face that was really directed in like disagreement and you still had to come and have dinner with them the next day, like how would how would that fit? Like could you could you look in someone's eyes and say that? Could you, if you had to live and find a way to get along with them longer than the 20 minutes or the five minutes you're on Instagram, like, would you say that to them? Would you enjoy having that said to you? I think maybe it sounds a little overly simplistic, but treating others how you want to be treated is a principle that has taken me a long way. And I don't like it. I don't particularly appreciate it when people take my look at some of the views that. that I might have and rail into me. I don't walk away from that conversation going,

oh, that person had something really good to say. I walk away feeling defensive and hurt and now I'm even less interested in what that person has to say. It's why I've enjoyed watching folks like Jordan Peterson who can bring clear ideas with discourse. And maybe I agree with them, maybe I don't, but there's honor in the process of like engaged dialogue.

And through, I even think of, I did a communication undergraduate degree, and one of the classes I took was debate and argumentation. Like, there is a process, and it kind of was leading more towards law and things like that. Like, there is a process for disagreement and also discord in a way that we can, you know, try to uncover the facts and have a good discussion and then hopefully find the best case scenario at the end of the day. So, yeah, I just, it grieves my heart, and it makes me feel a little sad. and scared for the future when I see people get really hopped up on an emotional high and then

that common enemy intimacy swirl. And I think prior to social media, it was harder for some of those people to find each other. So you might gather a few folks and you might have something happen in your small community, but it didn't happen on such a widespread scale. And I don't think it's a bad thing. Because if you think about the pro of that, like people who get really fired up about like fighting cancer or taking care of endangered species and stuff, And when you can garner support across like the globe, you can do some really incredible things. So again, it has its pros and cons. But I do, it's a hard conversation.

I do think we need to be talking about how do we navigate these bigger movements when people have more accessibility to communicate. And from a counseling psychology perspective, leaning into the pieces I bring, my hope is that more folks in the population can have more emotion regulation skills. So this idea that like we feel our emotions, there's space for them. But emotions are like, emotions are valuable feedback. They're not facts. Emotions aren't facts. Like I can feel really disrespected by someone and then find out that they were by total accident, they didn't even see me when they cut me off.

And that feeling is a feedback to me that, oh, they got too close with their car when we were driving. Okay. Like I need to be able to like speak up a serpent. boundaries, maybe honk my horn, hey, I'm here. But that emotion that, like, you threatened me, like, does that give me cause to then chase them down and, like, flip them a bird and scream at them? Like, being able to feel the feeling, notice what feedback it's giving, and then respond in a way that's helpful and adaptive for the greater good in the community because we all have to

share space unless you live out in the bush. So one of my favorite books I often recommend to folks is permission to feel by Mark Brackett. It's an excellent resource for understanding how emotions, why they're important, how we work with them and how we regulate them in a way where we don't have to shut ourselves down. And it's called like hypo arousal when you have not enough emotion when you're like numbed out. That's not a great space to be. But the hyper arousal of like, I don't know, you think about the riots after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup. Like that's not a great use of emotion, guys. Like, this is a lot of damage and we look really, I was, it was embarrassing on a worldwide

stage to see how people responded to that. But talk about mob mentality and a common enemy intimacy, like, ugh. Yeah. So to wrap up this conversation, it seems like from a counseling perspective, people understand their political positions often more than they understand themselves. It seems like that's an easy default because you can pick a team. There's kind of clear things you say, and it gets very easy to have a pseudo identity without actually going in and doing the work and understanding who you are and how you came to have

these values. It's just, it's very quick. It's very easy. And then you can be like, well, I know what I'm going to say. If I come across a person who disagrees with me, I've got my five points. I'm going to lay them out. Totally. Do you see this in your practice that people seem to go there because it's easy and it doesn't have

anything to do with them rather than going, well, like really. the president of the USA has almost nothing to do with me. And like, yeah, you can look at things and go like, well, that's not a good thing and that's a bad thing. And this is a good thing. And I don't like that. But like really going to the grocery store, picking up your groceries, being frustrated, someone cut you off and trying. Your day has nothing to do with any of that. And so I'm just curious, is this what you see?

Well, I mean, being a therapist, kind of the type of people that are willing to go to therapy are usually the ones that are more interested in self-growth than the ones that are picking teams. and more of that, like, posture of looking externally at where all the problems are all out there. I think it's been kind of interesting in the same way I was chatting with these different horse trainers over the weekend and just asking them, like, when were like these pivotal moments of when your knowledge deepened or you started to see things differently? And I think you're kind of talking to the same thing, like, when do people maybe stop looking at all the external places and all these things and versus like, where's the proof and proof of the pudding in my own life? And I think that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Like when folks try these different things, all the problems out there, it's this, I'm going to get on this train and that train. And you go through it enough times and there still isn't that sense of like peace or settling in here. At some point, you got to go, A, love to ask folks the question like when this person made me mad and this person ticked me off and this person blah, blah, blah, blah.

And the interesting thing is, as a therapist, I'm trained to not just listen to content, but to also observe the process. It's not just what you're saying about this person, but how are you communicating in the here and now? Do you have a tendency where you engage and then you drop people and disappear? Do you talk really quickly and never give anyone space to come back? And just this idea of like, when the problem is always out there, Um, that's where I feel like there's a potential opportunity to ask folks like,

how's that working for you? What do you, what do you long for? Is this, is this feeling? Is this, is this feeling like it's really doing well in here? And if they feel safe enough and, and a lot of, I've just found often that the answer is no or, or they're just like, yeah, but I don't know any different. I'm like, awesome. Here we go.

Now we're starting to crack a door of maybe, maybe, uh, if we turned inward, if we, turned inside and looked at some of the stuff going on in there, we could change some of that and then it would start to flow in every comment, every, every conversation, every interaction you're having because I just love to ask like, what's the common denominator? Sounds like you're the one that's popping up in all these situations. Do you notice patterns? Do you notice these pieces? And is there anything there? And I love asking people, if you could be someone else or is there any, if there's anyone else you admire in your life, like, what's going on for them because that might like give you a clue. It's like, oh, I really like being around this

person. Cool. What do they have going on? How is it similar or different than you? Because a lot of times you don't know if you've never seen it modeled or like seen an example of it. How could you know that's an option? Especially for, I think of some of the kiddos that I work with that have grown up in foster care or hard things. Like just even softening into love is so hard because it's just been so foreign to them. So being able to, I think that's where, you know, being the change you wish to see in the world is something I also kind of take seriously. And I, you know, I want to be that sense of love and peace and kindness that I want to see more of and, and maybe give people an idea of maybe it could look a little different. So I love that. I really love the part about

looking for role models because that's what I try and do as an interviewer is like figure out the interviewers I admire and study them and study the game and figure out what I love that they do and figure out how I can model that and develop it for myself because there's a period of like where you're just almost copying them and then there's periods of where you're turning it into your own thing and you're getting proud of it. Can you give one book and maybe one YouTube video that you really recommend people go check out and why?

Yeah. Am I allowed to still say the permission to feel book? I mentioned it already. I would say permission to feel by Mark Brackett. Just as much as I remember when I started grad school and they talked about this theory, this theory called emotion focused therapy and I was like no thanks not for me I come from like a bit more of a German farming background working hard we don't really talk about our we're getting

better at it all the time but there just wasn't maybe a lot of space to talk about feelings um but the reality I find it fascinating where people because I do therapy as well as rider mindset coaching so I work with horseback riders on their mindset and what they bring in I find it fascinating like how willing people are to talk about their thoughts and the cognitive level but dropping into that emotional level, there's a resistance there. And I get that because I had it as well. And you know, but I wanted better relationships. And unfortunately, it was like that was the path to get there, even though I really didn't want to go there. But it's been so rewarding and so fruitful. So permission to feel by Mark Brackett is one of my favorite books because it just creates a bit

of more of a roadback. I think for me, the resistance to dropping into my emotional level came from a lot of places, just not really having a lot of skills around what to do with it, right? Like, I didn't want to lose control of my feelings. So I just didn't want to go there. But when you start to know there are skills, actually like really clear and straightforward skills around how you can notice them, shape them, and then channel them into being powerful and then and going after what you want. A lot of times, like emotions are actually some of our most powerful motivators. Like you think about a mom that lifts a car off a baby because of love. Like there's no mindset that's like, I'm going to, you know, it's emotions can be such powerful pieces.

So permission to feel by Mark Brackett as a book I recommend all the time, both to non-horse horse people and horse people. And then my favorite YouTube video, shocker, it's going to be my third Brené Brown re-reference today. But the price of invulnerability is my favorite YouTube video of all time at this point. The power of vulnerability is Brunay Brown's, like, most viral YouTube video. It's the one that kind of garnered most of her popularity and awareness. But the price of invulnerability is my favorite because it just talks to, I think a lot,

it talks to numbing in society, you know, we're numbing and how do we get back to each other as opposed to numbing out. And so that one is one that I always send in to folks. It's been a really good one. This is such a pleasure to sit down with you again. Can you tell people how they can connect with you on Instagram? Yeah, I'm on Instagram and Facebook and I've got a website, Kylie Bartell.com. And, yeah, I have a small private practice that's actually full at the moment and has a wait list,

but I'm hoping to be doing some more seminars and clinics where we can get some groups together. And some of it will be for horse people wanting to do more of their own personal growth work so that they can bring out the best in their horses. And we've also chatted, actually, my husband is a marriage and family therapist as well. So we have lots of fun discussions around how do we create spaces if people are interested in doing that inner work and having better relationship. Maybe you're not a horse person at all, but you might want to show up and do like a couple's retreat, come and do some exercises with the horses to improve your communication skills. And then by default also improve your partnership or something like that. So that's where we're going to continually develop stuff and put stuff on the website and share it. But Instagram and Facebook and the website are the main places to get connected.

Such a pleasure. I think this was so valuable. I always enjoy sitting down with you. There's so much information to take out of these for people. go check out episode 80, go back to that, because we dive into so many more things. I think some of them just stand out to me, like the difference between horses and dogs in terms of their benefits. We talk about financial management and how to cope with that. So again, just such a pleasure to sit down with you.

And thank you for having me. Every time we talk, the time just flies by so quickly because of how engaged and how easy you make it. So thank you for inviting me and having me back. I was excited for this all week. I'm so glad. Thanks. You know,