The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Licensed therapist Allison Guilbault Helps People Overcome Shame and Find Empowerment

Episode Date: January 28, 2024

Licensed therapist Allison Chabot helps people overcome shame and find empowerment anotefromyourtherapist.com Show Notes About the Guest(s): Allison Guilbault is a licensed therapist, international speaker, and mindset and transformation coach. With a specialization in anxiety, trauma, and sex and intimacy, Allison is on a mission to help people break free from shame and limiting beliefs. She is dedicated to helping high-functioning women overcome their own barriers and live their best lives. Allison's approach combines therapy, coaching, and mindfulness techniques to empower her clients to find relentless self-love and empowerment. Episode Summary: In this episode, host Chris Voss interviews licensed therapist Allison Guilbault about her work in helping people overcome shame and limiting beliefs. Allison shares her personal journey of overcoming anxiety and burnout, which led her to become a therapist. She emphasizes the importance of doing the work and taking responsibility for one's own life. Allison also discusses the power of mindfulness and somatic psychology in managing anxiety and finding empowerment. Throughout the conversation, she provides practical insights and strategies for living a more aligned and fulfilling life. Key Takeaways: Overcoming shame and limiting beliefs requires taking responsibility for one's own life and choices. Mindfulness and somatic psychology can help manage anxiety and improve overall well-being. Empowerment comes from acknowledging one's own worth and embracing self-love. Flexibility, creativity, and patience are essential qualities for personal growth and change. Doing the work and seeking therapy can lead to profound transformation and a more fulfilling life. Notable Quotes: "My response is my responsibility. I'm allowed to be angry, but I'm not allowed to punch a wall." - Allison Guilbault "The meaning of a problem is the first step towards resolving it." - Allison Guilbault "Empowerment lies within us. We have the power to change our lives and make strategic choices." - Allison Guilbault

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate you guys coming on the show and doing all that good stuff.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. As always, we have some of the most amazing people on the show. And I got to tell you, I don't know what you guys are doing out there in viral land or what's going on with the podcast. But every month, or all month long in January, since about the 3rd, we've been hitting record peaks. And it's just insane. I don't know if this is like a gym effect. We've never really seen this before after 15 years. But there's like a gym effect of people, I guess,

who did New Year's resolutions that I'm going to listen to more podcasts and get inspired. But we're up over 245% as of this morning's numbers. And we're still hitting records every month. So thanks to all the new listeners out there who are joining the show and all that good stuff we certainly appreciate you guys being there and yeah welcome welcome do you know how hard is the move a show that has millions of downloads to a 245 percent thing this is fucking crazy so we're trying to just ride the lightning and enjoy you guys and hopefully well not hopefully if you listen to the show you're

gonna get epiphanies and new ideas every show. So keep listening and doing what you're doing. But one thing we do want to ask the new listeners to do, refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to Goodreads.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, YouTube.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, and all the other places we are on the interwebs. You'll hear them. We plug every show beginning and end. So you'll get sick of it after a while. But the rest of the show is awesome.

As always, we have the CEOs, the billionaires, the Pulitzer Prize winners, the great authors, and people who've taken their life stories, their traumas, their dichotomies, their crucifixes they've been on, all the different things that they've learned in life, and they bring their stories to the show. And today we have another amazing woman on the show. Allison is on the show with us today. Let me get the pull up for her screen.

Allison Chabot is on the show with us today and she is a licensed, licensed, I can't speak this morning. She is a licensed therapist, international speaker and mindset and transformation coach. And she'll be joining us on the show and talking about some of the things that she does to help people end shame and limiting beliefs and to find relentless self-love and empowerment that's all i need evidently to get through life that and if i can learn to pronounce stuff that pronounce hate stuff that'd be great she is licensed therapist on a mission to help people break free from shame and limiting beliefs so they can find their way to relentless radical love, self-love and empowerment and connect with their personal uniqueness and realign with their authentic divinity and greatest purpose.

Welcome to the show, Allison. How are you? I'm doing all right. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. We're excited to have you as well. Give us your.com so we can find you on the interwebs, please. Yeah, my.com, www.anotefromyourtherapist.com. A note from your therapist. Is that a good note or a bad note, or is that like a get-me-out-of-school note? I think it maybe depends on the day note.

There you go. Give us a 30,000 overview what you do and how you do it in your words yeah what do i do so i became as you said i'm a licensed therapist and i specialize in anxiety trauma and sex and intimacy so i see all sorts of people from all walks of life but you know my mission has really been in the last you know several years to help people particularly women high functioning women, people who are really successful, just kind of get out of their own damn way. And, you know, I always kind of joke, like I want people to hustle, hustle with passion rather than pressure. So, you know, that's been

kind of my, my jam for a while is finding clients, talking on podcasts and really hoping that someone can learn how to, you know, just live their best damn life. There you go. We're all trying to figure out how to live our best damn life. That or some people are really good at living the worst ways of their life, but I think most of them are in prison. So there you go. I don't know why we're shaming people in prison today, but there we are. So give us a background story on you. How did you get in this business? How did you grow up? I think you have kind of an origin story that led you into the business you're in. I sure do. So, you know, I'm, I'm an eighties, eighties gal, nineties gal.

And when I was in middle school, high school, honestly, even it's college, I really struggled. And I had a bit of a breaking point in high school where I had a horrible anxiety attack, landed myself in the emergency room. And the end of that story was them just saying, good luck, Godspeed, you don't know medication, there was not a referral to a therapist. And over the course of my life, it kind of transmuted a bit. And I think instead of having something like an overt panic attack, you can't breathe, you can't concentrate. My anxiety kind of became more internal. And so I became a workaholic and, you know, really just put the metal to the pedal and really got to a point where I burnt myself out. And I don't think that's a particularly interesting or unique story but the aha moment that I had

I was in my mid-30s at this point and I had a huge corporate job a great success and I just looked at my life and thought I can't do this another fucking day and I quit everything and became a happy hour bartender went back to school and really started to focus on what the hell do I want in my life? And the one thing that I knew, I had always been marginally obsessed with like true crime, forensic psychology, that kind of that kind of thing. And in my college degree, I had worked at a hospital helping survivors of sexual assault. So I had a lot of background in trauma, in, you know, what happens when someone survives something really serious. But I really wanted to learn a lot more on what happens on the other side. So speaking of prisons, I went back to jails,

really, I went back to school, and I got an internship in Rakers Island in New York City. And I worked in solitary confinement in an all-male unit. That was one of the first places I trained to become a therapist. I got a pretty big fast pass. If you can be in solitary confinement at Rikers Island and find a way and a language to talk to people about mental health and to try to encourage them to the best of your ability to, you know, learn some skills and how to live a better life, live a more aligned life. You know, on the other side of that experience, it's a lot

easier to talk to people who, you know, are imprisoned and just have more mundane problems. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of puts things in perspective huh definitely definitely so you've gone through that and now you're now you're licensed to to help people and and on empowerment and mindset you've done some speaking as well and then you specialize in anxiety trauma sex and intimacy i imagine you know a lot of trauma we i mean we have a lot of trauma chat on the show over 16 years a lot of great authors have been on the show and you're people like yourself and it's become there's been so much of it that now i'm no psychotherapist but realizing how much childhood trauma just shapes the whole of one's life is extraordinary to me, especially if it's not reconciled through therapy.

And seeing the damage and fallout of what that does, the choices people make and the choices people make in their mates, especially if it's sexual trauma, is just extraordinary. And unfortunately or hopefully a lot of people are able to eventually reconcile that. But, you know, the fallout that you have, you know, the one, the one thing is hindsight's always 20, 20. And when you hit about 45, 50, you kind of have this weird thing where you can look back on your life. You seem to come into some sort of perceptual awareness where you can look back in your life and you can be like, there's a lot of wreckage on the way here and there's kind of a pattern to it.

Yeah. And the pattern's important. I really deeply believe in growth and as a trauma therapist, I don't believe that our trauma defines us. But if you just sit in a trauma or even, it doesn't even have to be as something as big as a trauma, just in your own problems. When you don't look at the patterns and take accountability, that's where your power lives, right? Your accountability, seeing how you're showing up to your life. What are you doing?

What patterns are you repeating? What's getting you into trouble? What doesn't work? So, you know, I do think that, you know, having worked at Rikers, I would often think to myself, you know, what kind of a human would I be if I had grown up in these circumstances? And I don't know, I'll never know that answer. With that said, you know, I don't think it's as simple as that. I do think that pretty much everyone has the power to change, but the, you know, sort of the need is a willingness, a willingness to look at your own bullshit and just really try to get out of it. Can I offer you a counterpoint theory? Because I run on theories that are constantly developing.

But you mentioned that trauma doesn't define you. Would it be more accurate to say trauma doesn't define you if you've done the work. Cause I can, I can sit with people in their lives and I can tell you after a while, I can be like, you were raised by a single mother. Your father was in the home. I can, I can break you down and I can be like, you had sexual trauma.

Uh, I can, I can listen to someone saying, and then I can tell you how the whole rest of your life worked out. You, you went mad, bad choices with men, you know? So is choices with men you know so

is that do you think that's true in my theory or i subscribe to that there's an asterisk at the end of it which is you know you have to empower yourself to move through it if everything stays the same everything stays the same yeah so you know and we can easily repeat you know you know someone who's been abused can become an abuser if you don't find ways to, you know, have interventions and intercepts that. It will define their life. I mean, I'm not only a client, but I'm also a whatever that hair meant for club, but it will define your life. And if you don't get help and you don't get therapy, and I think people really need to go see a therapist like yourself, a licensed therapist, people, not one of these jackass coaches that are running around. I mean, there's lots of good coaches, but you need a licensed therapist.

Yeah. Okay. You don't need to be investing in fucking crystals and shit. Stop it. Yes, that. Yeah. You know, coaching can be great, but a coach, you know, I do coaching work too. I have full disclosure.

I have my own coach, but they're not, they're sort of like, hey, let's look at the problem, you know, maybe a business problem, maybe a motivation problem and help you move forward. But if you have never done the work and looking backwards, that's a really difficult. Well, you're a coach doing it with a license. That's true. That's true. I. Well, you're a coach with a license. That's true. That's true. I'll give you that.

So I'm going to stand up for you. I mean, you have a thing where you can be like, I am actually trained in this professionally. And there are standards to the industry, from my understanding of licensed therapy. There's ethics and morals. And, you know, I i mean i see so many people just making shit up you know i don't know crystals and astrology and tarot reading cards and whatever sort of you know numeric crap i mean you're just like seriously you're gonna your life's already a

fucking mess and you're gonna use these this this data to fix it yeah i i use it a lot the the analogy of do the work and so i think people until they until they do the work they just they're just going to keep being a shit show they're going to keep repeating they're going to keep dealing what they do and a lot of the stuff sexual trauma my understanding is the majority probably like 99 of people who are in therapy for drugs, alcohol addiction, I think it's like 99% or 90% of people who are in rehabs have sexual trauma. And what they're doing is they're using drugs and alcohol and other different ways to try and make it go away or tune it out. And a lot of them haven't dealt with the trauma. But it's a really big thing.

It's a damage that you see going through life. And you'll see the choices they make with partners, the choices they make with family, the choices they make all through their lives will be shaped by it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that statistic, but that wouldn't surprise me in the least you know

we really have two options you know when we have endured something that is extremely difficult which is to face it head-on or to escape it all right and we are masters of finding ways to escape things right who doesn't like who wants to necessarily choose sitting in discomfort when we can find a dopamine drip and drugs alcohol you know whatever your advice is unfortunately that's the plan until the plan doesn't work anymore that can only get you so far right and it's just that's not where clarity comes from that's not where growth comes from and it's it's just basically not where happiness comes from you know before without all the buzzwords it's just you know if you comes from, you know, without all the buzzwords.

It's just, you know, if you don't deal with your BS, you're never going to feel good in your life. That's just the truth. Definitely. So you deal particularly with women, help them let go of guilt and shame, how to say goodbye to their anxiety and live a life that's led by passion. One thing I've found with people that have trauma is they've never addressed it so sometimes they're still hiding it for the guilt and the shame part maybe they don't want to address it because like you said sitting in it is painful but that's the only way you can really flush it out i remember oprah on one show it was about it was the leaving neverland show and oprah did a show after with the two boys.

And one of the guys got up who'd been molested by a local police officer. And he'd been an NFL player. And he talked about how he kept the poison of his secret. Well, he kept the secret for all of his life. And it had become like a poison in him that had festered. It was just destroying him at every level. And it was until he bled the poison out and started talking to people about his issues, he was able to resolve it. And he basically had a comment, something effective, you've got to get the poison out of you because it just kills you and eats your life. So you talk about radical and relentless self-love

and empowerment. What is the radical part about or relentless part about in getting self love? Yeah, you know, I love that question. Thank you. So there's a lot of messaging that comes out at us, right? You know, again, I get a little bit like, particularly for women, but you know, men get this too. And we have to work harder, we have to be, you know, figure our lives out, we have to be a good mom a good parent and I think there is so much messaging that tells us that we're not good enough you almost have to meet it with that like radical like almost unconditional I love myself no matter what right it doesn't matter if I screw up it doesn't matter if I make mistakes it doesn't mean if I have you know I've

made poor decisions in my life even epically poor decisions in my life, even epically poor decisions in my life. Like I'm still worthy of love. I'm still a human being. And, you know, not the rest of the world might not feel that way about you, but you have to feel that way about yourself, right? Because that's, if we, if we don't adopt that kind of philosophy, you know, we get into shame and we get into unbelievable regret we get into anxiety and i don't think that

helps us move the pendulum to change right we want to own our own our stuff right i want to look at the mistakes i have and take ownership of it and really learn but i don't have to hate myself because of it because that's self-loathing it just doesn't get you anywhere there you go yeah it's because you're just swimming in your, you know, someone, whatever your part of your trauma is, it tells you that you're not worthy or it tells you that,

you know, you're not good enough, you know, and someone put their damage on you and, and screw those people. Exactly that. Exactly. They don't know you.

They really don't know you anymore, whatever the trauma was and and it's your job to rise above it there's a certain point where you know you have to be self-accountable do you find that one of the big issues is becoming self-actualized becoming self-accountable yes uh i think for some people that have trauma just acknowledging their traumas is the hardest part and being like i was abused i was traumatized i was hurt i think some people con themselves that well it was not big of a deal but it really does have an effect and sometimes being able to it's like alcohol for aa you know

admitting you have a problem is the first step towards resolving it that's back to that poison like i'm noticing the poisons inside of me and i have to just own that it's there i can't do anything about it if i'm denying its existence right okay now that i'm like all right it's here what do i do so it's you know kind of the one-two punch it's like all right we got to acknowledge and then you actually have to in your words i love it do the work you know i always think like the analogy i use is it's not enough to commit to go to the gym right like that idea you might have to know that you need a lifestyle change, but if you don't show up, put on the gym clothes, and get on the elliptical, nothing is going to actually change. The idea is a great starting point. The commitment is a great starting point.

Awareness is a great starting point, but it's not enough. You have to continually show up. There you go. I'll do an ad here for the licensed therapy group for doing the work. Doing the work does not mean posting flowery memes on your Facebook every five minutes about how you're going to become a new person in a butterfly. Now that's not this, that's not the work. I see that all the time on Facebook, you know, and you can tell like they're going through something like a breakup or

whatever. And they're, they're posting these affirmations that are these positive pump up and jerk off affirmations. I really think. And I mean, it's great to post one every now and then, like,

Hey, here's a great saying by, I don't know, Stoicism. I do that. But when your whole feed is, I'm going to become a better person and all that good stuff. This is just, this is crazy, man. Stop it. Go see a licensed

therapist and do the damn work. Yeah. You know, I was guilty of that. I will admit, I looked back at my beginning stages of my Instagram account and I was like, well, cringe. Right. And it was very like self-care isn't selfish. You know, here's a butterfly. And now what I have found is, you know, I have a decent social media following. It's constantly improving. And I think the reason that that's true is because now I'm actually posting things

that people connect to. I talk about how to let go of shame when you're having sex with your partner, right? How do you get naked and feel good about yourself? Are you having a shit with your partner, right? How do you get naked and feel good about yourself? Are you having a shit body image day, right? What does sexual exploration look like for you? Is your anxiety actually getting in your way? And that's on you.

You have to do something about it. So I've taken a more real approach and, and I it's much more meaningful and people connect to it way better. Definitely. I mean, if you, if you do have shame, I mean, I can see how that especially impacts women and how they view themselves how they view themselves in society etc etc the you talk about so don't let your brain bully you what is what are some of the ways that we can help

avoid doing that my my brain likes to do that too it has a sort of attitude every now and then mine too so you know the adhd is so great isn't it? Yeah. You know, again, I'm going to beat this point, talk to a licensed therapist because they can help your particular brand of what's bullying you. But the general answer is, you know, I really love mindfulness. And when the way that I use mindfulness is not sort of the hippie dippy way that shows up on social media. Mindfulness to me is just knowing what's going on without judgment and learning how to slow your brain down. So, you know, especially with high functioning people, especially successful people, you know, their brain buzzes, like doesn't shut off. And a lot of the time, that's why we're

successful. If we have poor boundaries, we're going to be the first to show up to work, we're going to be the last ones to leave, we're going to answer our emails on our weekends, right? And you get a lot of reward for that so it can be difficult to discern how is my anxiety my rumination my constant brain buzz helping me and motivating me and when is it getting in my way and if you're laying in bed at night and you can't sleep and you're constantly thinking that is not a good use of your energy that is a good signal that your brain is needs a needs a that your brain needs a break. It just needs a break. You need to get out of your own way. And those are skills, right? And they're unique skills.

So mindfulness, we often think of as like meditation. That's a great application of it. I don't meditate. I'm a licensed therapist that does not meditate. That's okay for me. I find other things. You can play video games. You can cook dinner. You can go walk your damn dog. It doesn't matter. It's just training your brain to kind of get that break and notice what you're actually thinking, right? Our thoughts, the more we think something, the more easy that thought is to come up. If I think I'm amazing, that thought is going to lead me to pick good partners.

It's going to lead me to good jobs. If I start to think I'm a fucking failure, it leads me to, good partners it's going to lead me to good jobs if i start to think i'm a fucking failure it leads me to you know make poor choices and what we don't realize is once we repeat that thought it repeat it doubles it triples it quadruples and now we've thought that thought a hundred thousand times and it's just like running like the baseline of our brain actively notice it yeah it i think it's part of the reticular activating system. I'm not sure, but yeah, that part of the brain can really whip you. And especially if you're in depression or high ADHD mode, you know, ADHD is great. They call

it the CEO's disease. And you're right. A lot of people that are highly successful have ADHD to the extreme. But, you know, hopefully you can learn to either medicate it through proper medication. Don't do like I did for vodka for 20 years. But that or you can just learn to ride the wave and control the brain and shut down when you get that weird stuff. That cartel kind of helped me deal with some of that in being present. So in, in focusing and trying to be present and shutting down that mind, because you're like, Hey asshole, I can't do,

I can't fix all that shit in the past. I can't, I can't fix the stuff in the future that you're freaking out about. All I can do is what's here right now in front of me in this moment. And this is the only control period I have. So you can beat me up about i don't know i hurt someone's feelings 10 years ago or whatever you know whatever i can't deal with that there's no there's no reason to have this conversation sometimes i just tell my brain to shut up and

leave me alone and that that's like i mean honestly that's actually you're interrupting a thought right if you just stop i mean when i teach children that's what we teach we're like just say hey stop right you know as grownups, we can get more colorful language. Yeah. You know, that is all good tactics. You know, the other thing I like to advise is I love what's called somatic psychology. And all that really is, is acknowledging that there's a mind-body connection. So we have a lot of intel to ourselves.

If I'm thinking something and I like drop into my body, my shoulders forward i'm grinding my teeth i have a headache sweating that's a good indicator to me that the thought that i'm having is not being particularly helpful okay if my heart is racing if i think all right this is difficult but i can do it that probably isn't a particularly triggering thought you're gonna feel like your shoulders are gonna relax maybe you even feel motivated so the learning how to kind of listen to your own intuition like you have the answers you are the answer so is this not helpful or is it hurtful you know you know oh yeah you should kind of like tune into that radar which none of us really know how to do well because we don't get taught that kind of thing in school. Listen to your inner voice is not like a very powerful thought that we have, right? So it's like, and we just develop anxiety

and we don't even know it's anxiety. It's just making us feel like trash. Yeah. Meanwhile, the only thing they're teaching is algebra and other crap that unless you're a scientist, you'll never use. And then you have anxiety about that. So congratulations. Good job, school. They need to teach more life skills. I love teachers, and they do such a great job at changing the world. But, you know, we need to teach more life skills instead of, I don't know, you know, like how to use credit, how to balance a budget, how to balance your checking account, how to not get a whole lot of credit

maybe you should pick a good job if you're going to take out a loan for college you know the life skills teach people fucking parenting yes or you know i mean i don't think they teach stuff like they used to teach nowadays then back in my day they would teach the girls like they would have to take care of an egg and it was kind of silly to think about, but when you kind of thought about it, you're like, this kind of makes sense. I mean, you learn to have to

start learning to think outside yourself and for another sort of being or imaginary being. But I know I talked to the gals and they'd be like, trying to do the thing. And, you know, it kind of, it gave them perspective.

And, you know, you think about something that you probably wouldn't think about when you're in your teens. But I only think they do that now. I had the same thing. We had a doll, but instead of an egg, I think our school was fancy. They had a doll? They actually gave you a doll? We had a doll they actually gave it no and it tried i think i think the problem with the the trick with the egg was if you broke the fucking egg yeah then you were banned from being

a mother ever or something i don't know i don't know consequences just like you were you know you're a sign that it just was never gonna work out for you but. No, I'm sure it did. It's just an egg for Christ's sake, people. But that's what, I don't know. I'm not going to do that baby joke. So I'll just let you guys make up one in your head. That's probably worse. So what is the secret to ending shame and finding empowerment? How do we get empowered?

Is it through self-actualization or self-accountability? I would say all of the above, you know, and it really just like, can't stress this point enough. It, the empowerment lies in, in us, right? So I have this cheesy sentence that I say to myself quite often, which is my response is my responsibility, right? I'm allowed to be pissed. My partner's going to screw up.

I'm allowed to have bad days. I'm allowed to make mistakes, but how gonna screw up i'm allowed to have bad days i'm allowed to make mistakes but how i show up to that is on me right so like i used to do couples counseling i don't anymore it's super hard and i hate it but when i did it you know someone would be like okay but i wouldn't have behaved that way if you didn't xyz and i get that thought but it leaves you stuck, right? So it's okay. I'm allowed to be angry, but I was not allowed to whatever you did. I'm not allowed to punch a wall. So that's where the empowerment lives is really taking your own life

and taking responsibility for it, for your choices. I even hear people that are like, I'm stuck in a marriage. It's like, no one really gets stuck in things. That doesn't mean that choices aren't extremely difficult or there aren't going to be challenges or considerations, right? It's pretty easy to just get to leave your husband or your wife, but you do have the power to change your life.

And I always pitch my big three, which is flexibility, creativity, and patience. And if you can kind of get adaptable, how could else can my work kind of support? Do I need, where can I lean in for that support? What do I need? Life changes, right? It just does like, Oh shit. Okay. I'm, I'm in control, right? I didn't happen upon this life by chance. I made strategic choices along the way that put me here and i could theoretically make strategic choices to get me out right that's me that's liberation that's freedom that's empowerment right definitely you know it's interesting because i've heard that

line before you're stuck in a marriage or i'm stuck in a marriage and when you listen to it the victimhood nature of it i'm stuck in a marriage this is happening to me i didn't cause any of this to happen i didn't contribute in any way i'm just trapped in a marriage and really you should separate it by probably commas or something i'm not an english professor but you're stuck in a marriage it's's your fault. Or put the common behind stuck. You're stuck. You're the one who's stuck in a marriage. And, you know, it's interesting to me.

I see this a lot. A good example is the lack of self-accountability. Yesterday, I posted a joke meme in one of our dating groups where a guy's in a car with a woman and he goes, Hey, check out that dog there on the corner. And the guy goes, I don't like dogs. And then it shows in the next slate. It's a comedy bit. The next slate, the dog's in the seat where the woman was and the woman's on the side of the road being left behind.

And, you know, it's a joke thing. Those of us who have dogs, you know, we were just, if you meet somebody who's like, I don't like dogs, you're like, that's cool. Have a nice life. And some woman wrote this thing that was just, I was just like, just right out of left field.

She wrote, you know, I never date anyone with dogs. My ex had dogs and he loved the dogs better than his children. So I would never date you or anybody else. And it was like, wow, thanks Karen. was like wow thanks Karen there thanks for giving your bit like thanks for shoving your poor choices on everybody you know I said I looked at it I'm like so you know most dogger owner people know I are good

people I'm not saying people don't own dogs are not good people, but we're better than you. And we have a soul. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Cat people are just fine. But it was funny to me because I'm like, you don't have any self-accountability in your language. You chose that person. Yes.

And you, so you are a bad picker. Yeah. You're part of the problem. You know, I don't know. I don't know what it is. When I grew up, married people always say, hey, you know, 50-50. It takes 50-50 to make a relationship where it takes two people to tango. So, you know, it's a 50-50 thing, you know know and i would hear people get divorced and say that but now it's just like you know you would think that people were jesus christ in their relationships

and the other person was i don't know satan yeah and you're and you're like did you do anything wrong in that relationship no no it was all them you know you meet people you meet people now that are like all my last 15 exes were narcissists. And you're like, wow. Considering that actual narcissists represent maybe 3% to 5% of the population, did you just go down to the narcissist shop every time you need a new relationship? How did you hit all the buttons at once and score the lottery there, man? Maybe you should play the lottery but and it all

comes down to that language that's self-defeating and and lack of self-accountability i think yeah yeah yeah play that tape forward with woman with the dog it's okay if she's taking no ownership in the choices that she's making what's the next relationship gonna look like all right maybe but like insert different problem under a different brand yeah so i remember i had one friend go ahead with your thought no that's it go ahead i remember i had one friend he married a woman and he was literally her fifth marriage i'm not even kidding you like i don't i i wish i'd met him before he'd done it i'm like what because i would have been like what the fuck are you doing and he married a woman he was her fifth marriage and she had in her she had some definitely some trials and trauma she hadn't worked out

so but in every relationship she had browbeaten the man with jealousy over you're gonna cheat on me until they finally drove them to cheat and i mean he couldn't he couldn't look at another woman he couldn't glance another woman you know and men do we we have that natural tendency it's in our biology that's okay to look but you know most of us don't do anything about it but we look and so i mean he and he would deal with this woman going through these trauma issues and no matter what he did he couldn't make her feel secure and her feminine. And, but every relationship,

all five marriages, she driven the guy to the end, to the end of his thing. And I, I've actually been in one relationship with that where you're accused of cheating so much. You finally just go, I should just go fucking cheat.

Yeah. Cause I'm guilty of it already. It, it, it just to get away from this person. And, uh, that self-fulfilling pattern was just extraordinary. Yeah. I mean, I'm guilty of it already. Just to get away from this person. And that self-fulfilling pattern was just extraordinary. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly

what we call it in psychology, a self-fulfilling prophecy. The thing I'm worried about absolutely the most in the world will be the thing that actualizes because I put so much damn energy into this. Yeah. And you would see how destructive it was in people's lives and stuff what are some other

things you want to tease out to people to get them on board with you let's talk about some of the services you do you have a newsletter that you do you have the coaching etc etc yeah so i offer you know a big part of my whole spiel here is you know i have a private one-to-one way to work with me and that is the best, right? Straight up. I get to work with you. I get to look at your particular branch of problems and we problem solve and we hope that you lead an unstoppable damn life. So, you know, you can find out more about that on my coaching program.

It's called Becoming Unstoppable. But then I also offer, you know, for to make it more accessible. I do believe that when you do better in your life, I do better in my life. Everybody does damn better in their lives, right? Really functioning people make a more accessible. I do believe that when you do better in your life, I do better in my life. Everybody does them better in their lives, right? Really functioning people make a better society. So I offer a newsletter and I, you know,

really try to talk about mental health, wellness. I kind of joke that it's like story time meets tools, right? Like I actually want to share some of the things that I've learned, not just have an inspirational post. And that's on my website, a note from your therapist.com.

It's called the inner circle and I'm starting a podcast myself and it'll actually, we relaunched on two weeks, February, Nope. February. Yeah. February, February 14th, Valentine's day. Oh, there you go. You're going to launch on Valentine. That's a good trauma day. People are usually getting trauma from what they didn't get on their dates or being ghosted. Or they're sitting around going,

why am I unlovable? And it's because you haven't done the work. Because you haven't done the work, but I will help you. I think this might be a shirt or a coffee mug. Why am I unlovable? Because you haven't done the work. Do the work, damn it. I'm like that guy on TikTok who always shames people to go

to the gym. Are you looking at me right now? Why are you not at the gym? Look at your flabby abs. I'm like that guy on TikTok who always shames people to go to the gym. Are you looking at me right now? Why are you not at the gym? Look at your flabby abs. I forget what that guy's called. So there you go. Maybe we should just call that the podcast. Do you have a title for the podcast so people can reference it? Yes, it's called Becoming Unstoppable. Becoming Unstoppable.

I know. It was not my favorite of name, to be fully honest, but the people seem to like it. So we wrote it. There you go. There you go. Well, you got to go with what they like. They still like the Chris Voss show name.

Who the hell is Chris Voss? I'm like, I don't know, some idiot with a mic. But it's worked for 16 years, 15 years or something like that. People come on and go, hey, this guy has really amazing guests on the show. He's an idiot, but the guests are amazing. And you learn so much. So people can reach out to you by your email go to your website all that good stuff and please people do the work talk to a licensed therapist don't do crystals stop it stop doing that and memes on memes on facebook don't work stop it stop it if you want to do a meme every day on then, do it.

But we can all see your freaking bleed out trauma. I see some people and I just want to reach out to them. I'm like, are you fucking okay? Because you're not. Maybe I should just start handing out cards and get some affiliate money from referral licensed professionals. Maybe that's what I need to do. That way I at least feel like

I should reach out from a monetary aspect and I can make a buck or two in case they yell at me because usually they don't take it very well if you if you're like hey man why are you a psycho yeah that doesn't even yeah that's pretty much it's most of the dms i get personally people write me and like why are you a psycho yeah so there you go so thank you very much alison for coming on the show we really appreciate give us your dot com one more time yeah a note from your therapist dot, and it's the same on social media, anotefromyourtherapist. There you go.

So thank you for coming by the show. Thanks for enlightening us. And I guess have a great look with your new podcast. People should check that out as well. You can kind of learn about doing the work, kind of start down the path. But there's, you know, here's another psa i'll give there's no shame in getting therapy oh thank you it really is not you don't have to tell anybody if you don't want to you don't but there's no shame in it there's no shame in saying i think

something's wrong and not working and if you've lived long enough where you know you're starting to see a pattern, go get therapy. I have people, one of my favorite things people will do on Facebook or social media is they'll be like, if you go back and talk to your 16 or 18-year-old self, what would you tell yourself? And people are always surprised at my answer. I'd be like, go into freaking therapy. I had bad ADHD back then.

I was checking the door like 20 times a night to make sure it was locked, that sort of thing. I think my brother was washing his hands to the point they would bleed. We both had ADHD and we really needed some therapy. He still does. But that's another story. Anyway, thank you very much, Allison, for coming on the show. And I think we've made an advertisement for a licensed therapy now.

And I'm getting a hate mail from all the crystal coaches. And that's fine because I'm just going to refer them to you. So anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfoss. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter. I think it grows like a weed. I didn't even know there were many active agents on LinkedIn. Go to the 103,000 group over on LinkedIn as well.

Chris Foss, one of the TikTokity, and Chris Foss, Facebook.com. You can see the five or six groups we have over there. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.