Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Lori Gottlieb: Rewriting Our Stories & Navigating the Holidays

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Anyone interested in an extra dose of therapy this week? Well, you’re in luck! Psychotherapist, podcast host, and New York Times bestselling author, Lori Gottlieb, is here right in time to help us actually enjoy the holiday season, no matter what stress might come along with it. We all tell stories about our lives, but it’s important to remember that we’re unreliable narrators who may need to do some serious editing. In this episode, Lori shares how we can rewrite our stories, offer wise compassion to ourselves and others, and make serious progress outside of therapy through her many resources. Plus, she’s offering her highly sought after “Dear Therapists” advice to the Vinos who are looking to set and hold boundaries during the holiday season. Kaitlyn and Lori end the podcast with intimate confessions and give some helpful homework to the listeners right before we sit down at the Thanksgiving table. Thank you to our sponsors! Check out these deals for the Vinos: EHARMONY - Download the eharmony app and start free today. PROGRESSIVE - Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Okay, let's talk about the original enemies to lovers story. Before all of our reality TV couples, before the rom-coms, we binge, there was Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in pride and prejudice. And Audible has just dropped a brand new original that will have you completely hooked, I am. It's not just any audiobook. This is a full cast performance. So Marisa Abella, you might know her from industry, brings Elizabeth Bennett to life.

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So whether it's your first time experience. seeing Pride and Prejudice or you've read it a million times. You're going to fall absolutely in love all over again. So go listen to Pride and Prejudice now at audible.ca slash jane Austin. This episode of Off the Vine is brought to you by E-Harmony. Download the E-Harmony app and start free today and Progressive. Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive. Welcome to Off the Vine. with Caitlin Bristow. Get ready to laugh, connect, and feel empowered with Caitlin and her guests as they sip wine, lots of wine.

And get candid. They say vulnerability creates connection. So save the highlight reel for Instagram because when we're among Vino's, there's no filter. It's time to unwind. Here's your host, Caitlin Bristow. Welcome to our. Off the Vine. I'm your host, Caitlin Bristol. Okay, I have a therapist, writer, and podcast host Lori Gottlieb on the pod today. And boy, is she dropping the knowledge left and right? She is the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including maybe you should talk to someone. And now it's coming out with a workbook based on the book that sounds incredible. I actually can't wait to get my hands on this. This is also the perfect episode to come out right before Americans. Thanksgiving and just the holidays in general, because we're talking about how to set healthy

boundaries, how to be kind to ourselves, which in return helps us be kind to others, and just to have better relationships in general. And how to say no. That's for some reason a hard one. I loved this conversation. I know you will love it too, and you know how much I love therapy. And, you know, this was just definitely a therapy session on the mic. So enjoy this episode with Lori. Hi, Lori. Hi there. Hi. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Oh, I'm good. I went to the gym before this and my face gets so red and I'm like, I'll just throw in really large glasses to cover up my grossness right now. But you know what? That's the beauty of Zoom. It's actually working.

Yes. Thank you. It's the slip back bod with the fake glasses. I cannot see the grossness at all. Good. And again, that's why you're going to sit in a sweaty room with me. But thank you for being on the podcast today. I always, always love having a therapist or, you know, someone that can talk to my listeners and me about things because I'm all about therapy. And I'm like, why not, I'm not going to go pay someone to do it. I'll just have you on. I'm just kidding. I pay a lot of therapists. Yes. Well, consider today your bonus. Yes, today's my bonus. I appreciate that. Thank you. You are obviously an extremely accomplished and respected writer and therapist now. But I wanted to quickly have you tell the story of how you became a therapist because I love when people, completely change their careers where they find something that they're passionate about because a lot of people are afraid to do that. But I want to hear your story. Yeah, I took probably the most circuitous route ever to becoming a therapist. I started off after college working in Hollywood. I was working in film development and then I moved over to NBC where I became a network executive. I got there the year that ER and friends were premiering. Oh, wow. And so it was a great year.

It was the beginning of must-see TV for NBC. And I was, one of my jobs was to go hang out in the emergency room with our doctor, who was a consultant on ER, to come up with story ideas and to do, you know, quote-unquote research. And he kept saying to me, you know, I think you like it better here than you like your day job because I never wanted to go back to the office. I was always fascinated by what was happening in the ER. And he said, you know, maybe you should apply to medical school. now I was a French major in college and so but I was also the person who was sort of like you know on the math team and you know that that nerdy person also and so at first I was like oh no I'm never I'm never going to like leave my job and go to medical school but I had to take all of the premed classes I had to take the MCAT and I ended up going up to Stanford for medical school and when I was there it was the beginning of this thing that we now know is managed to. care where all of my professors were saying, you know, you're not going to be able to spend a lot of time with your patients. And I had this idea of kind of like being the family doctor who guides

people through their lives. And one of the things that I loved about ER the show was, you know, the stories. I love the stories. And they felt so real. And then when I was in the ER, I got to see the real stories. And I thought that's what being a doctor was going to be like, was kind of being there for those real stories in people's lives as we go through these, you know, challenges in our lives. And so I left medical school to become a journalist where, because I started writing in medical school, I started writing all about my experiences. And then I just organically became a writer. And I started telling people's stories. And I loved that. And then about 10 years later, I had my son. And for anybody who's had a kid, they might relate to this. But it was like I needed adults to talk to during the day. And we would get all these deliveries and like, you know, the UPS guy would come. And I'd be like, hey, how about those diapers? And do you have kids? And he like dreaded like, you know, the lonely, you know, new mom who needed an adult to talk to. And he would like back away to his big brown truck to avoid me. And even if there was like a signature required, he would leave it anyway because he just didn't want to deal with me.

And so I'm like, wait, I need to make a change here. So I called up the dean at Stanford Medical School. And I'm like, could I come back? And I think I want to do psychiatry. And she said, look, you can come back, but do you really want to do internship and residency with, you know, baby with a toddler? And we also do a lot of medication management. That's what you do as a psychiatrist. Why don't you get a graduate degree in clinical psychology and do that kind of work that you always talked about doing?

and so that was the best advice possible. And so I did that. I went back to school. I went back to graduate school. And I became a therapist, but I didn't stop being a writer. And so I feel like as a writer, I get to tell people's stories. And as a therapist, I get to help people to change their stories, to edit their stories, to get rid of those faulty narratives that they're carrying around that hold them back. Yes. My gosh, I've been doing so much therapy and going into inner child work I've been doing a lot of. And it's true just what the stories that we tell ourselves. And I wanted to ask when it comes to these stories, we all have them, we all have them about ourselves, how can the way we tell ourselves, our own story, actually change how we feel

about our lives? Because we could tell ourselves such, you know, drastically different stories. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think it's important to understand that we're all unreliable narrators, that we're telling these stories through a specific, very subjective lens. I see this in couples therapy, of course, when people experience the same thing very differently, but also how we experience ourselves in the world. So if you grew up and you somehow formed this story of, I'm not lovable, or I can't trust anyone, or nothing will ever work out for me, we walk through the world as adults with that story, and we almost make those self-fulfilling prophecies.

So I'm unlovable. So therefore, you do things in the world. that make you unlovable, you know, you can't get close to people or you're very touchy or whatever it is. And so people have a hard time getting close to you and then you walk away with see, there's evidence. I'm unlovable. But it's not that you're unlovable. It's that you believe that about yourself and you act that out in the world. So it's my job as a therapist to help people to get rid of those faulty narratives and to have a more accurate story that they're walking around with. How do you do that, though? Because I have, with all the therapy I've done and

even when I know where my insecurities stem from and the story comes from and I try and like work on that specifically, I still, I think because of, you know, my parents divorcing, I was a later age too, but I still from that, I think from that, believe that eventually a relationship will not work out. Even if you get married, even if you think this is the one, even if it's a healthy relationship, I still have this narrative in my head that, like, well, eventually something will happen where it doesn't work out. You could have two kids. It could be 30 years from now, but like eventually it won't work out. How do you switch that? Besides therapy, I mean, I'm trying. How do you switch that story? Like, just do you, is it continuous work on, on that story every

day? Well, I like to say that insight is the booby prize of therapy, meaning you can have all the insight in the world and you can know where that story comes from and you can understand it. But if you aren't actively making changes out in the world and your relationships, the insight is useless. So somebody might say, you know, hey, I got into that fight with my partner this weekend and I understand why that happened. And I'll say, okay, great, did you do something different? Well, no. So it's like, okay, the next step is when you understand what's happening, you need to be able to have this space between the stimulus and the response. So the stimulus is, this thing is triggering me.

This thing brings up that old story in me. I need to take a breath and have a different response. And so, you know, it's kind of like what we do in therapy is we help you to see that. Our friends don't really do that for us. You know, I talk in my book, maybe you should talk to someone. I talk about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. So idiot compassion is what we do with our friends. They say like, you know, hey, you know, my partner, my sibling, my parent, my boss, whatever, did this.

And we say, yeah, you're right. They're wrong. They're terrible. You go, girl. Yeah. You know, we just like blindly support them. But we don't help them to see that maybe they play a role in what's happening. And I'm not saying blaming them.

Right. But it's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you. We do not say that to our friends because we feel like we're being unsupportive. But a therapist will offer, instead of idiot compassion, wise compassion. And we hold up a mirror to you and we help you to see something about yourself and your role in a situation or in a relationship that maybe you haven't been willing or able to see. So it's not that there aren't difficult people out there. You know, we like to say that before diagnosing someone with depression, make sure they aren't surrounded by assholes. right? So it's like, yeah, there's difficult people out there that can really, you know, impact the way that you feel. But then what is your response to those difficult people? Or if you keep getting abandoned, right? Like say people keep breaking up with you. Well, what is going on there? Are you choosing people who cannot be in relationship in the way that you need them to be? Or are maybe you doing something like you get, you have such a fear of abandonment that you control them or you try.

to get so clingy that they don't have enough space like what is going on and this again this isn't a judgment it isn't about something's wrong with you it's about let's look at the ways that you have learned to protect yourself to keep yourself safe that maybe we're effective as a child but are not effective now right now you say um sorry there's idiot compassion and what was the one that therapists offer wise compassion do you think it's okay to have that idiot compassion to your friends because you want to, you know, like support them and you do agree with them on one side? Or do you actually suggest a true friend could give them wise compassion and like tough love? Yeah. I don't think it's even tough love. I think it's compassionate. Yeah. And I think

that it's it's when somebody comes to you with something that we need how to we need to learn how to be better listeners. So you can say to your friend when they come to you like, hey, how can I help you in this conversation right now? Do you just want to vent? do you want my thoughts about this? Do you just want to hug? Do you want to help problem solve this together? And let them tell you what they want. They might be like, I just have to tell you what happened. Okay. Great. And then maybe a couple days later, they might say, hey, you know what? What do you think about that thing we talked about the other day? Like, can we talk it through? Because in the moment, they might just really just need to download the problem. Right. Yeah. I feel like, and I think I heard you

talking about this in your TED talk where a lot of times the friends will keep showing up with the same story. You're still bringing up, and even if it's different relationships, like you said, if there's a fight breaking out at the bar every time, maybe it's you. I feel like that happens in friendships a lot where they keep coming to you and it could be the same guy or a different guy or a different partner, but it's the same problems. I'm wondering how you offer that advice to your friends, but you kind of just answered it where you have to know what they want from you. Right. And then also, if they say they do want your thoughts about it, you know, you're not going to say to them, hey, you know what? Here's your problem and here's what you do every time.

A therapist knows how to kind of bring that up. But as a, as a friend, you can say something like, wow, this keeps happening. Do you notice this keeps happening? Why do you think that keeps happening? Right. Right. Yeah. And it's not blaming them. It's like getting them to think with you about like, you know, wow, it seems like you have like your co-workers seem to do this every time you take a new job or, you know, this keeps happening with the people that you're, that you're in relationship with what do you think is going on you're right yeah that's a good point and i read a quote from you about um this that really hit me as part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself kind of to let go of the limiting stories that you've told yourself about who you are so that you can

live your life um and not the stories that you've been telling about your life so how do you kind of unknow yourself because that that one i when i read it i was like oh damn that's good but i wanted to hear you explain it a little more so many people think that you're going to come to therapy and really get to know yourself. And what I like to say is you get to unknow yourself. You get to unknow all of the stories that everybody has told you about yourself, that you have come to internalize and believe about yourself that are just not true. And so I think it's really important to kind of untangle and unravel all of those different

stories and really get to know who you are independent of, you know, this idea of who you think you are because you're so limited by those stories. Those stories really hold you back. They keep you stuck. They keep you believing all kinds of things about what you can and can't do, what you can and can't achieve, what you can and can't have in your life. Yeah, because if you even think about it, we hold on to these stories of when we were, you know, children even, but we can all see how much we can evolve as human beings in three years if we're, you know, taking the right steps. So I wonder what it is. Is it because of where our brains were at when we were children that we hang on to those limited beliefs? Why as adults are we able to let go of things easier or rewrite our

stories, but we still hang on to those childhood stories? Yeah. Well, as children, they were very adaptive. They were our responses to being in a certain situation. And we were dependent on adults for our very survival, right? And so then we grow up and we become adults and we don't realize that we're free. Yeah. We just, you know, we, we keep ourselves imprisoned in our own mind. In fact, my own therapist. So in, maybe you should talk to someone in my book, I follow the lives of four very different patients that I'm helping as a therapist, but I'm the fifth patient in the book. And I go to my own therapist. And I write about this where he says to me at one point, he says, you know, you remind me of this cartoon. And it's of a prisoner shaking the bars,

desperately trying to get out. But on the right and the left, it's open. No bars. Wow. And that's so many of us. Why do we not walk around the bars? Why can we not see that, first of all, we're free, that it's open on both sides, that we're no longer in prison. We might have been in prison when we were younger, but we're not now. And then why don't we see that? And then even when we see it, why don't we walk around the bars? And that's because with freedom comes responsibility. If we walk around those bars, we can't blame other people anymore for why things are not working out or we're unhappy. It's to us and we have to take responsibility and that can be frightening. I think we can all agree that there's nothing like finding someone you can be fully yourself around someone who appreciates, it celebrates all the passions, quirks, vulnerabilities that make you who you truly are. Someone who really gets you. Well, e-harmonie has helped millions of people find this type of authentic connection

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531, 2,600, to speak to an advisor, free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. I went on a TV show, and I come off and I have this following on Instagram. And I was like, this is a big responsibility. because so many eyes are watching you, younger girls are watching you, and I know what I needed as, you know, a teenager that was going through life. I needed someone to look up to and things like social media, but, you know, curated to my own needs and wants, but all I got was cosmopolitan magazines telling me my body should look a certain way. And this is how you get a guy and this is what you need to eat. And now we're able to, you know, have so many resources out there like your podcast, called Dear Therapist and your book that you had in this and this new journal coming out that will start talking about. But I did want to talk to you about your podcast called Dear Therapist and how it originally started out as a column for the Atlantic, right? And that it just evolved

from there. Yeah. Well, it's really funny. So I've had this column in the Atlantic called Dear Therapist, and I call it sort of a non-advice, advice column. And what I mean by that is I do give advice, but I really help people to think about their problem the way that if they were sitting in my office, I would talk to them about it. And so it's not just like, hey, don't talk to your mother-in-law. It's kind of like, let's really look at this situation so that you can make a really good choice about what you want to do next and that you've reflected on it. And, you know, on Instagram, I think a lot, people say like, oh, just cut this toxic

person out of your life. And I think that life is more nuanced than that. So my column is very nuanced and I hope that it's very helpful. But the thing is you just get a letter and you don't get to talk through the problem with the letter writer. And so a lot of people were saying, oh, I wish you would do a podcast? And then I thought, wouldn't it be great to do the podcast with another therapist? Because you get sort of like two different ways of looking at something. And also it's helpful because if somebody isn't quite seeing something, the other therapist can kind of come in and you can kind of go back.

they can kind of say something and then you can kind of hold them and contain them. And so I was at a conference and I was speaking with another's fellow TED speaker, Guy Wynch, and he's a psychologist in New York. And he has like 30 million views on his TED talks about breakups and emotional hygiene and things like that. And I was about to do my TED talk. And we just hit it off and it was like a shotgun wedding. I was like, hey, do you want to do this podcast with me?

I literally had known him a few hours. Yeah. And all of a sudden, we were doing a podcast together. And so it's great because we do. actual sessions. You hear live sessions with people, but it's not just the session. We wanted people to see that you can grow and change and shift after just one session because so many people have this misconception that, you know, you're going to go to therapy and you're going to be in there for years and you're never going to leave and it takes so much time. And we wanted to show,

actually, we can help you to make change in one session. So we give them homework at the end of the session. They have one week to do it. So they have a deadline. You hear it all in one episode, and they have to come back and report how it went when they did the homework that we assigned. And it's remarkable to see how much change can happen even after one session. You're right. I always think that way. I mean, it depends. I've heard, you know, there are people out there who really struggle to find a therapist that they can, like, bond with and feel good with and can trust and all these things. But when you do, it's so worth it because so much can happen in one session and don't you also do follow-ups with some of these people who call in like do you ever i know

you say you see big change from one you know session sometimes so what happens when that person calls back in after a year and the kind of like stories that they share with you compared to the ones they started with yeah so the ones that happened within a week are you know things like hey i had that conversation with my partner that i was never able to have and now we're set on this new path and now we communicate differently or we tried this or you know i spoke to my mom about this thing or i opened up this taboo secret in my family that we had never talked about and now we're all talking about it and then a year later you hear you know how that evolved over time and the relationships and how they changed and how people move through the world differently you know people will be like

i changed my job i'm in this great relationship you know all these things that happened over a year because of the homework that they did the year before. So it's really great to be able to hear that. And I bet like so many people call in with, I feel like a lot of people have similar stories, maybe not specific, but like overall same themed stories, relationship, same struggles, parenting.

So people who tune into your podcast, it's probably something for everybody in there. Absolutely. So many people, like when you read the comments that people write on, you know, in the reviews, They'll say things like, I didn't think that that topic was going to relate to me, but actually it did. So I listened to all of them because I can always find something that I can use in my own life. I mean, we even had one where we were doing something about setting boundaries with somebody's parents.

And this person said, I did that with my boss. I used that episode. Like, I don't have kids. I didn't have to. This person was saying, like, how do I set boundaries around my kids with my own parents? And this person was like, I'm not in that situation yet, but I used that same homework that you gave them with my boss and it was so effective. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You can use it into different aspects of your life. So let's get into your new journal that I know can also help a lot of my listeners and myself.

First of all, it's based off your New York Times bestselling book, maybe you should talk to someone, which my producer read by the way, and it's one of her all-time favorite books. So tell us about what the book is about and how the journal is related. Yeah. So maybe you should talk to someone started off because I was supposed to be writing a book about happiness. And the happiness book was making me miserable. And I, you know, the irony of that was not lost on me. It was actually depressing me because it was kind of like all these studies about happiness, but it was, it felt very clinical and it felt sort of like, you know, it didn't match what I was seeing in the therapy room. Because in the therapy room, you see the nuances of life. And it's not that people are

striving so much for happiness. They, they want to be happy. But I think happiness as the the goal in and of itself is kind of a recipe for disaster. I think happiness as a byproduct of living your life in a way that feels meaningful and fulfilling is what we all want. But this sort of like cultural drive for happiness, it's not lasting. So I wanted something about how do we change our lives in a meaningful lasting way? And that's what I do in therapy. And so I thought, why not just bring people into the therapy room? But I also felt like it would be disingenuous to just be like, I'm the expert. And let me show you how I work with all. of my patients because I was going through something. I was going through a breakup at the time.

And so I thought, you know what? I'm in therapy. I think it's important for people to see that as well. And I say at the beginning of the book that my greatest credential is that I'm a card carrying member of the human race, that I know what it's like to be a person in the world. And if you're a person in the world, you've struggled, big, small, whatever it might look like. But nobody gets away, God-free. And so you see both sides of that in the book. And so, so many people after they read the book were saying I related, I saw myself mirrored in every single person in the book and I highlighted, I underlined. I, you know, I've put these things like over my desk or over my mirror of the bathroom and quotes from the book, but I would love a way to kind of

put it all in one place. And so first I did a workbook, which is about how you can rewrite your story. And it's similar to the TED Talk, but it takes you step by step through how you do that. And then a lot of times people want to journal, but they want to have some guidance. They want some structure and how they journal. And I feel like journaling is so important because it helps you to clarify your thoughts. And the way that I've arranged this journal is it's like 52 therapy sessions. It's 52 weeks. It's like a year-long exploration of just writing down your thoughts with a prompt.

And then just like a therapy session, you have the whole week to kind of noodle on that thought and write different things down about it. and there's midweek check-ins and there's kindness check-ins and there's progress check-ins and there's coloring pages and there's different ways because sometimes we organize our thoughts. Maybe it's not in words, but it's in drawings, it's in pictures, it's in little exercises. And the great thing about journaling is you get to actually see your progress because you can look back and say, look at what I was thinking six months ago, look at what was going on a year ago or even two weeks ago, and look at where I am now.

So you get to watch yourself evolve over that time, even differently from how you might in the therapy room because you're not recording your own sessions. Right. Yeah. It's so true. That's something that I've found also fascinating. And it really like it's empowering to read back on your journals from where you're at, you know, even if it's weeks ago, months ago, a year ago to read back on these journals and see how much it's helped you and how far you've come. Because I think everybody, like I said, earlier, like you're looking for other resources to have. You're looking, some people can't afford therapy or, you know, are looking for a podcast. And journaling is just another way to, you know, get your thoughts and feelings out there. So I obviously believe it's incredible to go see a therapist, but it's such a cool tool that you've come up with for people who don't have access to a therapist right now. So what other resources would you recommend the podcast, the journal, the book, anything else that you think can help people?

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I'm really trying to do is democratize therapy. I'm trying to make it accessible to everyone. And so that's why I put out the book because I wanted people to see what therapy really is and what it sounds like. So many people have misconceptions about what therapy is. You know, they think like, oh, you go and you download the problem of the week and you leave and that's therapy. And it's not therapy at all. Or I'm just going to talk about my childhood ad nauseum and I'm never going to leave. And really, it's very present and future oriented. And it's very much about, yes, we'll talk about maybe how these ideas are still kind of keeping you stuck that maybe are from the past or some of these patterns that you want to break. But it's really about looking at what is going on right now and let's understand that. And then let's take action. And so most of therapy takes place, I think, between sessions. If you're using what you talked about between sessions, that's really important. And so all of the materials out there, like the book, like the workbook, which really goes deep.

the journal again, where you can do this kind of weekly thought process. And it doesn't take a lot. The thing about the journal is you spend five minutes a day. And you can do it in the morning to kind of clear your head so you can start the day with, you know, feeling like, okay, I've gotten that down and now I feel fresh for my day. Or sometimes people who have trouble sleeping, they journal for five minutes at night before they go to bed. And now when they put their head on the pillow, they feel like, okay, now I can relax. Yeah, because those thoughts will stay spirally. your brain sometimes and you can't fall asleep where it could be something as simple as writing out your thoughts for five minutes before bed that those thoughts are now on paper so you don't have

to, you know, swirl on them through the night. Right, right. And like the podcast, you know, I think it's just it's like a therapy session for people. Like you get to say, how does this relate to me? Do I do that? Do I have that tendency? Can I think about this in that way too? But what I also think is really helpful when you give people these tools is I see, and this is sort of like a big gender difference that I see often. And, you know, again, this is going to be a stereotype. But what I see is men come into therapy and they'll say something like, you know, I've never told anyone this before. And they literally have not told anyone, even if they have a supportive partner, they have a supportive family, they have friends. They've not told a soul because men can just not be vulnerable.

But if you give them these tools, then they start to feel like, oh, this is okay. So, you know, with men, it's so interesting. When they actually say the thing that they've never told anyone, it's literally something that women will discuss over lunch. Yeah. You know, like, it's like, it's like for them, we have made it so men have this real taboo around that. Women will come in and they'll say, I've never told anyone this before, except for maybe my mother, my sister, my best friend, right? So they've told maybe one, two, three people. But for them, they feel like they haven't told anyone. And I see this when I see couples, if it's a heterosexual couple, and I see all kinds of couples. But if it's a heterosexual couple, usually it's the woman who will say to her partner, you know, I feel like

we're not really connected. I feel like there's, I want to hear what's going on in your inner life and your inner world. And I really want you to open up to me. And then he does. Yeah. And let's say he gets a tear in his eye, or let's say he really starts crying. She looks at me inevitably like a deer in headlights like oh no wait a minute i don't feel safe when you don't open up to me but i don't feel safe when you're also crying like this in front of me right so what is the message that we're giving to men how can we make it safe so that people of any gender can open up and be vulnerable and share what's going on and so i think these tools are a first step to how can i practice doing that so that when I'm doing that with another person, that they know how, first of all, to make space for me

and I feel comfortable making space for myself too. Wow. That's really beautiful. This episode of Off the Vine is brought to you by the one and only progressive insurance. And let's face it, sometimes multitasking can be overwhelming, like when your favorite podcast is playing. And then the person next to you is yip yapping and your car fan is blasting, although you're just trying to find the perfect parking spot. But then again, sometimes multitasking. is easy. I'll give you an example. Quoting with Progressive Insurance is easy. They do the hard work

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and affiliates. Comparison rates not available in all states or situations. Price is vary based on how you buy. I could talk to you forever because I could talk to you forever because I love. I'm like just listening to I forget we're podcasting. I'm like, I love this. We're not going to be speaking obviously directly to my listeners, but with Thanksgiving and, you know, holidays coming up, I was hoping we could discuss some of their submitted questions and offer them some advice. I know there's sometimes a lot of tension and boundaries or not having boundaries with family around the holidays. So I just wanted to say before we get into just the individual questions, do you have any

overall advice as we head into these holidays? I know Thanksgiving when this airs will be a couple days away. So it can be a really stressful time for people. Yeah. In fact, my my column this week was was about a Thanksgiving dilemma. And I can tell you my inbox was filled with that. I bet for the podcast down for the column. I think one thing that we forget to do and we need to do all the time, but especially around the holidays, because it's so stressful, is we need to be kind to ourselves. And we need to learn how to do that. I think so many of us don't realize how self-critical we are all the time. I had a therapy client who was like, oh, no, I'm not self-critical. And I would hear it every week when she would come in. And we don't even realize, because that voice is just there all

the time criticizing ourselves. And we don't even, we don't even know it's there. It's like a radio station that's playing in the background that we think we're not paying attention to, but we are. And so I said to her, listen, I want you to go home and I want you to write down, listen for the voice and write down everything you say to yourself over the course of a week and come back and let's talk about it. And she was very skeptical about this, but she did it. And she came back and she starts, gets out her phone where she recorded everything. And she starts reading this to me.

And she started crying. And she said, I am such a bully to myself. And I had no idea. And there were things like she was writing an email and she made a typo. And the voice in her head immediately said, you're so stupid. Yeah. How many of us have done that to ourselves? We would never say that to a friend, not because of idiot compassion.

Right. But because we actually would not believe that our friend was stupid for making that typo. It's just, they're just human. They made a typo. So what? She caught her reflection in a mirror and she said to herself, you look terrible today. Of course, she didn't look terrible. Nobody would even notice, you know, how she looked. They probably think she looked really cute. So, you know, why do we do that? So whenever I give talks, I say to people, who's the person, you know, from the stage? Who's the person that you talk to most in the course of your life? Raise your hands. Is it your partner? Like the whole. whole audience, like raises their hand. Is it your sibling? Is it your best friend? Is it your parent? Right? So many hands. The person that we talk to most in the course of our lives is ourselves. Yeah. And what we say to ourselves isn't always kind or true or useful. So those are the three criteria that I want people to remember over the holidays. But anytime, all the time. Is it kind? Is it true? Is it useful? And if it doesn't meet those three criteria, change the radio station, that thought is not useful. Kind, true, useful. Talk to yourself differently. And once you start talking to yourself differently and you have more self-compassion,

the more compassion you'll have for other people too. When you talk to other people, is it kind? Is it true? Is it useful? If not, don't say it. Right. That's so true. And I think a lot of times when people, one of the questions here was advice on how to work through the guilt of setting healthy boundaries and sticking to them during the holidays, I think a lot of us associate setting boundaries with feeling like we're being mean. And so you're like, you don't want to contradict to yourself or you're like, I want to be kind to myself. I want to be kind to others, but I also want to hold space for boundaries. How do you feel like someone could accomplish that? So boundaries are actually the kindest thing you can do because what you're doing when you set a

boundary is you're saying, I care about having a better relationship with you. If I didn't care about having a relationship with you, I would just stop communicating with you. Really good point. And so a boundary is, I want to find a way to be in relationship with you. So that's why I'm setting this boundary. And if you can set the stage that way, if you can frame it that way, when you say to someone, hey, we keep having conflict over this, I really want to be able to make things better between us. So, you know, maybe the boundary is, you know, when you talk to me that way, I can't continue the conversation. So people think there's a big misconception about boundaries.

They think, A, it's not nice. It's actually very kind because you care enough to try to repair this relationship and to try to make it work. Two, they think that when I set a boundary, I will ask this other person to do something. And if they don't do it, then the boundary has failed. No, the boundary isn't about what the other person's going to do. It's about what you're going to do. you have to keep the boundary with yourself. So for example, if you say, you know, hey, mom, when you criticize my choices, my partner,

my appearance when I'm with you, I'm not having a good time. We're going to have conflict. So please don't make those comments when we're together. We'll have a better time when you don't do that. And if you make those comments, I'm going to have to get off the phone or I'm going to have to end the visit or whatever your boundary is. And then you go and your mom makes those comments. You say, mom, I'm so sorry, but remember that this is just not fun for me.

It's not enjoyable for us. So I'm going to leave. And next time, I know we're going to have a better time. Yeah. And then your mom gets all mad at you about that. That's okay. You're not being a mean person. You're trying to have a relationship where it will work for both of you.

And so if you are consistent and consistency is key, it's not about whether she does the boundary or doesn't. It's about whether you hold the boundary. You said, I will end the conversation or I will end the visit. If you are consistent with that, eventually if your mom wants a relationship with you, she's going to stop criticizing you because she knows that you're going to end the call or the visit. And she's not going to be able to have that relationship with you. The boundary is, are you going to hold the boundary with yourself?

Okay. Consistently. Because if you only do it sometimes, then people think, oh, well, sometimes it's okay that I treat this person in this way. Yeah. Or I do this thing that really upsets this person. It's not okay sometimes. it's just not okay. But you have to hold the boundary with yourself.

Yeah, that's great advice. Advice for dealing with talk about politics or controversial subjects while at the Thanksgiving table. Yeah. I don't think that's the time to try to make the other person hear your point of view or understand your point of view. You might say, you know what, we aren't going to agree on this today. Let's talk about something else.

And if you ever want to talk about it separately, I'm happy to have that conversation. Yeah. Also, how can we even get rests over the holidays? It's supposed to be a break, but you're being pulled in so many different directions. And it's supposed to be, you know, time off work. But is it possible to rest during the holidays and if so, how? Absolutely. You have to realize that people always say, oh, I'm pulled in all these different directions.

There's a word. It's no. And we can use it. And it's not no, it's no, period. It's not no, but let me explain and let me justify. Let me make sure that you still like me and feel good about me and all of this. It's just, I'm so sorry, no, I can't. Yeah, people always feel like they need to explain or justify or give reasoning and that sometimes the other person expects that.

But it's so hard for a lot of us to just say no, period. Yeah, and you could say no. I'm sorry you're disappointed, but I can't. Yeah, yeah. I think that's totally acceptable, too. People are just so scared of that because people are afraid to disappoint others, too. There's a lot of people pleasers out there. A lot of people, you know, deal with disappointment just fine.

Like, they'll understand you know the people who guilt you, even if you give them an explanation, they're not going to be satisfied with it. So don't waste your time giving them the explanation because they're still going to guilt you and they're still going to try to make you feel bad about it. So why waste your energy on that? So true. Okay, this person says, I'm spending my Thanksgiving with my family single for the first time in over a decade, and I'm nervous about how that will change the dynamic. How can I go into the week with a positive mindset?

So I think the thing is that you want to make sure that if people are saying things to you that make you feel bad, that you can very politely let them know that. Right. And it's one sentence, you know, and it's not dramatic and it's not emotional. It's just very clear, hey, you know what, I'm really dealing with the fact that this is my first Thanksgiving like this. And these kinds of comments aren't really helping me. And I want to have a good time tonight. Yeah, absolutely. Before we get into your confession, I love the idea for giving my listeners homework for, you know, how you give your patient's homework. Can you give some general homework before the holidays for my listeners on how to approach it? Yeah. I mean, I think approach it by getting really grounded instead. centered. Go back to the kindness thing. Make sure you're being kind to yourself. And think about what your goals are. Like, is my goal in going to this Thanksgiving event, meal, you know, whatever it is,

is my goal to connect with other people? Is my goal to stay regulated around somebody who triggers me? You know, is my goal to just enjoy the food? You know, what is my goal? And to really stay focused on your goal. If you go in with a set goal, you can kind of refocus when things go off track a little bit. Oh, wait a minute. This is my goal. My goal was just to really, I wanted to just enjoy time with this particular relative, even though this other one really bothers me. Right. That's actually, I'm going to take that advice. And I love Thanksgiving and family time, but I still think that's going into anything that either makes you uncomfortable or you're nervous about. I think going in with a goal is a really good idea so that you just like have this one thing in your mind. And

if you're getting off track, like you said, you go back to what your point was of doing this thing anyways. So I'm going to use that. So thank you. And I think the thing, too, is that to remember that you have control over your response to anything. So no matter how somebody else acts, you can control how you respond. So what is your goal in terms of how are you going to stay regulated? How are you going to respond? How are you not going to go down that rabbit hole of see, this always happens and this is that and everybody else has nice families and mine. dysfunctional, whatever story you're going to start telling yourself, take a breath, stay present in the moment. My goal is to see, how can I stay regulated in the face of something that generally

takes me down the rabbit hole of my history? Yes. Okay, that's great homework for the listeners. I think that's perfect. Thank you so much. And I can't let you go without you sharing a confession with me. I would say one of the most embarrassing things that happened to me was when I ran into one of my patients in the bra department of a store and the person who was helping me was like yelling out my bra size and talking about like how we were going to, you know, how it's so hard to make someone with my bra size really, you know, have the have the look that I was going for and right there was my patient. that was mortifying. But I think I think the most mortifying thing was when I was working in television and I was going to an important meeting and I went to use the restroom first and I was wearing like this cute dress and I was like all dressed for the meeting. I walked out of the restroom and I didn't realize that my dress was tucked into my underwear. Oh no. And I was literally walking

down the hall and walked into the meeting like that and nobody said anything because nobody knew how to say anything because like I sat down and then I stood up again and like I had been in the whole meeting that way and everybody had seen it and it wasn't brought to my attention until afterward because it was with somebody famous and they couldn't sort of interrupt the conversation to let me know this and I'm still I'm probably blushing as I talk about it because it still haunts me. That would haunt me. That's a good confession. That would haunt me too. Oh my gosh. And that's something when those things happen, they don't like it's one of those things where you try and fall asleep at night and you go, oh, you like remember it and just

think. Cringe. Yes, cringe. Oh my gosh. Your bra story reminded me, and I think I've told this on the podcast before, but it might have been a really long time ago. But one time this guy that I was dating, we were going to, I actually just wanted pajamas, to be honest with you. And it was in this like, like a Victoria Secret, something like that. And we look back. And this is more embarrassing for him, but he was with me. So it was also embarrassing for me. But I saw. saw him sniffing underwear, like women's underwear. And I was like, what is he doing? But when we went back there, I don't know why this was a thing, but they had scratch and sniff underwear. So if you like scratched it and sniffed it, it was like smelled nice. But from everyone else's point of view in the store, he's sitting there just smelling girls underwear. And I was like, that's the guy I'm with. Like, what is he doing? Get him out of here. I would have pretended I didn't know him. Yeah, I should have. I was just like, I'd probably embarrassed him even more. I was probably like, what are you doing? It's like, I was like young and I just remember he we were probably like gosh 22 years old at the time poor guy it probably haunts him too yeah I was going to say it probably haunts him more than

it haunts you yeah to me it's more funny now and for him it's one of those walk out of the bathroom with your skirt tucked into your underwear moments and I'm sure he loves that you tell it on the podcast for sure it's hey I don't give names he I'm not going to say his name exactly but I do want to just say thank you so much for coming on and I know this episode will help so many people that helped me and I took away something from it. So thank you and let everybody know where they can get your book and the journal and your podcast and follow you on all the things. Sure, yeah. They can get maybe you should talk to someone in the book wherever they get books. They can get the maybe you should talk to someone journal also wherever they get books.

They can get the workbook wherever they get books. They can listen to Dear Therapist's podcast wherever they listen to podcasts. They can read the Dear Therapist column in the Atlantic and they can watch my TED Talk on TED or on YouTube or online. I'm going to put that on my Instagram page as well for people to watch because I really enjoyed it. Great, great. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for the conversation.

Yeah, I appreciate your time. Thank you. And enjoy the rest of your day. You too. Take care. Okay. Bye. Bye.

I'm Caitlin Bristow. I'll see you next Tuesday. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Off the Vine. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow on your favorite. podcast platform, and we'll see you next Tuesday. All month long on Pluto TV, stream the biggest Tyler Perry movies free. Watch your favorites like Medea's witness protection and Medea's big happy family. Join Tyler Perry as he goes on a couple's retreat with Sharon Leal and Why Did I Get Married?

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