Nuanced. - 144. Dr. Sara Kuburic: Therapist on Trauma, Self-Care & Mindfulness

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

Sara Kuburic shares her journey of self-discovery, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, personal responsibility, and the impact of key questions on personal growth, while host Aaron Pete moves the conversation towards understanding the essence of living a fulfilling life.Dr. Sara Kuburic, also known as the @millennial.therapist on Instagram, is an existential psychotherapist, consultant, and author of the book IT'S ON ME.  A former columnist for USA Today, she is driven by a passion to help individuals embrace change and lead lives that are authentic, free, and meaningful. Drawing on her own experiences of living through wars and navigating complex relationships, Sara is deeply invested in exploring and understanding the intricacies of human existence.Send 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. Self-love, self-acceptance, self-talk. These are words we hear all the time, but it's way harder to implement than people realize. Today, I'm speaking with the author of It's On Me. She's known on Instagram as the millennial therapist. My guest today is Sarah Kubrick. Sarah, I cannot tell you how long I've been looking forward to doing this interview.

Would you please introduce yourself for listeners who might not be acquainted with your work? Thank you so much for having me. I am Dr. Sarah Kubrick. I'm often known as the millennial therapist because of my handle and Instagram. And I'm an existential psychotherapist that specializes in identity, moral trauma, and relationships. You have an incredible book that I highly recommend people check out. It's called It's On Me. And I'm wondering if we could perhaps start from the beginning.

because I found that to be one of the most important parts of the book, because the first step to solving a problem is admitting that there is one. And that can be the hurdle that I felt like you broke down really well. For listeners, would you mind taking us back to your personal life and the challenges you were starting to overcome in your own life and the steps you were able to take from that? Yeah, of course. And it was really fun writing the book because I'm a pretty private person.

People don't know very much about me. And it was the first time that I incorporated an autobiographical piece. And I think because I wanted people to know it's something I have experienced and something I have been through and hopefully my story will help them. So the book opens up with me being roughly, I don't know, in my early 20s in a bar in L.A., chatting to a friend. And at this time, I was in grad school. I was married.

And everything about my life seemed very, idyllic, very society-approved. I got lots of paths on the back. And I was chatting to my friend, who is from college and we were catching up. So I was telling him about my life. And something that's really cool is instead of saying, wow, that's amazing, you must be so happy, which I think is an imposition. You're telling the other person they should feel happy. He just simply asked, like, wow, that's a lot going on. Are you happy? And my whole story begins with that one question because the answer was so obviously no, but it was not an answer that I saw until that very moment. And so during this time of my life, I was quite emotionally unavailable. I didn't

express my emotion very readily. And here I am in L.A. crying, bawling my eyes out at a part where everyone is clearly very uncomfortable because I don't know what's happening. And my friend is clearly very uncomfortable. And I just couldn't contain it. I think it's the first time I allowed myself to truly ask that question and answer that question. And that I went into the bathroom

because I was like, I need to really collect myself. I need to pull it together. And I remember like splashing my face and looking in a mirror and then being like, who is this girl? Like I understand it's me. I understand, like, she's mirroring all the things I'm doing. And he wasn't, like, dissociation, but it was kind of like, she's a complete stranger to me.

I have no feelings for you except disdain. I very much, I think it was the first time I realized that I hated myself a little bit. And that sounds really intense, but it was. And I think the reason I hated myself, and we'll talk about this more, is because I realized that a big part of why. why I was so miserable was on me. And I think it was in that moment where it was like, oh, I am not happy. Oh, and you're to blame.

And so it was this really, really intense moment. Afterwards, just like everyone else, I went to my hotel room. I ordered room service. I watched friends. And I was like, pew, that was like really intense. I'm glad it's over. I was completely like, I was like, wow, how embarrassing.

What a journey. It's just like, wow, I really had a breakthrough and just pretending my life was going to go back to normal. And he didn't. So there were a couple events that happened afterwards and we can, you know, talk about them if that's something you're interested in. But this was one big event that kind of broke me in terms of my denial, my suppression of my childhood trauma, of the decisions I was waking in the moment that were contributing to me being miserable. All of these things became very clear to me very suddenly. and then my life drastically changed. Yes, I definitely like to dive more into those things,

but there's one piece that I'd like to hone in on, and it's the power of a high-quality question that doesn't have like an expectation with it. And as an interviewer, it just interests me because I was thinking about what I love in an interview, and it isn't necessarily just the answer. It's when I get to see the person I'm asking, learn something about themselves by being given the opportunity

to be asked a certain question that nobody's ever posed before. So what did it mean to have that question asked and what role can that play in people growing? I love that. You're like a therapist. That's what we love too is when you ask a question. And I love the way you articulated that. It's about not having an expectation when it comes to the other person's answer. This is so powerful.

And most people, we do have an expectation. And the person knows we have an expectation. So when you ask someone like, hey, how's your day? We expect them to say it's fine, it's good, it's whatever. And they expect us to expect them to say that. And then in the end, there's no genuine connection or processing or insight for either individual. So what was your question? Because I got really carried away and excited about what you said.

And then I forgot your question. It seems like this question was the genesis for so much growth. And I'm just wondering what role does that play in helping people take these meaningful steps in their lives? Because it's not always just an internal click. I get it. I read a book. I understand it. sometimes it's an external force of a good question that makes somebody go, whoa, like,

you're putting this in this new perspective, and now I'm able to take these next steps. Yeah. It's a lot about facing the truth. I think we can't create change without self-awareness, and self-awareness comes with a lot of truth. And I think the power of that, of having it be external sometimes, is that we can't avoid the answer. sometimes we can ask questions to ourselves in a way that we'll feel comfortable answering. So there's a bit of manipulation of the truth.

But when someone flat out point blank asks you a certain question and you have to answer and you're aware that you're either going to lie to them and yourself or you're just going to be honest and you hear that answer organically come out of you. I think that's what I was shocked by. I didn't want to admit I was unhappy at that moment. like I wasn't like oh wow okay I'll be honest with everyone like I literally heard myself like I just I don't even think I answered I think I just started crying and I think that was the really cool thing about my journey with my body like I probably if it was up to just my cognition would have lied

not to him but to myself I would have been like yeah totally like so many good things hashtag grateful like that girl from the bombshell like you know shelter she she would have killed to have this life. And I think that was for me, like, I came from a really interesting and intense background, but it's like, I should be grateful for these things. And society tells me I should be grateful for these things. And part of me was grateful for them. So I think if it was just a cognitive response, I would have been like, yeah, you know, yeah, absolutely so many wonderful things. But I felt really betrayed by my body in that moment because my body answered the question in the most honest way that I cognitively couldn't have. And it's,

kind of ripped that veil and it was like, you're crying. So do with that as you will. But the fact that the answer to that question is you uncontrollably crying is a pretty powerful thing. So I think we need to be careful. We need to be really aware of how we're responding to things. And sometimes that's more our body than the words coming out of our mouth. But I think our actions will often point to the truth. Which is helpful when you're killing. Yeah. It does speak to the fact that we. do have this disconnect between the mind and body and in those moments you realize that what you're saying isn't always accurate.

And I like when people talk about like, you don't always know when you're lying to yourself. Like that's actually one of the hardest things to be able to define is where you're lying actually to yourself and not to anybody else and not maliciously, but unintentionally accepting things as status quo that you wouldn't want to if you were able to take that step back. Oh, yeah. And, you know, a lot of people will get upset and rightly so about individuals lying to them. And I often come from a place of compassion of like, chances are they're lying to themselves. Like, unless this is a really, you know, toxic, manipulative relationship, people lie to others mostly because they're lying to themselves and they don't, they don't know how else to express. If they were to be honest with you, then they would have to be honest with themselves and they're not ready to do that. And so it's not really about us a lot of the times. And I think that's not lying to myself was one of the biggest parts in my journey. Taking responsibility for my life and then being brutally, brutally honest with myself was really life-changing.

It does seem at times that we feel kind of forced to be grateful for everything. And when you compare your life to other people, we kind of go, oh, well, I have it way better than these people. So who am I to look at those circumstances? But you do have an interesting upbringing in that it's you. unique from so many others' experiences, and I'm just wondering if you'd mind sharing some of those early experiences you had? Yeah, of course. So I was born in Bosnia right before the Bosnian War, and then we moved to Serbia, and there was the NATO bombings. And after the bombings, about a year

or so after, we immigrated to Canada. So my early childhood experiences were quite intense, saturated. There was a lot of, I mean, I don't know, trauma from the wars, but also immigration is not super easy. I don't know how it hits for everyone else, but being an immigrant child and not understanding the culture or the language and feeling like you don't belong and you don't understand was also really difficult. And so I had all these super formative experiences that I didn't realize were unusual and I didn't realize how they impacted me. Part of the reason is because everyone around me normalized it. So we were hanging out with us from a community. My family went through the same thing. And so it was very common to be like,

hey, remember in that bomb shelter when that thing happened? And we thought, like, that's how we would talk about it. As if it was like, hey, remember when we went to Disneyland or when we went to like Starbucks and like this thing? So there was nothing to signal to me that like, hey, this maybe had consequences and, hey, this maybe wasn't a normal or a commonly shared experience. And so it took me a really long time to realize what impact it truly had on me. And I think part of my resistance to acknowledging that was I already felt like so much damage was done. And so many lives were lost and so much sadness and suffering occurred that I felt like if I let it impact me, I let them win somehow. Like they've taken away so much.

this is like my 10 year old 15 year old brains like they've taken away so much for me already that if if I acknowledge how much they really changed me that means that they took away even more and so I had to like reconcile that of like yeah I did impact me but it doesn't mean that they they get to take more and what you do with that impact is up to you and so that was kind of my journey of figuring out like my therapist had to be like you know that sounds like trauma literally and I was like in my train I'm like oh is it, which is, you know, ironic because I was studying to be a therapist, but we need those moments. We need someone else to sometimes act as a mirror. I'm also wondering about the

process of becoming conscious. I don't believe that just as a child, you're born, like, really conscious in the sense that you fully understand everything and that you're able to take it in and relay it and process everything at once. I remember going to movies and loving the movie and not talking about it afterwards and not thinking about it afterwards and not really understanding what it meant that I just saw this person. And when you look back on it and I think of watching things like Spider-Man, I was emblematic and looking to Toby McGuire in that movie of like, I want to be like you. But I couldn't talk about that. There wasn't a movie club to go discuss what I had taken away, what lessons and life approaches I would go forward with. So I think

that journey of becoming conscious is a process people have to go through. Not everybody does. But I'm wondering about your journey. It sounds like it's somewhat started there. When do you feel like you started to be conscious of your impact and where you wanted your trajectory to go rather than being kind of on somebody else's directory of how to live a good life? Yeah. So I think when it comes to awareness, we can be so hard on ourselves and others and be like, why aren't you aware? The thing about it is you're not going to be conscious of things they're too threatening, which means you need a healthy degree of inner safety to be able to face the truth, to become fully conscious of what you need to. And so a lot of that journey

does take time because for you to feel safe enough to face some uncomfortable truths takes time. And for me, I think that journey really took a turn when I realized after I had my friends burrito and was like, yay, I conquered this big hurdle. I went the next morning, I went on a flight and I had my very first panic attack. But I didn't know what it was and I went into pretty much full body paralysis. And so that was a really horrifying experience because I thought I was going to die. And in that moment, I went, I haven't lived and I'm about to die. What a loss. And I think it's what snapped me out of it because I was like, there is no, even if I fail really horribly, it's not going to hurt as much as this very

moment. And so it took me to hit rock bottom before I did anything about it. And I hope that others don't have to. But for me, everything shifted when I was like, I'm incredibly unhappy. I'm existentially dead. I'm not actually living my life. And it hurts so effing bad that. I cannot handle living like this. Like I like really the options and this sounds a bit grim but it's like you either die or you do anything you can to not feel exactly what you're feeling and I was never suicidal which is actually quite shocking considering like the panic disorder that I developed at that time and just how I was feeling but I was like I will do anything to not feel this and that was my

motivation was lack of pain. It was not this beautiful like I want to be in love. enlightened. I want to be authentic. I want to live a meaningful life. No, that wasn't it at first. And that's okay. If you're listening and this is where you're at, the bare minimum was like, I just want to feel this much less pain. I'm showing, yeah, this is terrible for audio. But I want to feel less pain. Even if it's like insignificant to the naked eye, I just want to feel less pain. And that was my motivation. And then it became about growth. And then it became about healing. and then it became about meaning and purpose and fulfillment.

But at the very start, it was just about not being in so much pain. Would you mind elaborating on the brilliant quote you have, changing my life no longer felt like a suggestion. It felt like a necessity. Yeah. So this moment just articulated better because I had time to write it. I think a lot of the times were like, yeah, you know, I could have better. relationships or yeah I could you know take care of my health more or yeah you know it's it's all

suggestions it's like great I could I could do it but when you realize that you have to do it otherwise for me I thought it was dying in that moment with my first panic attack I think that's a different type of motivation it's like um no one is going to choose to move out of or jump out of a moving car but when you realize it's the only the only thing that will keep you potentially alive, you're going to jump out of a movie car. So that's what that felt like. It was no longer like, hey, do you want to? Like, it's not going to feel good, but do you want to do it? It's probably going to be good for you. It was like, you're going off a clip. You're going to jump because that's the only thing that's going to keep you alive. And that's how I felt. This really leads in nicely to the

armchair metaphor that you wrote about. Would you mind articulating that for people who haven't heard of it? Yeah. So the armchair metaphor that I have is, imagine. that you're in a room and you know the examples I give are your coffee is cold and you have stale crackers and your books are perfectly new because you didn't bother to read them and and you're just like sitting there and you have a nice lamp next to you but it's not really illuminating a lot because you don't need it because the room is on fire and you're just chilling there and although well, you're about to die, you are answering emails, you are reposting inspirational Instagram posts. I think the irony about why I wrote that particular thing was sometimes you are doing the right things.

Like, for example, maybe you are reading self-help books, but you need more than that in that moment. So, you know, you're doing all these things and you hear this internal scream that's saying you're going to die. You need to get up and leave. You need to do something. You need to extinguish a fire, and you don't. You just sit there. And you've also normalized the fact that it's really cozy and hot and there's flames all around you. And you don't understand how dire the situation truly is.

And I think a lot of us function this way in terms of not realizing what a big existential threat it is not to be yourself. Not realizing that we don't actually live our lives. And I stopped the metaphor before. the person died because I thought that would be too morbid. But I want to say there's such severe consequences. And just because we've normalized something, just because we're ignoring something, just because you're suppressing something, it doesn't mean that there are no consequences. And so this metaphor was just kind of like an interesting way using some imagery to show that we can be functioning and autopiloting through our lives and sleepwalking through our lives.

And everything seems totally fine. And yet we're in some real danger. I look at other people and the reason that I loved your book so much as I see people doing this in their life, I look at how much they make approximately and how they're spending and how they're approaching their life and they're on a trajectory to bankruptcy. They're on a trajectory off a cliff. Oh, interesting. And I'm seeing it and I'm going like, okay, you make like 20 bucks an hour and you have a $30,000 car and you have three cats and you live in this, the places you're moving to are getting small. smaller and smaller, like you are on a trajectory to a trailer park or to living on somebody's couch, but you're not changing your direction. And if you come in and just look at someone and say that to them, like that wouldn't be well received, but it's so hard to watch people be in the room, be in the space where the room is on fire and you need to do something.

But it's not your place to force other people to. And one of the points I loved that you made in that metaphor was that they start asking questions like, why is the room on fire? Who lit it on fire? Who's responsible for the fire rather than just getting up and getting out of the situation they're in? Yeah, that's the part that's the most frustrating sometimes. Even with the mental health movement now, it's like, let's really make sure that we can pin the blame on someone. That seems to be a lot of what's happening and the narratives that are kind of developing around it. It's like, well, it wasn't really your fault. was your parents' fault. It was your appraising's fault. And I do not dismiss that. And I understand

what childhood stuff does to you. Very much honor and there's space for that. But I think when the conversation ends there, it takes away agency. It's going, well, you're this way. You're in this burning room because you lived through these things. It doesn't say, but you have the freedom and the responsibility to get up and leave. And it's not going to be easy. Like if the flames are high, whatever contributed to that, like it's going to be incredibly,

incredibly difficult. But I just think that he takes away a lot of that empowerment. And so for me, yes, of course you should try to figure out, you know, why is it happening, who's doing it. But sometimes we don't have the courtesy of time.

You know, and sometimes you just need, to act and then you can reflect further. But for me, I had to start doing very practical things to manage my panic attacks. And then with time, I realized why they were happening. I didn't not do anything for my panic attacks until I figured out why they were happening. So I think sometimes you just need to be more proactive and make sure that our narratives, as much as they're insightful, don't disempower people from being like, and now, unfortunately, you are responsible. Your parents can't save you. No one can save you. And that's, I think, the cool thing also about the matter for is

like, no one came in and picked you up and ran out. It wasn't your therapist. And I was like, okay, let's go. You had to do it yourself. And unfortunately, it does at some point, you're going to have to realize that no matter what happened to you, you're the only one that can do something about it now. And I have an example, I think, in there of Chad. I don't know if you if you read that part. So Chad is someone who, you know, in high school, his parents got divorced or he got cheated on by his first love in college and now he's a 30-something year old male and he is mistreating absolutely every partner that he has. And so at what point do Chad's actions become his responsibility? Of course we can validate the trauma. Of course we can have an explanation

in the past, but does it justify it? And everyone's like, of course not. It's like, well, that applies to a lot of, a lot of other things. And then the other feedback I get is like, yeah, Chad really needs to get his crap together so that he can start treating all his partners better and his partners can start having a better time, a better relationship. And my response is always, let's call her Casey. It is on Casey for the fact that she's dating Chad. This is, this has nothing to do with Casey. Casey has decided to date someone who mistreats her. This is not on Casey. The reason I want Chad to feel better is because Chad most likely wants connection, wants intimacy, wants love. He deserves to have a fulfilling existence. And the only

way he can do that is to take responsibility. My rant is over. That is very well said. I'd like to take this information because I, I'm on council for my First Nation community. And so, much of what you just said applies to our community. I find that we are in such a difficult position because on the one hand we can point to colonization, Indian residential schools, the 60 school, we can point to all of these things. But working as a native court worker, assisting indigenous people through the legal system, I see where people stopped there. And they went, well, the government did this to me. So it's not my fault. They need to come in and give me a First Nations lawyer, a First Nations judge, and I shouldn't be held accountable for this,

because I wouldn't be this way, had all of these things not happened. And the reality that we have to face with each person is what had happened and what has gone on is horrible and like unexcusable. But you're here today because of your actions. And you have to take responsibility for those actions today. And wherever direction you go, you can be a beacon of light for the young people in our community, for yourself, for your family, and start to set an example for other people to move into different directions. This is day one of the new part of your life, where you can put all of that in the past and not forget, but forgive what happened and start to take those meaningful steps. But I find so many people right now

are telling indigenous people, it's not your fault, so you don't have to do anything. And that leaves people, as you described, agentless. Yeah. I mean, it's so, I think the work that you're doing is absolutely amazing. And it's so hard when you look at something like that and the amount of like injustice that's been done and so much harm that's been done. And it's hard to look at someone in the face and be like, but it's on you. Like that feels so heartless and I understand.

And when I chose my title, I also understood the risk of that. But because I associate agency with freedom, I actually think it's a gift. It's an opportunity. And I love the way that you just described that because I understand how hard it is to look at someone in the face and be like, but now, fortunately, it's such a hard thing to receive. But I hope that people understand that that statement is a statement of hope and empowerment and freedom. And so I do think, unfortunately, we have to say it. And if we don't say it, it's letting someone stay in that room.

And sometimes we see people in that room and we're not like, hey, are you getting out? Hey, the flames are awfully close to you. Like, do you plan to do something about it? We're like, well, someone else said it. They're not moving. It's not my place, right? And I like the approach of like sometimes it's not going to be received well. And I'm not saying it's always our job to even share that message.

but if someone around you is about to burn, you know, think of it in a physical sense, you would do something about it. And I think if we took mental health and our wellness seriously, we would sometimes have those difficult conversations if it was, of course, appropriate and context appropriate. But sometimes, you know, I say those things

because I want them to survive. And I go, yeah, can you get up? Can you get out in the room, please? You're making me really uncomfortable. I'm worried. The other piece that I find that others lacked when dealing with vulnerable population specifically is the idea that past 25-year-old, 25 years old, that people could go on and live their dream, that we at some point in time stop telling people that you haven't reached your full

potential and it would be awfully nice if you did. And that's by your own definition. And we start looking at like, what did you want to be? when you were 15 years old, 20 years old, like, where would you like your life to be? I found that when I'd work with other people in the social sector, they'd be like, well, let's get you into counseling to deal with you abusing your wife or abusing your spouse. And then it'd be like, okay, well, that's a symptom. But what long term is going to address the alcohol use, the abusive tendencies, the negative attitude, the acting out over the weekend? We need to give this

person a shining light, a goal that's bigger than just a few things that are going to get checked off in the next six months. We need to have a trajectory over the rest of your life that's going to inspire you to continue on this journey when things get tough. Do you find this as well that people stop kind of imagining what their life could be if it was its maximum, if it reached its full potential? Oh, yeah. And I think it's because it feels so out of reach or sore and safe or people have told them they can't accomplish more than what they're accomplishing right now. There are so many narratives that would force someone to think that their reality is the only one in which they can exist. And I think when it comes to dealing with symptoms, that's one thing I just try to

shy away from. Like, of course, first, you know, if you're abusing your wife, that needs to stop. How do we make that stop? At the same time, we need to look at the individual and go, what is causing it? My entire dissertation was on infidelity, but perpetrators of infidelity, not the victims of infidelity. And I also find that so fascinating because infidelity was just a symptom. It was just a manifestation. And if you look at someone who has cheated, you'd be like, they're a terrible person. They just need to keep it in their pants. They just need to respect themselves and their wives or husbands more, whatever it is. And it just completely misses the human that is doing this thing. And I think sometimes we miss humanity by being so symptom oriented

and trying to target the symptoms themselves. And so I think that you're right. It's important to dream. It's important to ask the person, who do you want to become? This is who you are right now. Let's not lie. I also don't like the whole like, well, that's not really who you are. If you're behaving this way, unfortunately, that's probably who you are right now. But it does not mean that that's who you need to stay, that you can become whoever you want to be. and I think giving people that hope and that like evoking that imagination, I think is so powerful because as you said, they need a bigger thing to dream about. They're probably not motivated enough just to not harm their partner.

That to some extent is not going to be motivation enough. But if they can understand the future that they can have, that the person they can become, the career they can have, that is going to be so powerful that this is just going to feel like one of the steps that is helping them achieve something so much greater. Would you mind putting that into context for yourself? You're a person at the beginning of the book. You're struggling with yourself identity. Now you're making such a large impact.

You have a book out. You're having a global impact on individuals who are able to follow your work and start to find steps. And I love the work that you do because it can be so simple on an Instagram post or a Facebook post that somebody can absorb that and go, yeah, you know what? That's what I'm going to do today in a simple kind of format. Would you mind talking about your own trajectory, finding you? yourself. Oh, yeah. Easy question. No, a lot of it was taking responsibility. I think sometimes people

are shocked and something I write about in my book is that my early 20s were more painful than my childhood trauma. And I say that tentatively, but what I mean by that is that in my early 20s, I was the perpetrator, meaning I made conscious decisions that hurt me. When I was a child, I had no power. I was genuinely a victim as a child. I had no power over politics. I had no power over the bombings. I had no power over anything.

And then as I didn't deal with that, those things started to inform my decisions. And then I started to be intentional or make decisions that actually hurt me. And that was a really, really difficult and difficult pill to swallow, a difficult thing to come to terms with. And so I had to start taking responsibility. it is responsibility that changed my life and it's why the book it's called it's on you um and a lot of it was um respecting myself um and and fulfilling my own needs i think that was at the very basic start of it

it wasn't like oh i'm so authentic i know exactly what i want i'm aligned to have a higher purpose like at the start it was like how can i start to respect this person and how can i start to trust this person and then after those fundamentals and then how can I meet my own needs amazing we love it then it was like okay now I need to protect this person so how do I set these boundaries to do so okay now I have these basic needs met let's talk about fulfillment let's talk about alignment let's talk about envisioning who I want to become where did I go off track and so it was this and then I would cycle and then I would like then I would go there and I'd be like great vision blah, blah, blah, then I would realize that while I was trying to strive for this vision,

you know, I wasn't fulfilling my own needs, and I wasn't trusting myself, and I wasn't, and so what I want to show is like, it's cyclical, it's messy, it's like a, it's a spiral, but you can either be spiraling up or down, but it's going to sometimes be like a circle, like you're walking in a circle, but you can also be walking upward. So for me, it was a journey that took a decade, I would say, like genuinely to be in a place where I'm like, I understand who I am. I feel really rooted and grounded and I welcome the fact that life is messy and that I'm going to make a lot of mistakes and that I'm going to fail a bunch and sometimes publicly

and that's okay too because I think that's a really important thing about figuring out your sense of identity and your sense of self is trial and error. I think that's something that we don't talk about. we make Sykes seem really like neat and clean and like there is nice little progress to all of this but I think a lot of figuring out who you are and living the life you want is trying things and then being like I don't like it or doing things and then failing and I'm going okay and I'm not good at that and it's just not taking it too seriously I couldn't agree more when you were describing that it just had me thinking about compound interest that yes the stock

market goes up and down, but over 10 years, it has a very clear trajectory, and you can get lost on the ups and downs. But if you zoom out, as long as you're striving to improve and take those steps, you're going to fall down. You're going to go down a path and say, maybe I want to be a painter and realize that's not your calling, and then go down this other path. You're going to have those learning moments. The other piece that stands out to me that seems really important that can be such a barrier for people is the right in group, the right people around you that are going to nurture your growth. I'm wondering what advice you have for people in order to surround themselves with the right people who are going to support their growth and self-development

because so often we can have people go, well, whoa, whoa, that's not how you are and try and put you back into the box of who you used to be when you're trying to take these steps of redefining yourself. Oh my gosh. Such a good point. Be so painfully selective. So painfully selective. you are going to be molded and shaped by the people you surround yourself with. That is a fact and that is not something you can avoid. But the only choice you have is who those people are. So take that choice, run with it, make it, instead of just passively letting anyone mold you because as human beings, we are social and we do get impacted by those around us.

I really struggled with people not seeing me the way. I saw myself. This was really hard for me because I would experience myself a certain way and the way people reflected back to me who I was did not align. And I felt crazy. I was like, okay, I don't see myself like this at all. So who's right? And part of my journey at the very start was I dropped 80% of my friendships, 90% of my

friendships. I completely set different boundaries. I mean, I also got, I mean, I left my marriage at the time. I changed my relationship with my family to actually become closer with them. But it was a huge, huge, huge shift. And you have to meet people who are willing to actually see you. And that doesn't mean that like when people tell you things you don't want to hear, you're like, they don't see me.

You're out. It's not that at all. It's about trusting those individuals. to reflect back to you and when they reflect something that is incongruent to go, okay, maybe they misunderstood or maybe I'm not really expressing myself or being who I think I'm being. And we need those wake-up calls sometimes. And so part of my journey was really establishing friendships, really, really meaningful friendships. My friend grouped, a group became much smaller. I'm naturally an introvert anyways. And so I have, you know,

expanded lately a little bit, but I'm just so incredibly selective. And if you think that you can be a certain way and hang out with people that have completely different lives, you're lying to yourself because you are going to become who you hang out with. And it's really hard to resist that. So if you're on this journey, find other people who are on this journey, find people who will respect and honor this journey, and people who want you to succeed. Because lots of people do not want you to succeed, because that means you change, which means your relationship with them changes, or it means it shines a light on what they should be changing.

So a lot of people would rather you stay the same just because you already fit in the ecosystem that you have created. And so people get a bit petty and people don't want things for you that are even good for you. And so finding people that see your success as their success and who are open to being like, wow our dynamic is changing and if this serves you better like that's awesome um it's hard but it's possible there's a great quote and i'm not going to paraphrase it perfectly but it was from a ufc fighter who said when i'm in the gym everybody believed in me because they had the same goals that i had at the time but once i started to reach those goals i became emblematic of everything that they

didn't actually achieve and so that there can be that they're there for you when you're on your rise up, but they're not there for you once you actually make it because then you become a statement of what they're not. May I ask, how did the book actually come about? What were those early days of getting this book prepared? How did the meeting start? Yeah, I remember my agents who are amazing were like, okay, if you can write about literally anything, anything at all, what would it be? And in my MA and doctoral work, I studied moral injury and a theme that kept re-emerging was self-loss. And it was the only thing I found super interesting. And so I kept seeing it in my clients, I started to fully understand that that's what happened to me.

Because although I was like healing from it and recovering, I never really fully understood what happened. There was no term to fully summarize my experience. And so when they asked, it was kind of an automatic thing. I the writing process was really interesting because as you know to explain something to someone you need to understand it really well you can like half-ass understand it if you're like trying to just get through the world but to teach someone else you must really understand it and so it was a lot of reading and a lot of learning for me too to really like solidify and discern things and then it almost felt like a bit of therapy for me to relive everything

and to try to express my own experience in a way that would be helpful to others. And so it was intense, but he kind of came in massive like spurts. Like I would write three chapters in like two weeks. And then I would like struggle to write one chapter for like four months. And then I knew it was interesting because I got to learn about myself where I was like, the fact that it's not coming means it's not fully aligned. That was my takeaway. And it means I'm forcing this chapter.

I'm forcing this point when I don't find this point interesting or like it's kind of irrelevant and I know that they want me to write about it, but I couldn't care less. And there were certain topics that I was like, everyone's written about this. Everyone and their mother has written about boundaries. Do you know what I mean? But it's like how can I make sure that I'm portraying it in a way that still feels fun and exciting and different for me? And so it was it was really cool. I got to learn a lot about myself as a creative, as a writer, as a human being. And it was a very personal book, as I said, it's the first time I've ever spoken about my life experiences. And so, right, a couple of days before I got out, I wasn't even scared about like, will people like the content? It was more, although some may not, it was more like, wow, this is so vulnerable. I think writing a book is an extra level of vulnerability that people assume I would be accustomed to, given that I run a social media page and write all the time, but it really felt very, very vulnerable. And that was one of the biggest surprises for me. And now it's out there in the world, living its full of life. It's out there in the

world. Would you mind defining self-loss? Yeah. So I have two definitions. One is lack of, it's self-estrangement, lack of alignment or congruency with ourselves. And then my favorite definition is self-loss is our failed responsibility to be the self. Self, which essentially means you have participated and you're not yourself because of you. And I think that so many of us are an autopilot or sleepwalking through life. I think a lot of us don't understand why we're not ourselves. And this definition kind of highlights why that might be happening for us. Would you mind talking a little bit about the brilliance behind the cover and the circle? So the circle is actually a mirror, which I think is really fun. And I don't even, I don't remember

how this came about. I, but I always go like, just look at yourself and face yourself. And I think my, I think it was my publishers that were like, that's great. And then I don't want to miscredit. someone. But we ended up with a mirror and we were so excited because it's almost clear enough to see yourself. And I think when you pick up and you go, it's on me and you see the me you're talking about, it's pretty powerful. And I'm so happy that the US, or not translation, that the US edition has the mirror on it. It's very special to me. I couldn't agree more. I didn't fully understand it when I saw the audiobook because it is not in fact a mirror, but it looked kind of like an egg. But then once I got the copy, I was looking and I was like, wow, that is

such a thoughtful way of raising it to the person when you are trying to figure these things out to really put it back to the person that it is on you. So it all kind of came together in a really thoughtful way. Thank you. One of my friends is like, I thought it was a giant period, like really making a point. And I was like, okay, it does sound a little like Sarah, but like it wasn't that aggressive. No, it's not a giant period. It's just, it's a mirror. What has the impact of the book been? In your unique circumstance, I would say you have a better relationship with an audience than other people might have who are authors who don't have social media pages that reaches many people. So it seems like you might have a better opportunity to kind of see the impact of the book can have.

What has that experience been like? It's interesting to see the experience because I get just the most overwhelmingly like, like vulnerable, raw, beautiful DMs and emails about this book. But yet, it's also a book that's really like private to people and that's really intense for people. And so seeing how, um, how the audience reacts to it forward facing versus like private DMs is really fascinating. Everyone is super positive.

But they're like, best book recommend. And then in the DMs, they're like, this is all that it's done for me. And I think it's because it's so vulnerable and private that people are not like writing out their life story on the recommendation when they're like tagging me in their story. But I thought that that was an interesting discrepancy. It's the same thing when I write a really intense post. People will save it so much, but they won't like it sometimes. That's because they don't want others to know that like that really resonated with them or that's what they're struggling with. And I always find that the most hard hitting things, it's like lots of saves, lots of.

the DMs and then I'll look at it if I were just to look at the lights and like wow this really bombed like why doesn't anyone care um and then it's like completely different and this was interesting to see like the amount of DMs I've received has just been like life changing for me and it fills my heart and I have the best community ever and they're outwardly obviously supportive as well but when I get those details that's really what like melts my heart when someone sits down is like I'm going to tell you exactly how this changed my life that to me is just like, even if I got one of those DMs, I think it would have made the whole process worth it. But the fact that I'm privileged enough to get many of those is really humbling. And I love my

community. And it's been really positive. And so I hope there'll be another book one day. A few more quick questions. And I just, I can't thank you enough for your time. The next one is around the reference list at the end for other books people can get. One of the pieces that I really loved about it was they weren't all just about like self-help or books that are sort of similar. some of them were really deep books that just kind of walk you through the human experience, for lack of a better word. Can you talk about the references and the recommendations for books? Yeah, I think not, how do I say this, self-help books are not the only books that can be

helpful, and I don't always enjoy self-help books, and some of the books that have changed my life the most weren't self-help. And so I think there are lots of ways we receive information. For me, I love receiving it through narratives. And so I had some of my favorite, like philosophers or novelists that impacted my work very personally, but they weren't psychologists. And so I just wanted to give a variety because I don't know what's going to resonate with someone.

And I think it's important not to make it one dimensional, like here's self-help on the self and just read that. I think it's really nice to expand to do. different disciplines such as philosophy. And so I just wanted people to know the books that have impacted me, some of my favorite books, the books that have fed into my book, and then also something that might be helpful for them. A recommendation, if you're open to it, would be a music list of recommendations for music that is insightful. Like one of my favorite rappers of all time is NF. And he hits on a lot of these deep topics.

of figuring out who you are, like his four albums where they outline the journey he's been on and this most recent one on hope and finding himself and being comfortable in his own skin and letting the dark side of him go. These are things I think that are vulnerable to people. I don't hear a lot of people talk about their favorite music or music that inspires them, but that can just motivate you when you're at the gym or it's where you go when you're crying on a bad day. And I would be fascinated to hear some of your favorite artists that help you get through those tough days and help you keep on that track when you feel so misunderstood by the world. Oh my gosh. This is hard. I, you know, it would be fun to have a little playlist

because what happens in my brain is when I hear a song, it's always associated with a period of time in my life or with a person almost immediately. And so it'd be interesting to transition from like early 20s into like 30s to be like, hear all the songs. I love, okay, I mean, I don't know impacts, but people I love is like Bruno Major. Not sure if you've heard of him. He's a like jazz guitarist who now sings and I just saw a concert of his. I'm always inspired by people who have so much meaning behind their lyrics. And I obviously am very impacted by music.

A lot of my, well, I have a piano here, but a lot of my family, there are musicians and So that's something that's really close to my heart. I love Taylor Swift now because I feel like I grew up with her and it's interesting to like be 15 and figuring out your first love and then hear someone else say it. I think there's something really powerful about human connection. But I have a really wide, like now I'm more into just listening to a lot of classical music, a lot of cello concertos.

So I've been through everything, but I love a good throwback if I'm at the gym. or like really frustrated or I sometimes to help me actually it's interesting I have playlist I'm just thinking of this and it's a rant and you can edit it but um for each chapter I had a playlist on Spotify because I would try to like get back into that headspace so it would be like Rihanna you know in my 20s or it would be like Eminem or it would be someone I was listening to at the time and then I would listen to that song to try to be like okay Sarah a 22 Sarah at 22 and just like channel that energy. And so I listened to a lot while I was kind of writing.

And then now I'm very eclectic. So I didn't give you an answer, but that's an answer. That was a very good answer. How, where do you hope to take things into the future? Do you have any goals for 2024 or the next five years? Any big lofty goals that you can tell us about? Not that I can tell you about. But I did start something called the phenomenal.

social society. It's an existential society. And that's just like a fun passion project. It hasn't been hard launched or anything. And that's for anyone who's interested in just kind of exploring their existence from a philosophy lens. I co-created it with one of my best friends. We write weekly essays. And we just try to kind of give a bit of education about existentialism and how we implement something that seems so theoretical into our everyday lives. And so if you're kind of a philosophy nerd and you're into the, you know, absurdity and the abyss of existence, this is where I go a little dark, right? Because like, in psych, I try to keep it like, yay! And then I was like, to be honest, there's a part of me that is not that optimistic all the time. And I wanted to find a way

to be true to her and give her a voice. And so this is not that I find existentialism, depressing, but it is a lot more challenging. And when I want to sit with that kind of darkness or that void or those questions are really intense, this is kind of where I expressed myself. So I started this club and it's really fun. I mean, it's like, on self-stack, check it out if you want to. Brilliant.

Would you mind telling people how they can follow you on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook? book. Yeah, of course. So Instagram is my main platform because that's where I'm the most engaged. And that's at millennial dot therapist. My website is sarah dash kubrick.com. You can get my book anywhere books are sold. It's currently being translated, I think, to 16 languages. So it's going to be everywhere is the hope. And if you are interested in psych content that's longer form than my Instagram. I do have a newsletter, notes from my phone on Substack. And then if you're interested in the philosophy side of things, it's called the phenomenological society also on substack. I love it. I love the book so much. I really enjoyed the audiobook version. And I was so

grateful that you narrated it yourself because it just adds that personal connection. And I thought that was so valuable. I highly recommend people go check out your book, listen to the book. I think it just adds that extra personal element to it that I think is really important when you're going through such vulnerable topics. It gives you that real world understanding. Sarah, I can't thank you enough for being willing to do this. I've been looking forward to this since your book dropped. Since I was able to read it, I've been getting excited. So I really appreciate you being willing to take the time to do this. Oh my gosh. It's my pleasure. Anytime it was really fun, you ask questions I couldn't answer,

which is always, which I always look forward to like the music one, no idea. But I absolutely had a blast and thank you so much for having me. Brilliant. I have to do one more shout out, and it's to a woman named Kylie Bartel, who knew you during your time in school? And she was the one in our first interview together. She mentioned your work, and she said, I go to her Instagram page for inspiration and insights when I'm working with clients.

And I was like, who is this person? Went and searched you. And I've been a fan, and that was two years ago, I believe. Oh, my gosh. What? What? That is so sweeping. Thank you so much.

She's, wow, that's really kind. Amazing. How cool. Absolutely.