The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 131: Why You Need To Start Embracing ALL Your Emotions: Dr. Julie Smith

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

In support of world mental health day 3 days ago we're releasing a moment that we believe will help our listeners on the topic of supporting their mental health. In this weeks moment, discover the key to mastering your emotions in this insightful discussion with clinical psychologist, Dr. Julie Smith. In life, we often face two prevailing philosophies: suppress your emotions and power through, or embrace them wholeheartedly. But what if both of these paths lead to unexpected pitfalls? Join Dr. Julie Smith as she unravels the secrets to emotional harmony. Learn how therapy can provide you with the essential tools to navigate your emotions, to gradually confront them, and to understand your actions without judgment. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/Sew3KrnPIqb Dr Julie - https://www.instagram.com/drjulie/?hl=en https://www.tiktok.com/@drjuliesmith?lang=en https://www.drjulie.uk Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. Society has a role to play in telling us how to manage the emotions we feel when we go through life you know on one hand you have this sentiment where it's like kind of just shrug it off ignore it keep going which doesn't seem to be possible with like deep emotions actually seems to be that you're just compartmentalizing it in the back room and it's gonna erode your brain from

subconsciously and the other one is that you know the other narrative we hear is to when you feel strong emotions to really like embrace them and to like but that feels like it can be a bit too consuming that I might not get out of bed in the morning if I really sit and wallow in my emotions so what is the balance of embracing emotions or kind of shrugging them off and ignoring them yeah and actually it's quite sort of complex work when um when you look at sort of what happens in the therapy room. You know, there are people who, when they experience emotion, it's quite unsafe for them

because the coping strategies that they've had throughout life have been unsafe or dangerous ones. And so, you know, we'll never kind of advise people to just, you know, open the floodgates and allow everything in. It's very sort of careful and there's a process of gearing people up with the tools. And I often talk to people about this when they're thinking about going to something like a trauma therapy, right? So while that involves going over the trauma, no decent therapist would ever get you to do that without first gearing up with

the tools to be able to cope with the emotion that comes up. So for anyone who feels like they, for example, kind of shut down emotionally and sort of block it out, you want to open up gradually to things and open up gradually to emotions that feel maybe less dangerous or less sort of overwhelming in small ways, in supported ways as well, so that you know you can manage it and it's not going to completely be overbearing. But I guess on a kind of day-to-day level, lots of people don't even recognise that they're blocking. They just recognise that whenever they've done something at work that's embarrassing and they feel awful they just go home and crack open the fridge and they're just looking for anything or maybe it's go on Netflix for like six hours and block out the world or

gaming or whatever it is and and so often it's hidden in the behavior. People will say, yeah, I'm fine with emotion, but I smoke 50 a day. And it's a kind of, what's the function of this and that and the other? And it's always about looking at it with curiosity, not judgment, but curiosity. Why am I doing that? What's the function of that? What's it doing for me?

And often it will be some level of safety around something that's uncomfortable, but it's really key that there's no judgment there of safety around something that's uncomfortable but it's really key that there's no judgment there because it's something that we all do it's it's human and and that's because our brains are so brilliant at taking over for us and doing something very quickly that we need to make things better to make us comfortable to feel comfortable in some way even if it's some yeah destructive medication or something um on that you know on that point of we have a behavioral response to some stress or emotion we're feeling

and maybe not confronting I think I did that a lot when people used to ask me how I dealt with running this big global business 700 employees around around the world, when times got really tough. I mean, on the worst days where there was no money in the bank and payday was today, those kinds of days. I think I used to say on interviews and stuff that I used to come up with all this nonsense about how I dealt with it and how I coped with it.

But in hindsight, one of the things I came to learn was the only times I ever got sick or my skin ever got bad were on like two days after that, those really high stress moments. So on the surface, I was kind of shrugging off and playing it cool. But my body, as the famous book goes,

held the score. My body would tell me, even if my conscious mind wouldn't admit it, my body would tell me. And then even more recently, I've noticed that in certain situations where I'm pretending everything is fine, I'll notice maybe my eating habits or my other habits get a little bit more extreme and out of control. And I always thought I was

invincible. I always thought I was some tough guy. And I think people followed me. Well, I hope not. But I think they kind of, they saw me as that, as being this kind of like, you know, mentally perfect, you know, resilient character. But even I've noticed that in my behaviour. And it's been so interesting to just pay attention to it. It's sometimes difficult, because especially if you do engage in these kind of coping mechanisms, shall we say, a lot, you might find them harder to notice.

But for me, I don't. So when I see any shift in my behaviour, like I remember going through a pattern where I was just I was eating crap again and I thought why am I doing oh shit yeah because of that thing you've not addressed that's playing on your mind every time you wake up yeah and then my skin tells me straight away I get some like breakout on my skin um men are the worst at this I mean so they say they're the worst at talking about how they feel because the stigmas and stuff yeah certainly I mean about 75 percent of my followers are female but saying that of the of the male followers that I have they're among some of the most engaged and ask questions and um you know come up with new topics and and respond you positively in comments and things and and so I think there is a

shift in the right direction and I think I think social media has had a lot to do with that actually it's enabled people to start having a conversation that they wouldn't dream of having face-to-face with people um and certainly I recognized that in when I was just working in my private practice I I wanted to do it around the family so I I couldn't do it all so I kind of left the NHS and I I thought I'll just work in like school hours and I'll manage it around that kind of thing so um I thought I would have to advertise and and I never did and that's because well therapy is a really private thing when you're really struggling when it works and you get better and then you're doing fine and it finishes and you go off about your life and then you come across

someone who's struggling and they go that really helped me try that and so actually all of my work was based on word of mouth and and i think that's happening more and more that people once they struggle work out a way to get through it then believe in the in the tools that they learned whatever they were they're willing to share that and and because they don't want to see other people go through the same thing and I think that's a bit of the shift of that stigma um that that people are going oh yeah I went through that or something similar go and try that it really helps and if people are sad at oh yeah, I went through that or something similar. Go and try that. It really helps. And if people are sad at home

and there's something that they know they haven't addressed, that's playing on their mind, that they're thinking about a lot often and trying to just kind of compartmentalize and not, what would you say to those people? Like, because, you know, they might be seeing the behavioral symptoms

of not addressing that thing. What would you, how do we, how do we get it out of the back room and prevent it from causing us behavioral self-harm? Well, I guess, you know, some people will go to therapy because they'll have access to that. Others won't even consider it

or have access to it for whatever reason. And I think whatever the situation, human contact and human connection is everything. If you can find someone that you trust to talk to, and even let's say worst case scenario, you don't have anyone you can trust to talk to, or you feel so awful about this particular situation that you can't bear to talk to anyone, write it down. just use words, use art, whatever it is, try and get to grips with what could possibly be going on here. Start reflecting on experiences, not with judgment, but just looking at what's happening, what happens here, what happens before that, what leads up to

it. That's a lot of what happens in therapy actually is, you know, people come in with a feeling, oh, I felt this awful thing. And then we'll look at, okay, what led up to it. That's a lot of what happens in therapy actually is, you know, people come in with a feeling, oh, I felt this awful thing. And then, and then we'll look at, okay, what led up to that? Let's go back a week and let's work to it. And, and you know, what made you vulnerable to that? And then equally what came after, what did you do? Did it make things worse? Did it help? A lot of those things that, that we end up doing habitually are the things that work instantly. And they're addictive because they work instantly, right? It's going to the fridge or grabbing the wine or whatever it is that they're addictive

because they give us instant relief. But in the long term, they keep us stuck. So they're the things that then get us in that cycle of the next time you have that feeling, you feel even more need for that that safety behavior or that blocking behavior because it worked so quickly last time and and actually the things that tend to work in the long term are hardest in the moment like sitting with it and feeling it and using skills to get yourself through it