THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Expert Psychiatrist's Guide To Transcend Trauma w/ Dr. Frank Anderson

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

I KNOW A LOT OF YOU ARE HURTING RIGHT NOW. I SEE it in your messages.  I HEAR it when I talk to people.  And SOCIAL MEDIA and the NEWS are filled with stories every day of people struggling to stay afloat.  So often, we find ways to compromise as a means of living with our psychological pain and deep-seeded trauma.  Many of us have been doing it for years. But collectively, I don’t think we’re doing enough HEALING.   Especially lately, as the pandemic has turned our entire world upside down.  We’ve done our best to cope amid loved ones getting sick or dying, losing our jobs and identity, battling isolation, and an all-consuming fear of the future. This week’s guest, DR. FRANK ANDERSON is a psychiatrist who has extensively studied pain and trauma.  He has made it his lifelong quest to help others heal by integrating his knowledge of neuroscience and trauma treatment with Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. His new book, TRANSCENDING TRAUMA, explores a unique, compassionate, and evidence-based approach to resolving dissociative trauma.  ARE YOU READY TO HEAL? Do you want to regain the ability to CONNECT WITH and LOVE OTHERS on a deeper level? Are you ready to help others UNDERSTAND why they’re traumatized and what you can do to help them? Aside from the obvious BENEFITS of why it’s important to heal, until you learn to do so and take active steps to heal from trauma, there’s no way you can be the BEST POSSIBLE spouse, parent, friend, co-worker, or achieve the HIGHEST DEGREE OF SUCCESS in your career or personal life. TIME SPENT HEALING IS TIME WELL SPENT.  And as Dr. Anderson reveals to us, it’s a WORTHY INVESTMENT in ourselves.

This is the end my let's show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm excited about today, based on its timing, too. We're going to talk about mental health today, mental well-being, mental fitness, happiness, bliss, overcoming trauma, and all that kind of good stuff. And especially, you know, if you're listening to this around the holiday, some of you will listen to it six months from now, but the timing's right too. And I'm so excited to have Dr. Frank Anderson with me today. Frank is a Harvard

trained psychiatrist and psychotherapist. So we're talking about an IQ gap that is pretty vast between the two of us today as he listened, but he's the author of a book called Transcenty Trauma, which I was glued to. And I'm so excited to share his wisdom with you, his work and his insights as we help you with your mental well-being as well. So Dr. Anderson, thank you for being here, brother. Well, thank you so much for having me at. I really appreciate it.

And please call me Frank. All right, Frank, you got it. You call me Ed too. So let's, I was reading a survey the other day. It said about 24% of people report some form of mental illness or strife in their life. Yeah. Why do you think such a high percentage of people during such an interesting time and our culture are so unhappy? What do you think it is? There's so many factors going on really from my perspective. I mean clearly one of them is a pandemic. I mean, it is really got people in a place

that they never thought they would be. And particularly the ongoing nature of it. You know, I've been studying the neurobiology of trauma, PTSD, and dissociation for a really long time. But this is an ongoing thing. And it's going on and on and on. And you know, we've been through so many different waves of this so far and people get really burned out.

It's called adrenal fatigue. Your systems can't maintain it anymore. Our cortisol levels cannot sustain up, down, oh, a vaccine. Oh, there's not another variant. Keep going, don't go. Like it's just too much for our systems. So it's, it's wearing on everyone.

And so there's that piece, right? And then there's the general world pre pandemic. I mean, there's a lot of difficulties in the world and people are struggling. And you know, 20% of the population is depressed at any one time outside of a pandemic. This term PTSD. So, you know, I do a lot of reading about this stuff. And I had an interesting upbringing. I say interesting. there was some trauma there for sure. And I think a lot of people listening to this are watching it wonder, when I think of PTSD, as a layman, first thing I think of is soldiers, combat,

that's the first thing I think most people think of. Yeah. And then I think maybe some super dramatic issue that happens in one's childhood, but how would you define PTSD? How broad is there a spectrum of it, But how would you define PTSD? How broad is there a spectrum of it? And how would you describe it? Totally. Yeah, that's a great question.

And it is a spectrum. I think trauma is a spectrum disorder. One of the things I say in my book is everyone has some kind of overwhelming life experience. Nobody gets away free of that. Okay, so and people don't like this word. Trauma so much in the general public. They don't like this word, trauma so much in the general public, they don't like the word PTSD. Oh, that's not me, right? So I do really define trauma on a

spectrum. So overwhelming life experience. And often it has to do with the perception of the person experiencing it, right? You can be bullied on the playground at school and be like, whatever, no big deal. And somebody else, you know, your friends sit next to you is bullied on the playground and has a horribly difficult experience with it, right? So it depends on the nature and the event of what happens and it also depends on how the individual perceives it,

you know, and we're talking about single incident car accident, death of a loved one being shamed. Like who in the world hasn't been shamed at one point in their life, right? To ongoing this piece, I don't know if you're aware of this Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey wrote this book recently. And it has a lot to do with ongoing relational trauma. Okay. So there's a piece of relational trauma. We call that complex PTSD, right? And that's where most family dysfunction comes in, right? When you're relationally, you know,

there's whether it's drinking, yelling, screaming, neglect, there's a lot of stuff that happens in families that is considered dysfunctional and traumatic and it has an effect on people, which is different than that whole other spectrum where people are kidnapped and beaten and raped to that's one extreme. So I really do see trauma on a spectrum and nobody's free of it.

Yeah, okay, that's great. I'm so glad you said it the way because I think a lot of people maybe discount things that have happened. These emotions are installed in our neural chemistry when we're young when certain things happen. Or when we're older. And I have this weird analogy, but I want to, I want, in a minute, guys, we're going to about how to overcome these things, right? The weird thing I want to share with you, it's just thinking about and preparing for this, as I was preparing to be with you, I have two little pomeranians and one of them is this joyous pomeranian little lilies or name and she's been with us all our life.

She's had a pretty blissful life time. My other one, Daisy, we took from someone and the kind of our groomer asked us to take her and she had been left in cars and had neglect and all these other things and there's these associations she makes with different things where she'll just, like, yesterday, we won't take her for a walk. Any walking outside the house, she just begins to shake and tremble. And so there's this connection she's made with certain circumstances, places and things like anchors or triggers almost. That I think that humans have these anchors and triggers. Many times we're unaware of them.

So can you take us through what happens to us when trauma happens, some type of trauma? And what is an anchor and or a trigger, what I'm at least using my own terminology for that? Yeah, that's exactly right. No, you're doing a great job, honestly. You've done your homework. Let me say that because it's true.

So anytime anyone has an overwhelming experience, it's stored in their body, okay? And it can be stored in any number of ways. You can store it emotionally, you can store it physically in your body, and you can store it in thoughts and beliefs. So anytime we go through something overwhelming, it's stored inside. And then what ends up happening, Ed happening is that we have this series of ways to try to protect yourself. It's the normal response. So in the work that I do, which is called internal family systems, you develop protective parts of yourself that try to protect you from your overwhelming experiences.

Most people, and we'll call them defenses, but they're protections. You protect yourself from your pain. And so when ends up happening, if you have an overwhelming experience in childhood, college, whatever, it's still stored. You think it's gone, but it's not. So any time it gets triggered, if you get yelled at as an adult by your boss, it triggers those wounds that are still in there. And then your protectors jump in you yell, you scream, you drink, you do whatever. So our protectors show up once our wounds get triggered. Okay. And this is what happens for people. You know, people come into therapy at they don't say, Hey, I want to work on the fact that I was unloved by my mother or father.

Like that's not what people come into. They're like, I'm having trouble with my kids. I'm getting to trouble at work. I'm unhappy. I'm, this is my third relationship. Like those are the protective parts that are not doing so well in somebody's life. But they really rooted in their trauma, right?

Is it always people or circumstances or can it actually be places? I've had this belief system that sometimes I think someone could actually walk into a room that resembles a room where trauma happened or a space or a moment. They find themselves four hours later at work, sad and down and not knowing why why and there was a trigger that happened when they walked in Even I know I'm going pretty deep here But I want everyone in the audience to kind of get everything they can Can spaces also be triggers? 100%

People can be triggers. You look at somebody you're like, oh my god. That reminds me of even though it's not the same person Spaces can be triggered getting on airplanes can be triggered, being in the backseat of a car, like there's so many things because whatever environment that you were in that was overwhelming, people encode that. You know, so I've heard somebody say, oh my God, when I was being abused,

I was staring at the doorknob. Because that's what I focused on. And so doorknob are scary for them. Do on and so doorknobbs are scary for them Do you know any me so it can be anything and most people aren't aware of the triggers They think it just comes out of the blue, but it doesn't come out of the blue There's always trailing it back to the trigger of what activated The thing that happened you in your past. What if you don't know? Is that why therapy so important?

Because I think a lot of people avoid therapy, which can be all the way to the sophisticated work you do where there's this integrated, you know, current neuroscience stuff you're doing in the internal family systems to just having somebody to talk to. Yeah. Do you, why do you think therapy is such a stigma to it?

And is that the pathway to correcting this or can someone just become more aware if it's minor things and actually begin to live better just by their awareness? Yeah, it's a great question. I have to tell you because, you know, it depends on where you live within the country, right? If you're living in the Boston area in New England or you're living in California, those people are therapy heavy. Like everybody has a therapist, right? So it depends on the region that you live in

around the stigma. You know, in a lot of places in the Midwest, a lot of places in the South, like in cultural differences too, and honestly. Like certain cultures are into therapy. Yes, let's get help. That makes sense. Other cultures absolutely not no way. So

depends on where you live. It depends on the region. But there is generally a stigma around mental help because people like, I don't need help. I'm strong. I'm not weak. Like people call vulnerability. Right. Go to therapy and vulnerable. Forget that crap. I don't want to be weak and vulnerable. Right. That's why I love Brene Brown so much. She calls vulnerability to superpower. Not that crap. I don't want to be weak and vulnerable, right? Why I love Brunei Brown so much. She calls vulnerability to superpower not a week. Right? And I agree with that. So one of the things I do, honestly, when I work with any adolescent, I want to give them the experience of asking for help can be a good thing. The kid learns that it's a game changer for them. You know, so people have this, I'm not weak, I don't need this.

And in fact, they end up falling apart, getting their life is a mess, and then they go reluctantly. But honestly, I'm gonna say, instead of nine times out of 10, it's not honestly 10 times out of 10. It's rooted in something from your past that you have buried to get away from.

People get away from pain. You know, it's like the cavemen. Touch the fire, the fire hurts. Oh, don't touch the fire anymore. It's kind of like that. We're organized to stay away from pain. I think sometimes you can evaluate yourself. I mean, this, I don't mean that therapy is necessary because I'm a huge believer.

I also think there's an economic aspect sometimes therapy. But I'm aware of patterns of my own that I know come out of some of the what I would call trauma in my childhood. It could just be dysfunction. It could be your parents didn't ever hug you, right? Or no one said I love you or they were as good as worse. That's trauma that fits into that spectrum. Yes. But for me, one of the things that I'm super sensitive to is people being honest with me, to an extreme or what are you really doing when you're away from me to an extreme? And so it's effective relationships that I've been in my life and I've evaluated that's because my dad was doing things I didn't know he was doing and couldn't trust that he was doing.

So I think sometimes just being aware of your current patterns of behavior can help you draw the line backwards to potentially what that trauma was. Now in terms of solution and you can comment on that if you'd like, but in terms of sharing that with the audience from from me. And there's other things like I'm anyone around me gets too drunk. To access. Some people think that's cool and fun for me. It's like, oh, that's, I want to be away from them so badly because I experienced that stuff.

So, so I'm curious though, you have the eight seas of what you call self-energy in the book, which is awesome. And I don't want to give away everything because I want people to get the book. And by the way, this is two percent. So get the book everybody. But can you take us through what self-energy is and how that works? And maybe what the eight sees are

if you can pull them off the top of your head. Totally. I'll see how many I'll come up with this at my head. But you know what, it's interesting. So a couple of things. I want to tell you one of my favorite quotes for my book is trauma, blocks, love, love heals trauma. And it's a cyclical piece.

Trauma blocks love and connection. It blocks who we are. And in fact, love and connection is what heals trauma. Well, very good. Okay. Okay, and I believe this is my mission. It really is my mission because you don't have to go to therapy in some ways. This is why I'm bringing this to the public. You're talking about self-awareness,

self-connection, this idea, this mindset to do better. So it's super important. Okay, and I want to, I want to, I want this message to get to as many people as possible. That's why I'm moving outside the therapy room into the general public, right? And I appreciate shows like this to help me get that message out, right? We're getting it out, brother, for sure. I love it. I love it. Thank you for that. And so everyone has this thing that we call self-energy. It's inherent wisdom and healing capacity. And I believe we're born with it. It's not

something that needs to be cultivated. And believe me, a lot of people with severe trauma, I don't have it. I'm broken. I'm empty. And you know what I say to them? We can agree to disagree. You have it in you. You have that wisdom in healing capacity. This is why I say sometimes, so maybe everybody doesn't have to go to therapy. You have what you need inside of you and let me help you access it. Okay. It's accessing that wisdom within, right? And I call it a state of being had. And you know, because it's a model and it has pneumonics we say the 8Cs okay but I'll give you I'll say some of the C's right compassion calm curious connected courageous so this

um it probably is another one I think or another creativity. Creativity, creativity, there you go, creativity. And I don't want people to think it's a seaworth per se. It's just that's the model, pneumonics, love, openness, is part of self-energy. It's a state of being. You could say something like this to somebody. Yeah, I'm compassionate. Or you could say, Yeah, I really care Right, do you feel the difference?

Absolutely, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. It's not a word. It's a state of being. It's I'm open. I'm receptive And it's not only toward other people It's toward the parts of us that have been through the trauma. Okay, so what we do is we turn self-energy inward. Can I be compassionate and loving towards the part of me that was beat up as a kid, toward the part of me that was shamed and bullied on the playground. Like, because what we tend to do, remember I said those protectors push it away to protect us from the pain. The method here is bring accessing self-energy and bringing it in toward loving yourself, loving the pain that you went through, right?

That's the healing quality here is that I call it internal attachment work, we're healing the internal wounds. And we have the capacity within us to do that. I just want to help people get there. That is so beautiful. I hope, I really hope everybody hears that because there's this debate. By the way, the compassion, curiosity, com clarity, connectedness, confidence, courage, and creativity. These are all things that you have access to within you. And there's this great debate sometimes on social media, especially in the entrepreneur spaces, a lot of entrepreneurs,

not all, but many follow my work. And they make fun of this. Oh, self love, but you don't want to change anything about yourself. And that's not what we're discussing here. What we're saying is that you have access within you, or you're saying, rather, and I'm agreeing with, that you have access and the ability to love yourself, even though there are things about you,

I think sometimes there's this stacking that happens where there's some trauma that happens. So we create these coping mechanism, whether it is drinking or cheating or lying or disassociation or whatever those things might be, then we act out in behavior ways that we're not proud of, right? And then it stacks. Then we find ourselves at 20, 30, 40, 50 years old with this stack of stuff we've done or behaviors we've taken place in that we're not proud of. And now it's like a double stack. The stuff happened to me. I don't really know why I'm doing this, but I've lied. I've cheated. I've stole. I've whatever I've done. And there's this stack. So I was a little bit curious about the idea of forgiveness of oneself as well.

And I know it's not necessarily part of the book per se, but there's little pieces kind of a lute to it. What about that? Like is that part of what you would call compassion for oneself as forgiveness? Is it all under there? Or what would you say about that? Totally.

So forgiveness is a big piece of it, honestly. And there is the forgiveness of yourself, the parts of you that work so hard to try to protect you. Yes. That have done untoward things. Okay. Those protective parts, the parts, the drink, the yell, the scream. The reason we yell at our kids is because they're behavior triggers our wounds. So we try to stop them from doing that.

So our wounds don't get activated, right? So those protective parts, I'm always looking at the intention of them, not the effect of them, the drinking, the cheating, the lying. The intention is to protect my pain. That's big. The effect is it causes what I call a double trauma in our life. Because like you just said, Ed, it's not only that I'm dealing pushing away my childhood, diswooning. Now I have to deal with the fact that all the behaviors

that were rooted to protect me have caused more trouble in my life. Yes. Yes. Okay. So we're looking at the positive intention of every part. Suicide, cutting, you know, suicide is one of the most effective protections. If it gets bad enough, I'm out of here. Yeah. And we say to the suicide apart, thank you for having a solution to this problem when

nobody else was there to help you. Okay. Embrace it. Heroin epidemic, same thing. People are doing all opioids, heroin, to protect from their pain because they don't have another option yet. Yeah. You know, I was just thinking about,

by the way, I'm loving this. And it's interesting for me, I'm 50 years old. It's just now maybe at this stage in my life that I reflect more on stuff that did happen when I was a kid. And because there's like double-edged swords on these coping mechanisms. I don't know if you agree with this or not,

but some of the things. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, like, for example, for whatever reason, I kind of got my dad's attention. If I at least I thought I did, probably isn't even fair to say, but I get my dad's attention when I hit a home run or when I get an A or when I'd perform. So to some extent, that coping mechanism is helped me become a wealthy man, helped me become an influential man, helped me become a very hard worker. But there's the other side of this.

So let's address this. Sometimes these coping mechanisms also are difficult to break because for example, in business, my edginess or anger, it's why I'm so successful. I don't want to lose that part of me. Even though I know it's not very healthy because it helps me do this other thing that I do very well. Right. So how do you navigate that?

I want to keep the good things about this coping mechanism I've got, but I want to drop the part of it that's detrimental to me and the people around me. Yeah, it's exactly what we do. It's because we embrace the, I call them the gifts and the burdens of every part. We don't get rid of parts of us. We get rid of the job it was forced to do. Oh, it's so good. Right. We don't get rid of like the drinking part. Like, let's take a drinking part, for example. I say, what if you didn't have to drink all the time? Are you interested in that?

What if you didn't have to? What if it could be a choice, right? So we try, we help release the stuff we had to do to protect the wound. And then we keep the stuff we want to do, okay? And the only way these parts of us stop doing what they need to do at is by healing the wound. Gotcha. If I heal the wound, I don't need to do this stuff anymore. I could choose to. We don't get rid of any of our parts. We get rid of the job. They were forced to do to protect the pain.

Like that. You see what I mean? Like that's what it is. And they have good things. I, I, I had this like smart was who I was. Like that's what it was and they have good things. I had this like Smart was who I was like I thought that is me like that's me and I had an identity crisis when I was like wait a minute Smart is a part of me not all of me. I was like holy crap. Who am I then right? Yes, I can still hold on to my intelligence But it doesn't have to dominate every aspect of my life now.

I could be playful, I could be fun, I can have a blast with my kids. You know what I mean? I before it was dominating me because it was working overtime to protect me. I don't get rid of it, but it's an aspect of my personality that's been valuable. So I just really feel strong that everyone should go back and listen to this last part that we covered

because there's this spectrum, right? We've talked about of the different types of trauma, but what should be occurring to all of us? Like, life should have an element of self-reflection at every age. And I think oftentimes we're just so busy and achieving and doing and caring for other people that we never take. Guys, this could just be as simple as you're starting to take some time and being more aware of yourself, some time in meditation, some time for a walk that's not just to work out, but it's just to be with yourself to evaluate your patterns and emotions and what you're feeling regularly and just to do a

little work on you. At the end of that next year, 2022, you'd be a better person. You will have grown. And so I just want everyone to, if you want some complex where you're going to go to therapy, you're going to do psychotherapy, you're going to have a friend you talk to, you're going to pray more, you're going to just observe your patterns, you're going to, whatever it might be, self-reflection and self-awareness is a pathway to more bliss in your life. And it's getting, it's getting, it's getting books like your book. It's listening to shows like my show. It's just starting to work on oneself. How do you know, Frank, if you have any PTSD or there's signs that I have had

some kind of trauma I might be unaware of. And again, remember guys, PTSD can be, you weren't hugged enough all the way to real abuse in your life, right? There's the spectrum. But how does one know? Are there any underlying signs that I have some? Or does everybody? It's a great question. And I will deal with that in a minute. I want to just add on to what you said, because it was really important. I was thinking in my cell phone like, this is what I talked about in book, self-awareness, self-connection. And you just came up with it on your own. But that is what I talk about in book, self-awareness, self-connection. And you just came up with it on your own. But that is what this is about, right? Self-awareness, self-connection in its simplest forms.

And I also like to say, like, take advantage of each moment. What are you going to do with this moment? Are you going to learn from it? Are you going to repeat it? Are you going to ignore it? Like when you talk to repeat it? Are you going to ignore it? When you talk about, OK, let's look at the end of 2022. What did I do with my moments? I think we're all here to learn.

We're all here to grow. Or we just repeat it. So you can just take stock in your moment. It's the moment. All right, bad time with the kid. Really difficult interaction at work. Take your moment. Like it's a minute, it's the moment. Like, all right, bad time with the kid. Really difficult interaction at work. Like take your moment and what are you going to do with that moment? I want to find I don't want to interrupt you because it's so beautiful. But this thing you said I just want to highlight, which is if you don't, you'll repeat it. Totally. You're just going to have another, it's going to be the same, a different boyfriend,

but the same guy, different girlfriend, same person, different friendship, different business, different level of results, same emotions, same patterns, if you're not aware. So I just want to acknowledge what you said, the profoundness of it. Let me add to that because the underlying reason of that is our wounds are looking for redemption unless they're healed. Okay. looking for redemption unless they're healed. Okay, you keep going for the same guy or the same girl. Maybe it's an upgraded version, but it's the redemption of our wounds. Okay,

and if you don't address your woose, this is why there's a 50% divorce right in the world. Honestly, because we keep looking for, you're gonna be the father of the mother that I never had. You're gonna love me in the way that I never was. It's the repeating the pattern, but looking for redemption instead of healing it, and then looking for something that's healthy.

So I wanna point that out for people. So huge, I've never heard that, and that is a wow, wow, wow. Okay. So how do you know you had signs of it? What's some of the signs you have some of this PTSD? Well, so exactly. So that, you know, when you keep repeating stuff, like you can't get out of your own way. Why am I doing this again? You know, why am I here again? And honestly, PTSD is under the category of anxiety disorders. Like in the books and all this stuff and the DSM, if you will, it's an anxiety disorder.

So are you overwhelmed? Are you anxious? Are you reactive a lot? Do you go from high to low? Like a lot of times people with PTSD, honestly, get misdiagnosed as bipolar because it's mood swings, right? Do you have a lot of mood swings? Do you crash after you get triggered and have periods of depression, you withdraw, you

disconnect, right? Because you can go from holy crap I'm freaking out to who cares? What's the point. I give up. Those are these mood swings, which are really different parts reacting and responding. So there is anxiety, there's panic, there's depression. PTSD is kind of hard to diagnose interestingly enough. And many people misdiagnosis because it's got so many facets to it, right? And it's got a lot of what we call comorbidities. People are anxious. They have eating issues, you know, eating disorders, substance abuse issues. Like when somebody comes in with a list of stuff, it's most likely rooted in trauma. Well, PDD, another one, huge overlap with PTSD, interesting way enough.

And we can change trauma just for pain. It's interesting with achievers, the ones that I work, some of the top whether it's an athlete or an entertainer or a politician or whatever. Sometimes they're, it's interesting, all the things you've listed and then when they begin to achieve, there's this thing they start to do with themselves and a lot of people are going to go, oh my gosh, I do this right now. Is it really worth it? What's it all mean? Once they start to get somewhere, they'll feed themselves because they should be blissful, and joyous, and proud. The only way to rob themselves from it now is that it doesn't matter. It was all for nothing. It cost me all these other things. So I'm curious about

the relationship part. Let's say I'm, I'm in, you know, I've got whatever I've got in my baggage, my patterns, my things. What if you interact, you're in a relationship, though? Let's flip it. It's not so much us, but maybe it still is, but we're in a relationship with someone who clearly has these patterns, clearly is overcoming, protecting themselves, trying to heal some form of trauma, whether that, it could be minor to extreme. Is there a, what advice would you give for interacting with someone who keeps acting out in a particular way? And is there a point where you should separate from somebody, whether it's a friend, a loved

one, a spouse, et cetera, a parent? What would your advice be there? Yeah, so that's the whole couples issue. Like when you're, and you don't even have to be in an intimate relationship, but you're talking about what if you're in relationship to someone who has a trauma history. Yes. All right, so it's not a coincidence. There's usually a dynamic there. Okay, I hate to say it. Okay. I hate to bust people's bubble. The people who are, you know are pointing out the other person's issue because usually, in that case, there'd be somebody who's activated, screaming, yelling, reactive, and there's

the passive one. The one who tolerates it, the one who enables it, the one who is drawn. People tend to be drawn to each other because they're similar wounding, even though they tend to show it differently. Wow. Okay. So somebody could be like typical example, and I'm gonna use these gender stereotypes.

Oh my God, she's so hysterical. She's so overwhelming with her feelings. Oh my God, he's on the spectrum. He can't connect with anybody. You know, such a typical male female gender dynamic, right? And the reality is both of them have wounds underneath that are similar because attraction is about the similarity and wounding. Okay. So you may look totally different.

And it's much easier to blame the other person. But what I say to that is do the U-turn. What about me has been drawn to this person? What is going on for me that keeps me in this relationship? Okay. It's much easier to point the finger at the louder screaming yelling version compared to the numb dissociated passive or disconnected version. And there's usually that dynamic. Okay, so it's rarely do I see a couple where both don't have trauma histories of sorts, like you say. Yeah. However, they cope with it in opposite, seemingly opposite ways. Yes.

Does someone be, by the way, that's brilliant. And does someone eventually become so toxic to you that you should cut them out of your life? Absolutely. Like, you know, usually if it's that toxic and you don't have a trauma history, you break up with them. You don't end up marrying them. You don't even mean like, whoa, this does not resonate with me. But what if you have that thing where you're like, you're going to fix them? You know, I'm saying, you don't have that. I'm going to fix him. I'm

going to fix her. Welcome to every therapist I've ever met by the way. Okay. And I'm gonna fix him. I'm gonna fix her. Welcome to every therapist I've ever met by the way. Okay, and I am a person in that group. I was such a caretaker. You don't go into the field unless you're a massive caretaker. Okay. So what you do though, Frank, I gotta tell you what you do. And I love this of brilliant people. And that is that, you know,

as you're listening to this, you can hear his brilliant realising Harvard train, but what you do that I love is that you take incredibly complicated and complex issues and solutions and make them simple and easy to understand because you don't have this need any longer to be the smartest guy in the room. You just are. And so that's why this is so helpful to keep telling you this is my favourite because I just really, really believe this is making a difference for people.

So you do think maybe someone might need to be eliminated. Let's talk about a few solutions now. What is a corrective emotional experience? Let's give everybody the gift of what that is and have you explained that. Yeah. So a corrective emotional experience, it really is what I call a redo. Okay. So you're repeating your pattern, you're repeating your pattern, you're repeating your pattern. And a corrective emotional experience is when you do it differently, the moment that you do it differently. Okay, for example, now this could be in relationship

with somebody else, but it's also within yourself, okay? And what we like to do is this is, so in therapy sometimes there's this idea that the therapist is the corrective experience for you. I'm gonna be everything you needed and want to never gotten life at, you're gonna internalize that, and you're gonna skip off into the sunset and be happy, right? People are searching for the corrective emotional experience outside of themselves all the time. Now, sometimes relationships are healing, okay? The relationship

with my partner is is a corrective emotional experience. It really, he's like wonderful for me. He's, he's been that person in a way that's been amazing. Okay. So that is there. And we can get that from other people. However, oftentimes these people are not who we needed and wanted them to be. And then it becomes a big failure. Okay. So you've got to think about shifting and working internally to have the corrective emotional experience within. This is where real healing comes. Remember that self-energy thing I talked about? Self-energy can give that little boy, little girl inside what it needed and wanted and never got. It's the true redo. Okay, it's the true redo. And it's through self-love,

self-acceptance and self-connection, just like you talked about. And if I give it to myself, then I am going to have different experiences in my relationships with other people, because I'm not going to need them to make me feel better. Okay, so corrective emotional experiences can be useful in life in our relationships. It's like, I could remember the moment, I'm like, wow, this is different. I'm not doing what I used to do. And this person isn't responding

in the ways that I typically have people respond to me, right? So you could have a corrective emotional experience. It feels different. It lands different within you. You're like, oh, this is different. The way we get there is by giving to ourselves what we didn't get and always wanted. Like, can I treat myself with respect? Can I love myself? Can I value myself?

Because when I give it within, I don't need it desperately from somebody else. I can have it with somebody else. It's an option versus a desperation. I'm just saying that sit there for me. Yes, because, and is there a practical way I can give that to myself? In other words, an application of that, is it just as, is it as simple as saying, you know, I'm actually gonna give myself a break when I make a mistake?

Is it repeating to yourself that you love yourself? Is it feeding yourself a highlight reel of all the good things you've done in your life? Like, what is something practical I can do that give myself that gift? Yeah, I'm not a you know, I'm not a big affirmations person because I have formations are an authentic It's like convince yourself you love yourself. I didn't work for me like doesn't work So for me, it's got to be can I connect it It really goes back to the self-connection. What do I feel?

What do I need and want? Because we're taught to disconnect from ourselves to keep the connection with our parent. Yes. Okay? Kids have to connect to the parent to survive, so they disconnect from themselves. So it's easy as easy, not easy. It's as simple as, what do I want? What do I feel? Okay, when you can connect to what you feel, right? I can't tell you how many people said, I knew this relationship was crappy, but I married

him anyways. Yeah. We know what we feel, we disconnect from it, right? So it's simple moments is taking the pause. What do I, do I want to go to that holiday party? I really don't. Could I take the risk and not go? Yeah. Because other people don't care as much as we think they care. That's true.

Actually, and then I'm treating myself kindly, even a moment. It's like, Oh, huh. And so each time you treat yourself kindly, you're giving yourself a corrective experience. Very good. I just gave my someone that I did that this year. I love sharing the things with my audience when someone says something brilliant just that application for me. I've always I really took a look at my and asked myself the question you said and you said so many brilliant things are I want to make sure I just repeat the one that stands out to me which was what is it that I really want or need right now and for me I've had all these different things in my life. I've had anxiety, I've had frustration,

I've had depression, I've also had there have been moments of my life of joy and bliss and ecstasy and passion and expectation. And I've found for me, I've never had peace. What I really want is peace. My childhood, there was no peace. It was loving many, many times loving. Awesome. And then sometimes not and

I've not had peace. I finally said Ed. What do you really want that you don't have that I can access within myself anytime? I want and it was peace and I've really done work this year on Giving myself the gift of more peace, noticing more gratitude Putting myself in situations that bring me peace and avoiding ones that don't. I haven't done a great job of it. I've done a better job of it. I'm making progress towards more peace. It wasn't just one decision and okay, it's done. I've got peace. Now, I have tons of patterns and people and situations in my life that are around me that aren't peaceful, but slowly, but surely I'm creating more peace in my life.

So I love that you said that, and it's a direct application for me in my life. Now one thing I've never struggled with, but most people do that I wanna ask you about, complete right turn here. Yeah, I don't struggle with making decisions. I'm a decisive person. I've never had this fear of this is right or this is wrong.

Oftentimes I think I might make both of these things work. But I find that so many people struggle with anxiety and fear over making a decision, especially one that might be bold, like a career change or ending a relationship or starting a relationship or starting a business. So what would you say to someone who deals with high levels of anxiety

and fear about making decisions in their life? Yeah, so it's, I wish it was a little bit simpler. I'd like to say a bullet or two, okay? But the thing that I would say about fear around making decisions is you really have to look at what the underlying issue is relative to the fear. For example, some people are afraid to make decisions because they're afraid of the loss.

Is it this house or that house? If I choose this house, that means I can't have that house, right? So that's a loss issue. So the root of that is I'm afraid I may lose something. Okay. Other people fear because fear is usually what's around decision making problems, right? Will if I, if I choose this, if I say no, I don't want to go to the party, they might not

like me. I made the relationship maybe over. I may hurt somebody. I may hurt somebody. I may disappoint somebody. So I'm not I'm afraid to make this decision based on what the other person might feel about me. Okay, so you're always looking at what is underneath the decision. So there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons why people have a hard time making decisions, honestly. You know, and it's so interesting because my son the other day, and I was saying, we would go on home for a family visit. And I said, you know, sometimes it's hard to tell

your parents what you really, even as adults, tell your parents what you really want because you're afraid that they'll be disappointed in you or you're afraid of, you know, of their reaction. People are so afraid of feelings. Yes. My own or somebody else's. And I loved what my son said. He's like, well, that's not a problem for me. I tell you what I feel all the time.

And I was like, yes, I did one thing right. You know, exactly right. Right. We do, we're afraid of the feelings of others, whether it's feelings of loss for ourselves, feelings of how somebody's gonna think about us. So it's so rooted in emotion. In fear, it's just a top layer of that, honestly.

Really, what it ends up being is this, is that most people's fear is based in their inability to tolerate emotions. Okay, whether it be my own emotions, oh my God, I'm gonna be hurt, I'm gonna be sad, someone's not gonna like me, or tolerating somebody else's emotion, like they may not like me,

they may be disappointed in me, I may lose the connection. You know, so fear of decision making is usually rooted in inability to tolerate emotion in one way or another. I have to take back what I just said now that you said that I do struggle with making decisions in personal relationships. Yeah. For the exact reason you just said. And by the way, the exact scenario you just described, it's right now when we're doing this, it's the holidays. I've had multiple situations like that where I was just riddled with anxiety about them. Maybe they'll never invite

me back. Maybe they can't. Even though I had very legitimate reasons that I couldn't go, it's interesting because I'd say I'm a very decisive person. I think that's more in business or in that kind of stuff. But then in that other area, personal, it's still these underlying fears that I'm working on myself. So you did say something I'm really glad you brought up because I want to ask you about this. So for many people, and it doesn't have to just be the holidays, but it is the holidays where we're recording this,

but it could be just randomly at any time. They're going to be around family members. Some of which are negative, some of which are triggers like we've described earlier, and they, you know going in, I'm going to see Uncle blah, blah, some of which are triggers, like we've described earlier, and they, you know going in, I'm going to see Uncle blah, blah, blah, or Aunt this, or a parent, or whatever it might be. And so, and going into it creates tremendous anxiety for people, to men distank, what counsel

would you give if you know you're going to be going into an environment, a place people that are likely to trigger you in a particular way, or just, man, they're're going to be going into an environment, a place, people that are likely to trigger you in a particular way or just man, they're just going to change your outlook and your energy. Yeah, there's so many things that you know, and by the way, I love saying this, I'm not only the hair club president, I'm a member of this group, right? I go home to my family too. It's the same thing I cannot help it because we all slip into these old roles with family. It's so true. We slip into these old roles. So you get pulled back in to the family dynamic, which makes it harder. So you lose stability. You lose your competence in the world when you

slip back into family. And so it really is tricky for people, you know, and we bring, there's everybody wants the holidays to be perfect, like watch the damn TV, all these beautiful moments, hallmark moments, whatever, that is not reality. We all bring all of us to each family dinner. I'm not just bringing the good parts of me, I bring the good parts and the bad parts of me, all bring all of us to each family dinner. I'm not just bringing the good parts of me, I bring the good parts and the bad parts of me,

and so does everybody else sitting at the table. So like this idea that it's gonna be perfect is ridiculous. Like I always think about expectations, right? And especially at now with the pandemic, and some people haven't even seen their family in two years Right, I'm going to visit my parents the end of the month. I haven't seen them in a year and a half So the expectations are enormous for perfection

Red flag red flag red like it ain't gonna work that way, right? So you've got to deal with expectations and the thing I like to say to people is this What are my Expectations? What am I actually wanting out of this? Is it the perfect ham? Is it the best present or is it like real connection? You know like what do I want out of this? Like what are my expectations? And also we assume we know what other people's expectations are. Like ask your mother, ask your brother, what are they wanting out of this holiday? Because they actually may want something different.

Ask your kids. Because what we do is we throw our kids with us. Right? Come, you're going to enjoy this. This is important. Like, what are your expectations here? What do you wanna accomplish here, right? It reminds me for anybody who has kids

and who's been to Disney World. You spend all this money, you want it to be the best moment of their lives and it's a sh** show, excuse me. And it is terrible, right? It's because our expectations are way unrealistic and they don't meet reality. Like, so bring it down to reality.

What if actually you connected with people in ways that you love them and care about them and things you have in common? Because there's this way that all the political decisions, discussions, all the vaccine, blah, blah, blah, like why do we need to get into the differences instead of what we have in common? There's this way that people show up with their differences because they want to be seen. Yes. Inherited, right? And what I say is this, we have more in common than we are different. Yeah. And I would rather focus on the similarities versus the differences.

It just happened to me recently. I went visit my, my, my husband's family and they started in politically. There you go. And I was like, I'm not interested. It was, it was as like, you know what? I love you guys. It's been such a long time. How about so and so? And I kind of changed this subject. Very good. That's a great technique because, you know, isn't it odd? Because I used to do this with my dad politically politically we would disagree on stuff. It was like of all the things I love this man,

and we have so much in common, and we love so many of the same people, and the same things. Why in the world am I picking the 2% of the things we don't agree on in the rare time I get with him? Yeah, it's because we want them to know us. It's because we want them to know us instead of us getting to know them. You know, Ed, it's called theory of mind.

It's the capacity to step outside of yourself and see if you can see what's important for them. Right? When I travel around the world and I, before pandemic, I used to travel around the world teaching IFS and trauma and internal family systems and all. And what I will tell you is trauma and the resiliency of the human spirit are everywhere. We all have that in common. And so I want to tell people like,

join what you have in common over the holidays, you may have a much better time. It's so good, so profound. And the reason that you describe, I never thought before, as we want them to know us instead of us just connecting, meet them where they are. At least we know why we do it. That's so powerful. Okay. I got one last question. I'll just say this. The more you know them, the more they are genuinely curious to get to know you. So true. That's true in everything, by the way, business, relationships, family, everything. I love when I play golf with someone for four or five hours and they'll tell a mutual friend of mine, man, I love

Ed. And then they'll say, what does he do? Because we spent the four or five hours talking about them, right? And then the next time we'll probably talk about me. So you're so right. Last question, I've enjoyed this so, so much. And I'm so glad it's happening at this time for both my audience, but also for me, this is just wonderful. The last thing is this tough one. You had trauma in your life. And a lot of people take that trauma they've been through, whether it's, they've survived cancer or they've lost a business or they were divorced or there, there was some form of abuse in their life or whatever it might be.

And they then attach their identity to that trauma. I am a survivor. And their entire life becomes attached to this identity of their trauma and they never escape it. It's such a, it's obvious to me why it happens, but it's a sad thing to what that's, you're more than that as you said earlier. So what would you say to someone who has someone in their life that's attached to their trauma as their identity?

Or many, maybe listen, go, wow, maybe I do do that. I am the divorced one. I am the one who lost a child. I am the one who had cancer. I am the one who had a business failure. I am the one who had this abuse or mistreatment. What would you say? So in a phrase, a part of you is it's not all of you. But yes, people do take on these parts as identity. And honestly, I'm going to say this, and this may or may not be popular, but it is one of my mantras, one of my missions, is when people do overly identify with one side or the other. Okay, when you were talking about it, like, I'm a victim, I'm a victim, it's who I am, as they take it on as an identity, I'm always saying to people, it's a part of you, it's not all of you. And in fact, we all have all of it within us. I am interested in crossing this divide. Every victim has perpetrator parts. Every perpetrator

has victim parts. And we polarize because we want to be seen on one side instead of the other. And honestly, I'm working on a show right now that is talking about the victim and perpetrator within all of us. Okay. And that's hard for people to, this is what happens politically, one side or the other. Like we all have both sides. And that's hard for people to come to terms with, but it is one of my missions and one of my mantras is, you know, you're not going to be able to heal from your trauma unless you look at the ways you have perpetrated, either within yourself or others. Okay, so this polarity of us and them, I'm interested in breaking down that bit wall and bridging the commonality in all of us.

Well, you would change culture if you could do that because I think you're trying. I think, I think you've changed so many lives today, but that would change culture. Just, I'm so grateful for today, but that idea that we both have perpetrator and victim is true and hard to accept. Yes.

And we embracing the victim part of ourselves, ironically, isn't all that difficult. Embracing the perpetrator part of us. That's a whole other conversation. And today's conversation was riveting. I hope everybody stayed at the end because even right here towards the very end, there were some breakthroughs in there for me. I got to tell you, Frank, I enjoyed this so so much. And I'm very, very grateful that we've met. And I've told you already, I think we're going gonna do this again. I really love to do this again. Absolutely.

You're incredible, brother. And again, guys, I love this. Trauma blocks love and love heals trauma. That is one of my favorite things I've ever heard. And he's the author of Transcending Trauma. You guys should go get that book and you guys should share this show. It's the fastest growing show on planet Earth

for a reason because we change people's lives every week by bringing you the best of the best. And Dr. Frank Anderson certainly fits that description. Frank, thank you for being with us here today. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. It was awesome. Thank you for feeling what you're doing. I'm going to keep doing it brother. And I hope you're part of it. You're part of the solution. And I want to have you back. I know that we're going to do this again. So, hey, everybody, please share this. And I just want to tell you all God blessed you and max out your lives. This is the end mileage, shall. you