The One You Feed - How to Uncover the Path to Self-Discovery and Healing with Dr. Sara Kuberic

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

In this episode, Dr. Sara Kuburic explores ways to uncover the path to self-discovery and healing. She offers a compelling perspective on the topic of embracing personal responsibility for healing. Drawing from her own transformative journey and experience as a therapist, Sara brings a depth of insight and understanding to the complexities of healing and self-discovery. In this episode, you will be able to: Explore how to overcome traumatic childhood experiences for personal growth and healing Understand the self-discovery process to unlock your true potential and live authentically Embrace personal responsibility for healing to create a fulfilling and empowered life Discover the impact of inauthentic self-expression and how it affects your well-being Learn how to navigate life’s choices and consequences with confidence and clarity To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

people will come to me and be like, Sarah, what is the right choice? Should I do this or should I do that? You know, all the time. And obviously I don't make the choices for them. And I go, the right choice is the choice you want to take responsibility for. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back

and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr. Sarah Kubrick, an existential psychotherapist, co-founder of the Phenomenological Society, a speaker, essayist, columnist, and consultant. Today, Eric and Sarah discuss her book, It's On Me, Accept Hard Truths, Discover Yourself, and Change Your Life.

Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you. We're going to be discussing your book, It's On Me, Accept Hard Truths, Discover Yourself, and Change Your Life, which I love that phrase, it's on me. But before we get into that, we'll start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild. They say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love.

And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. It's such a lovely, simple, yet thoughtful and provocative parable. To me, it represents that we all contain multitudes, that we can literally be anything. And although that's an inspirational concept, I think that's

also a scary one. If you feed the wrong wolf, you will become someone you don't like or someone you don't recognize. And honestly, from kind of my clinical experience and research experience, it made me immediately think about my doctoral studies where I was speaking with individuals who have committed infidelity. And it was fascinating because one of the sentences that kept reoccurring was, I never thought I could possibly do something like that. And it's such an interesting sort of concept that we are all possible of pretty much anything. What a scary thing to really think about. And that's what he makes me think of. We are possible of anything. Nothing is unobtainable almost. And you have to be really, really selective about the choices that you make in life. Yeah. That brings me to one of the key points that I got through the book.

And I think you express really, really well. And it's an existentialist idea, meaning we are completely free to do whatever we want. You could say that, well, you're not free to do that. You know, you're not free to go 100 miles an hour on the highway, but you actually are. You just may not want to deal with the consequences. actually are. You just may not want to deal with the consequences. But with that freedom comes, in many cases, a real anxiety and an overwhelmingness because we have to figure it all out. Yeah. I think we all want freedom. If I ask someone on the street, do you want to be free? They would say, yeah, absolutely. But what I see in my clinical work all the time is that people surrender freedom. They surrender freedom to institutions, to frameworks, to worldviews,

to their community, to their family, to their culture, whatever it is. And part of that is obviously wanting to belong. And the other part of that is just wanting someone to give us a script and tell us exactly how to do things. Even if we're unhappy, we would rather be unhappy than ultimately have the anxiety that comes with the freedom. And so although freedom sounds really nice, deep down, I don't believe most people want it. I think it's incredibly difficult and scary. And that's something that we don't talk about, the fact that we accidentally give our freedom away. So something I'm going to be doing a little more often is ask you, the listener,

to reflect on what you're hearing. We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but only if combined with action and integration. So before we move on, I'd like to ask you, what's coming up for you as you listen to this? Are there any things you're currently doing that are feeding your bad wolf that might make sense to remove? Or any things you could do to feed your good wolf that you're not currently doing? So if you have the headspace for it, I'd love if you could just pause for a second and ask yourself, what's one thing I could do today or tonight to feed my good wolf? Whatever your thing is, a really useful strategy can be having something external, a prompt or a friend or a tool that regularly nudges you back towards

awareness and intentionality. For the past year, I've been sending little good wolf reminders to some of my friends and community members. Just quick little SMS messages two times per week that give them a little bit of wisdom and remind them to pause for a second and come off autopilot. If you want, I can send them to you too. I do it totally for free and people seem to really love them. Just drop your information at oneufeed.net slash SMS and I can send them to you. It's totally free and if you end up not liking the little reminders, you can easily opt out. That's oneufeed.net slash you end up not liking the little reminders, you can easily opt out. That's OneYouFeed.net slash SMS.

And now back to the episode. Right. We accidentally give it away. And I think there is a place for intentionally giving it away. Absolutely. Give it away is maybe not the word that I would use. Give it away is maybe not the word that I would use, but by intentionally choosing to put some constraint in our life can make us actually, at least my experience, is almost feel more free. Because this is sort of a trivial example of it, but if I wake up on a day off and I have absolutely nothing planned and no idea what I'm going to do, I actually struggle because the whole time I'm like, should I do this or should I do

that? Or what about this? And it's just, I don't like it. But the minute that I, that I put some structure in there, I'm like, okay, well, you know what? At 10, you're going to go take a walk. And then at three, you'll go to the grocery. As soon as I put a little bit of structure in, I suddenly feel more free to actually be. I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict. And there was a phrase we used to use, which was the structure liberates. So I think what we're trying to get at here is how do you know in what cases you are giving your freedom away? And in what cases

is that a decision you want to make versus an unintentional autopilot way of doing it? Yeah, no, I loved your example. Structure is, I think, the cure for this anxiety of freedom. And I think as long as the structure is intentional, so you made those choices, you decided to go to a store at three and you decided that you were going to work out a 10. And that was a very deliberate choice. I think you can create your own structure. I think what, and let's take it to a different example, is a lot of people think, what if you are religious, for example, and this is something that a lot of philosophers, existentialists have, they have things to say about it. And I don't think that they have to be mutually exclusive. I don't think that religion within itself has to take away your

freedom. I think it takes away your freedom when you didn't consciously choose it, when it became autopilot, when it was something that was purely just passed down to you and you never had a moment to go, does this align? Is this something I want to implement? How am I going to choose to implement it? It's not so much that a structure has to impose. It's that when we become passive in this structure and don't ever reevaluate, don't ever question, don't ever decide within it that I think it becomes an issue. And, you know, religion is not the only thing. It's education, it's culture, it's family system. So as long as there is a moment of discernment, I think we can happily live within structures

and not feel like that imposed on our freedom. Yeah. So I want to start kind of at the beginning with you and a little bit of your story, because I think it's relevant to where we're going to go. And the first place is you say, by the age of nine, I had survived the Bosnia and Kosovo War.ian war started and we moved to Serbia. A couple years later, the NATO bombings occurred and it was a very fascinating childhood. I wouldn't say I have a lot of memories from my childhood, but I have enough and I would say the most salient memories are definitely those of kind of wartime. And I think it really skewed my perception of humanity. I think it made me very curious, but it made me very scared of humans. I think it really made me distrusting. It was a fascinating thing to live through. Instead of being a child that was playful and trying to explore and express, I think I went into self-protection mode and I saw all the adults do the same. And so it really

changed the way that I functioned up to my 20s. And I didn't even realize. And part of the reason I didn't realize it is because so many people I was close with survived the exact same thing. And we normalized it. The first time I realized it wasn't normal to have spent nights in bomb shelters was when I was sitting in front of my therapist in my 20s. And I just kind of made like a passing comment about it. And she's like, wait, what? She had to highlight and point out that, you know, this isn't a common experience for many. And this is difficult. And it's not something that should be normalized to the extent that I was normalizing it. And so it was a very

unique childhood, but I think it really made me sort of see the darkness of humanity really, really early on. Yeah. And your book to a large degree is about discovering yourself. You actually use that phrase very specifically, which we will get to. And it also starts off with it's on me, meaning it's my responsibility. And so I'd love to talk a little bit and using that background as a starting place, right? Because that's a traumatic childhood. Yes. Yeah. I think we throw that word around a lot these days, but by any objective measure, that's a traumatic childhood. And so I'd love to understand the process for you

in which you owned that you were able to recognize the effects that it had had on you, but you were also at the same time able to recognize it was entirely your responsibility to heal from that. Talk about the journey to get there. Yeah. I think for the longest time, I didn't want to admit that it impacted me, which now as we're talking about it, objectively is a very traumatizing experience. And I think the reason I didn't want to admit that it impacted me is because I felt like that was a failure. As silly as that sounds, it's like, I must not be a strong enough person to, you know, not be able to handle that. That means that they got the best of me, whoever that they in my head was at the time. And look at them, they still have this impact on me two decades later. And I think that really scared me and that felt like a failure on my part and that felt like a victory on their part. And I think for a long time, I didn't want to realize that the consequences were there. And I think once I did, the question of now what came up real quick.

And I could have used that as an excuse to act in many ways. as an excuse to act in many ways. But I think the suffering up to that point was already so strong that all I wanted was to get better. And instead of going, okay, well, now I can use this and justify all the things I wanted to do and never did, potentially, I just went, now what? Okay, that was really crappy. That was not my fault. I was the victim in that context. How do I show up in a way that I won't hate my life so much anymore? And I knew that the only way to do that was to actually start being present. For me, I would say responsibility saved my life. So it sounds like you went through this when when did you guys leave and you came to the States or Canada, Canada, Canada? Yeah, yeah. Nine. I was nine. Okay. So it sounds like from

nine for a while on you just sort of like, I'm just gonna put that in the rearview mirror. I'm not gonna let it impact me. Because like you said, it feels like that someone else is one then and I'm strong. And you carried on and then you hit a point where you had a sort of a breakdown. Describe that. Yeah. So I was in grad school at the time, learning to be a therapist and I was married. I was part of the community. I was doing really well in grad school and I feel like I was getting patted on the back by society, truly. And he was like, wow, what an example. And, you know, I'd have friends be like, if only, you know, I had my shit together like you.

And it was so fascinating to me because I would have like panic attacks in my car and they would be saying these things to me. And I was like, I really don't wish that upon you. And there was a point in my 20s when right before the panic attacks happened, I was having a drink with a friend and he asked me a super simple question. He just said, are you happy? Because we haven't seen each other for a while. We haven't seen each other since graduating college. And he's like, you're doing all these amazing things, but are you happy? And I think no one's asked me that. Truly. I think people will

go, oh my gosh, you must be happy. There was an expectation. There was an imposition. And you're not going to be like, no, actually, I'm not. For the most part, you'll be like, yeah, of course, things are so great. And as someone who came from my background, I felt so ungrateful not loving my current life. I felt like I should just cherish it. Like, wow, I was in Vancouver. I was in grad school. Like so many people don't get these opportunities. What is wrong with me? And he asked me this question. And until that point, I think my defenses were up. And I think it's the moment where I couldn't cope anymore. And I don't know if you've experienced that point, I think my defenses were up. And I think it's the moment where I couldn't cope anymore. And I don't know if you've experienced that moment, but it's like the straw that broke

the camel's back. And he asked me this question and I started just crying in this restaurant bar. And until that point, I haven't really cried in front of anyone. I haven't really shown emotion in front of anyone. I was very private. I was very detached from my emotions. And I remember stumbling into the bathroom to gather myself and looking in a mirror and not recognizing the person I was looking at. She looked hollow. She didn't feel like she represented me. And I think the worst part of it is that I genuinely hated her. Like I looked at

her and I went, I hate you. This is all your fault. And then the next day, actually after that experience, I was like, amazing, profound. You know, I was training to be a therapist. I was like, this must be one of those life-changing moments, but like, wow, I did it. It's over. And I like went to my hotel room, ordered a burrito and watched Friends and was like patting myself on the back that like the worst is over. Nope. It was only the next day that I like, no, yeah, it just got so much worse for years after that. I had my first panic attack the next morning on a flight. I think it's kind of fascinating to reflect on it now that even when my body was starting to show me signs like something's not okay, I still was in denial. And then I had a panic attack and I was still in denial. Like the denial was so strong for such a long time that I did not want to admit that I was unhappy and that I didn't want my life. And then that took months before I fully quote unquote crashed and then was like, what now? So to some degree, you chose that life,

right? You chose to go to college. You chose to go to grad school for psychology. You're still in that field today, right? So what was it about that life that felt so profoundly wrong? Because it's different than your life now, but it's not like you went from being a psychologist to a deep sea diver, right? You know, where you just like completely like, I just was in the wrong thing, man. So what was it looking back that you think felt so wrong? Yeah, that's such a good question. No one's actually asked me that. It wasn't that things themselves were wrong. It was that my relationship to those things were wrong. And it's kind of fascinating. It's the fact that I made choices based on what I thought I should do rather than what I actually wanted to do.

The only thing that remained from that time in my life is psychology. Okay. And I think there was a deep level of shame that I was going through this while learning how to help others because I felt like I was so broken. How could I possibly be abused to anyone? But my friendships at the time, I would say 99% of them, my marriage, all of those things ended. And I think relationships are a really important part of our life. I think they are enough to make you not like your life if they're not right.

And I think I kept choosing relationships with people who wouldn't see me because I didn't want to be seen. And I think I didn't want to be seen because I didn't know who I was and I was scared what they would find. And it's not that I am blaming any of those types of relationships that I had with people from platonic to romantic during my 20s. It's more that I just kept choosing individuals that would maintain my self-preservation. And it really is hard to have a genuine connection with people when you're not authentic. And so I think I was unhappy about relationships mostly. And then the relationship with myself was the biggest thing I was unhappy about.

So a lot of the book is talking about something that you call self-loss, which you say is our failed responsibility to be ourself. So talk to me a little bit about what self-loss is and what the process is. And then we can move from there into starting to, and I'm going to use your word again here, discover ourselves. Yeah. Self-loss to me is not just inauthenticity. And inauthenticity to me is knowing what is right and not doing it, not listening to that inner voice. And the difference, I have kind of a metaphor I use in the book is when you're diving, you can tell I've never done that, but when you're diving, when you're inauthentic, you're like, okay,

the surface is up there. And I know exactly how far off I am. And like, I will swim in the dark, but I am pretty sure that when I need to take my next breath, I can reach the surface and take a breath of life and feel this alness, feel the sense of self. Amazing. When you're lost, it's like you started to swim, you got disoriented, there was a riptide, whatever it is. And now you go, I'm completely into darkness. I'm running out of air.

I need to swim to the surface. But I don't know which direction the surface is. I don't know when I'm going to take my next breath. And that was the experience of being lost of like, I don't know how I'm going to keep myself alive. And I don't know where my next breath of life is going to come from. And there are no indicators. There is no glimmering light that is like pointing me way to my way home, you know, because because you're always like listen to your inner self that quiet voice it will guide you back and i love it but what if you don't hear the voice and to me that is self-loss I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a space walk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly

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and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I have lots of thoughts on hearing that interior voice, and I love that analogy. So if we're

talking about self-loss, what is the thing that we lose? When you say self, what do you mean? Yeah. So the least sexy definition of self of all time, it is not your inner child. It is not some profound spiritual awakening. To me, the self is a accumulation, a combination of choice, freedom, and responsibility. And the self is constantly fluid, constantly changing, constantly evolving. It's a process of being, of becoming. And so when I say you lose yourself, you lose the ability of sensing that freedom. You lose sight of that

responsibility. You lose connection with those choices. And then you stop creating the self. And if you don't create the self, it doesn't exist without you, which I think we can get into the discovery versus finding. But if the self is perpetually created and you stop creating, that's why you lose. The nothingness of being essentially is what remains. Is it possible though, I'm not debating that self-loss in the way you're describing it is a thing. But if our self is something that is constantly being created by our choices, largely, and the freedom, maybe we're not acknowledging it, but it's inherent in that we're choosing. I mean, aren't we creating a self at all times to some degree? Isn't there an element of the fact that we are continuing to make choices now how out of alignment they are with this thing we want to call self is we're still creating this thing as it goes. there is a part of ourself that might be behind some of those freedom choices and responsibilities,

meaning it's the conditioning that we have picked up as our life has gone on. What I choose to be responsible about or the actions or choices that I make is coming from the fact that I've had a suite of experiences that have brought me to this point. So that wasn't even a very well-formed question, any part of it, but I'm going to pass it back. Great question. I love it. Okay. There's so much in there. I'm like, oh my God. So the first point is an excellent one. You're always creating a sense of self, always. And either that's going to be an authentic sense of self, which I call the capital S. And what makes that different is that your decisions align with your morals, your ethics,

your values. They also represent the way you see yourself and who you want to become. So it's a little more complex than just like you make a choice that like feels right. Yay. There's a lot in there, right? And then if you keep going, because I almost see it as like, you're constantly moving forward. There is no middle ground. You're always either being authentic or inauthentic. Inauthenticity is when you're not aligning with your morals or values or expressing yourself in the way that you see yourself or not going towards the person you want to become. It is not that sense of home.

It is not that sense of resonance. And I think you end up creating a very inauthentic sense of self. And if you push far enough, you might feel self-loss. But I think a lot of people spend a lot of their time in the inauthentic self. It's not that they don't have a self. They just don't have the self they like or that resonates or that truly represents their values, ethics, and so on. So I hope that that answers the question. from what I understand, and I'm not going to speak for all existentialists worldwide, is not that there's no limitation to freedom. We all have limits. Freedom comes with limits. I cannot be taller than I am. I cannot have different birth parents than I do. I cannot change anything that's happened to me in the past. So there is limitations to how we were raised, to what has happened to us. That being said, I think the freedom of choice still remains. And that's something that people can debate and do debate.

Now, are you more likely to do things because they were modeled to you because you were exposed to a certain environment? Absolutely. Does it mean though, that when you have that consciousness and awareness of those patterns that you can't change them? I would say you can. And so I think the cool thing about the self is it's like the necessities, the givens, which is the limitations and the possibility. This is something so many philosophers speak about and the possibility is cool. I think it was Kierkegaard who said, you can't look in a mirror and go, this is who I am. You can look in a mirror and go, this is who I am right now in this very moment. And that

just alludes to the fact that you're perpetually becoming. And I don't think that our past defines our future. I would be very sad if that was true. And I think I would have a very hard time practicing as a psychotherapist. I do think it informs, I think it gives us hurdles, but I still think that we are responsible. If there is a cycle, if there is things that have happened to us and impacted us to a degree, whatever degree is possible, it is our responsibility to fight it. And sometimes we can and sometimes we can't, but all we can do is show up for ourselves. Yeah, I agree with everything you have said there. I think that choices are constrained, but there's always a choice. Within whatever those constraints are, there always is some degree of choice. I mean, I don't know if he would be considered an existentialist thinker,

right? But I think that's why Viktor Frankl's work is so inspiring, because he was showing that even in a situation like a concentration camp where literally all freedom more or less had been taken from him, he still had some. He still had some choice in the midst of that. So I believe we always have some degree of choice, but there are different constraints. I think what I'm driving at more, and it's probably because I'm working on a book and I'm fighting with this chapter. And I'm talking about the idea of motivational complexity, meaning there's lots of things going on inside of us, lots of different things we want, different things that we think we might value. And trying to figure out which of those are mine and which of those are imposed from the outside, I think is a tricky business, right? Because even the ones that I think are mine, again, didn't arise in a vacuum.

It's almost as if I'm going through all the different things that I could choose and picking which ones most resonate with who I think I want to be. Is it really just kind of that simple? Am I overcomplicating this? I mean, I'm sure if you asked therapists, many therapists would have many different responses. As an existential therapist, I would say I think life is arbitrary. I think the one idea that I had to unlearn is that there was a wrong and right way to live your life,

or that there was just a wrong and right way to do anything. Obviously, within reasons, I'm not talking about like harming individuals. What I'm talking about here is like, okay, so maybe some of your motivations came from here or there or your past or things that weren't so great, or maybe they were modeled by the most amazing individuals in your life. I don't know if it fully matters. I do think sometimes it's truly as simple as like, which do I want to keep carrying? Which ones are the building blocks of who I become? Do they resonate with my sense of morality that I have right now? And I think it's just about choosing who you want to be in that moment. Some will not agree. I think to myself, like, why did I want to become a therapist? Did that come

from some deep rooted trauma? Did it come because I saw a therapist on TV and was like, wow, they're really successful. I don't know. Did I think it was just so cool to have a cozy office? What was it? And I think at some point, the initial reason might not matter. What matters is for you to know your reasoning now, to know your why now, to know your meaning right now. And I think that meaning and reasoning is also going to evolve and that's okay. Yeah, I think that's a really great way of simplifying, which is I can get lost in trying to go, what's the real me in all this versus just sort of, as you said, like, this is my best guess as of right now, right? With what I can

see, an analogy just came to mind, which is in 12-step programs, there's something called step four, where you sort of reflect, they call it a searching and fearless moral inventory, which basically means you're looking at what things have happened in your past that have become who you are. And you're largely looking for things that are going to get in your way. And people will always be really worried and say, well, what if I'm missing something? really worried and say, well, what if I'm missing something? And my answer always was, if you can't remember it, it's probably not what's eating your lunch enough right now that it's going to cause you to pick up a drink. More may be revealed. But today, don't sweat that

because you can't see it. And it's not the thing that's causing you so much angst that you're drinking. And so I think applying that to what you said, more may be revealed. There may be hidden motivations and underlying things that I don't yet understand. And I am defined by my freedom choices and responsibility. And so I'm going to have to make those. What's the best version of those I can make today based on what I know about myself today? Yeah, I love that so much. What a great summary.

Now I say people will come to me and be like, Sarah, what is the right choice? Yeah. Should I do this or should I do that? You know, all the time. And obviously I don't make the choices for them. And I go, the right choice is the choice you want to take responsibility for. Wow, that's a great answer. The choice you're willing to take responsibility for. Wow, that's a great answer. The choice you're willing to take responsibility for.

That to me is the ultimate choice. And so that's how I answer that question. The one that you want to take responsibility for. That's great because I get partway there, which is I'm always like, well, there isn't a right choice, right? You just make the best one you can. And there's going to be some good things about it. And there's going to be some less good things. And if you've chosen that, there's going to be

some good things and less good things. And we'll never know the difference. Make the best choice you can make. But I love that idea of framing it as the one that you could take responsibility for or that you're willing to take responsibility for. Yeah. And I think sometimes my hesitation with some of the mainstream psychology concepts that have become so popular is that there's so much emphasis on the past to help the person, I think, understand why they are in the place that they are, which I mean, that is so helpful and so needed. But if that's all you do, that's not the full work. At that point, that is just the springboard. That is just the foundation from which now you go, okay, now I make choices, responsibility. Now I do all these things. And so

I think we forget that we go, and here's how we define you because of all the things that have happened to you. And we stop. And I actually think that's really disempowering to individuals because that's not their full story. Right. Well, it's a lovely idea that if I could just understand why I am the way I am, that I would simply stop being that person. That's a lovely idea. It falls into the category of three steps to perfect abs, right? Because it gets us to the point where you're right. You still have

to then, with your new knowledge, be conscious enough to keep choosing the thing that you want to choose. And it's going to be hard to choose it, very possibly, because it goes against the grain of what you've chosen so many times before. Absolutely. I love so much of your work because it really gets to this core idea of, this is the phrase I wanted to find, small meaningful decisions reveal who we are more than big existential questions. And that's kind of what we're talking about here, right? This is a different version of that, which is, I may know that I'm the way I am because of these things that happened in my childhood, but it's the small

meaningful decisions that I make that are actually going to reverse that chain of events, not just knowing about it. Absolutely. And I think we want to categorize things. We want very static goals. And what I mean by that is also like, we want one meaning. We want there to be this answer of like, who am I? And it's like this clear answer. We want like, what is my meaning of life? If you want the clear answer. And what I'm saying here is like, stop seeking for those big answers. Answer it by the way you live your life. Because I always say the answer to who am I is never verbal. Whenever I do this activity with people, no one can answer the question, who am I without listing hobbies,

roles, relationship status. And that is not who you are. The answer to who am I can only be shown by the way you live your life. That is it. And that's what I'm talking about. It's like that being proactive, choosing meaningful things every single day. And at the end of your life, I think you're going to be able to answer the question of like, what was my meaning of life? And why am I here? More so than sitting here and being like, why am I here? What am I meant to do? What is the one thing that's going to make me feel super fulfilled from 20 to 60? And honestly, I think if your meaning doesn't change and evolve with who you are, you're probably not actually being aligned with your meaning. Because I think meaning is very tightly associated and linked with

your sense of identity. So what was really meaningful to you when you were 20 is probably going to change when you're 40. And so I think we're so scared of the undefined, the fluid. And so I think we're so scared of the undefined, the fluid. And we really try to, as you said, like find these concrete answers and kind of be rigid in our existence when I think existence is a bit absurd and chaotic and messy. And that's the point of it. And it's finding beauty and structure within all of that that I think makes us feel really empowered and like ourselves. So listener, consider this your halfway through the episode integration reminder.

Remember, knowledge is power, but only if combined with action and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause and reflect. What's your one big insight so far, and how can you put it into practice in your life? Seriously, just take a second, pause the audio, and reflect. It can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop and be present, can't it? If you want to keep this momentum going that you built with this little exercise, I'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with insightful little prompts and wisdom from podcast guests. They're a nice little nudge to stop and be present in your life, and they're a helpful way to not get lost in the busyness and

forget what is important. You can join at oneufeed.net slash SMS, And if you don't like them, you can get off the list really easily. So far, there are over 1,172 others from the One You Feed community on the list, and we'd love to welcome you as well. So head on over to oneyoufeed.net slash SMS, and let's feed our good wolves together. In essence, you just sort of said a minute ago that what we do shows who we are. I believe that to a certain degree. And there's an idea in psychology, a theory that's called revealed preferences, meaning that if you show what you do, I can tell you what you value. But I'm not sure I agree with that.

And I'll tell you why. Let's go back 15 years. And I was drinking at that point. And I had a son, and I would pick him up from school, I would take him to soccer practice, and then I would go have two or three drinks at the bar. Now, that's a terrible thing to do, right? I had all kinds of justifications for it, right? So on one level, yes, it showed that on some level I was valuing getting drunk over my son's well-being. So on one level, that is true. And yet, I don't think that's who I was.

I think that was an aberration of who I was that was being caused by my inability for a host of reasons, a complex syndrome of reasons that manifested in addiction. So talk to me about this relationship between like, the way I'm acting doesn't feel like the person I want to be. If I look at my actions, I would conclude that I'm a terrible person. But that may not be the case. Talk to me about reconciling those things. Wow. Yeah. Such a good question. So let's say that I yelled at my partner today, which I did. Let's say that I did. And I have the logic of how you showed up in the moment is who you are. And I also understand the backstory of why I may have yelled at my partner. Okay. So all of these things are present. I would say that in that moment of yelling at my partner, there is no other self because self has to be expressed. And yet I was expressing an inauthentic self.

Okay. You know, I think it's important to know that there is no self without expression because otherwise it's just thoughts. And I think we're often startled by who we think we are versus what our actions show us. Now, I think addiction is a little bit of a tricky topic in terms of this. And we can, you know, we can circle back to addiction in particular, especially if we're talking about free will. But I think what happens oftentimes is we don't want to admit to ourselves that, yeah, that is who I am in this moment. I'm not saying this is who I am all the time. Overall, I'm saying this is who I am in this moment. And let me tell you, I do not like the person I am in this moment. I think if the self is not expressed, it's not truly the self, in my opinion.

That being said, I think we express inauthentically a lot of the time. And so being able to go like, hey, this is how I am showing up. This is how I'm expressing. It does not feel authentic, but I can't pretend it's not how I'm showing up in the world. It is the only expression I am putting out there and it's one I don't like. Okay. So how do I change that? I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal?

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or wherever you get your podcasts. podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's an interesting idea that the only self that actually exists is the one that is expressing in that moment. It's so weird because we can look at things like, I might snap at my partner because I'm hungry. Totally. Yeah. Snickers has done a great job of making these hilarious commercials. You know, there's one where Godzilla is like playing volleyball and going to a party and then he gets hungry and he starts rampaging through cities and you give him a Snickers bar and he's back to good times Godzilla. And so you recognize that even these very basic physiological things by what you're

saying, those are part of the self that is expressing. Is that the way you would say it? Is that those things are part of that self in that moment? In that moment, yeah. And in that moment, you can recognize that you didn't feed yourself when you first had the cue of hunger. Or maybe you have a really bad headache, which isn't your fault. And you realize that your expression is encompassing the physiological pain. Now, it's not your fault that you're in pain, but you're expressing it. And maybe you're disappointed with yourself. And that means you can give yourself some grace because you know you have this pain. But how is it not you is my question.

In what other alternate reality do you exist? How is it not you? Is my question. Yeah. In this sense of all of this being an ongoing process, which you refer to in lots of different ways, which I really like, you say that most of us are hoping for a one-time journey of discovery rather than a lifetime of responsibility. Say more about that. Yeah. I think we all hope that one day we're going to journal or walk out of a therapy session or put down a self-help book and be like, I get it. This is me. This is it. And I truly, truly wish that was the answer. I wish my book can do that. I wish you just like walked away and be like, I have it forever. I'm done. I'm cured. This is the promise. And I couldn't make that promise in my book. I couldn't. And I think it's because what we want is an answer, but what we truly get is a lifetime

of responsibility. I think that's what my book gave you was like a lifetime of responsibility that hopefully will feel empowering and meaningful. But that's all it is, is life is thousands, millions, trillions of decisions that you're responsible for. Yeah. That will create who you are. It's probably why I liked it so much, right? Because it doesn't offer easy answers. And I'm

always suspicious of easy answers. Yeah, me too. I don't think they're real because life isn't easy and it is this ongoing challenge. And so talk about how can we embrace that in a way that feels empowering versus feeling overwhelmed by it? Yeah, I think we're going to feel both. I think we're going to feel empowered and overwhelmed by it. And I think as long as we know what to expect, it's okay.

It won't make us feel like we're doing something wrong. And I think the biggest issue is the way we see responsibility as a society. Like I used to think responsibility was about blaming. It's like, who's taking the blame for this one? It's not me. And I think there's such a big distinction there of my relationship to responsibility really had to change before I was willing to embrace it. And I think there's such a big distinction there of my relationship to responsibility really had to change before I was willing to embrace it. And I went, responsibility means I am free. And that is so, so liberating to me. I think it's empowering.

If I had no freedom to change my life, I would not be responsible for it. You're not going to yell at a pilot because a cake got destroyed at a bakery. Like he was not baking it. He was not there. Like he had nothing to do with it. Like it makes no sense. But you are probably going to make the person who baked the cake bake it again because they were responsible for it not working out or they were responsible for it not, I don't know, coming out the right way. And so, that's my thing of like when we feel responsible, it's interesting to go, ha, where's my freedom? Where is my participation? Okay, cool. How can I empower myself and make this a pivot towards making a decision I want, being a little closer to who I want to be.

And so I think you can't have freedom without responsibility and you can't have responsibility without freedom. And I think just combining those two makes responsibility an easier pill to swallow and then just realizing that it sucks. Like there is no way, like of course it sucks that you have to be responsible for the reason you said something or did something or your email is late. Like, of course, no one loves it. But it is also the reason why you get to create yourself. And I think that that's really cool. Yeah. It is one of those things that on one hand can feel overwhelming, but on the other hand, the flip side of it is

also an awful feeling. When you feel like you have to do something, that is an awful feeling. I think often about how for a lot of us, we get to feeling awful because we keep thinking we have to do things. And it goes back to what you originally said. It wasn't necessarily the things in your life, although that was part of it. It was your relationship to those things. And I think that in our day-to-day life, we have this relationship to things. Things that we did choose, we now think are have-tos. And when we can recognize that we did choose it.

That's so powerful. And I'm choosing to do it again. I don't have to do this with my children. I'm choosing to do it because it matters to me. I don't have to go to work today. I'm choosing to go to work today because of these things. It's a very liberating feeling. It gives you back a sense of agency. Yeah. Oh, I love that. And I think it's when choices get perceived as obligation. I see this for relationships and marriage all the time. It becomes something you have to do. It's an obligation.

You chose to get married. And I always say your relationship is a daily, daily choice. It is a daily choice. And that is the only way to preserve it being a free, safe space for you. Otherwise, it's none of these things. And otherwise, you don't actually feel of these things and otherwise you don't actually feel that responsible for it because you don't feel like you really have the freedom to be in it or not or how to be in it or not and so i think it's really important to keep reintroducing

of like just because you made the same choice over and over and over and over again does not mean it stopped being a choice you You stopped seeing it as a choice. Yes. But the choice still remains. So I am in a relationship and I choose that I want to be in it. But there may be things within that broad choice that I don't really necessarily always want to do. How do we frame up this sort of momentary passing things that come through us, these desires or whatever to act in a certain way? So honoring the fact that we continue to make choices, but not living only in a sense of like, I'm just doing

what I feel like doing right now. I think choices come with responsibility. So not profound, consequences. Also choices come with consequences. So if you're going to choose to be in a monogamous relationship, you might not love that every day. You might not love that when you have an attraction with someone, but your choice came with consequences, which was limitation of freedom. Now you ultimately have the choice to walk away if you want to. That's still technically there. But if you want to honor your initial choice, you're going to have to handle the consequences of not pursuing something that maybe you want to pursue. So, I think we just have to always go back to what was the initial choice and what are

all the consequences that come, which might take away some other choices. When you make one choice, other choices get taken away. So how do you balance that and which one do you take responsibility for? It's not so much, I think authenticity has also gone a bad rep where it's like, what feels good? What do I want to do in this moment? And it's like, that's not what we're talking about. That's not really the definition of authenticity.

It's like, well, I just wanted to sleep with this person. He felt right. It's like, that must have been super authentic. It's like, what? And if you look at Heidegger, Martin Heidegger, who's a philosopher who coined the term authenticity, the literal translation is to own oneself, ownness. What does that sound like? Ownership. Yeah. Ownership and showing up in a way that you said you would, that feels aligned. And so for me, I think we just forget that one choice eliminates others and you just have to commit to a choice that you're making, even if all the little consequences don't always tickle your fancy and don't always allow you to express

every desire and drive and curiosity that you have. I love that. I had lots of thoughts on when you earlier were talking about like, just go with your gut and you just sort of hit it there. Like it just felt right. You know, it just felt right to cheat on my wife. So as a former addict, I have a certain lens on the world, but I can tell you that every time I got high on some level, it felt very right.

It also felt very wrong, which is why I'm like, well, I'm just not sure that I'm like a trust your gut all the time kind of person, unless you've cultivated that thing. Yes. Yes. Thank you. No, I'm so glad we went back to that point. I think rightness is built. It's like you have earned the right to trust that feeling because that feeling has been aligned. Those decisions have been aligned. You will start to make decisions that honor who you are and who you want to be. And then you're going to have a sensation. And after you have that sensation enough times, you're going to be able to use it as part of your decision-making, not all of your decision-making. But I think you're going to get that sense of like rightness, that sense of home, that sense of I can live with myself. I can look at myself

in the mirror. I'm okay with that. It is not just like, wow, that feels so good. That is not what I mean by like, feels like home feels right. That feels good is not the same thing. So listener, in thinking about all that and the other great wisdom from today's episode, if you were going to isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what would it be? Not your top 10, not the top five, just one. What is it? Think about it. Got it? Now I ask you, what's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little thing you can do today to put it in practice? Or maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember, little by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change happens as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive heroic effort.

If you're not already on our Good Wolf Reminder SMS list, I'd highly recommend it as a tool you can leverage to remind you to take those vital baby steps forward. You can get on there at oneyoufeed.net slash SMS. It's totally free, and once you're on there, I'll send you a couple text messages a week with little reminders and nudges. Here's one I recently shared to give you an idea of the type of stuff I send. Keep practicing, even if it seems hopeless. Don't strive for perfection, aim for consistency, and no matter what, keep showing up for yourself. That was a great gem from recent guest Light Watkins. And if you're on the fence about joining, remember it's totally

free and easy to unsubscribe. If you want to get in, I'd love to have you there. Just go to oneufeed.net slash SMS. All right, back to it. I often think of it as it feels like, and I always make this hand gesture when I do it, it feels like internally things are aligned. Wow. It is a subtly good feeling. You know, it's not a like, ooh, you know, when that's not the case, my poor dog tore her ACL. And I didn't know this until recently. But basically what the ACL does is it keeps your fibula and tibia from doing this, like

basically going opposite directions from each other. When that happens inside of us, it feels really lousy. And we know that, right? So that internal alignment, again, subtle, but really to me, one of the best feelings in life. Yeah. It's almost like it clicks. I don't know if you have ever like something that clicks and it's like a satisfying, you're like, ah, it clicked into place and you're like your phone case or something. You're like, you're like, ah. And I think I like that you emphasize the fact that it is not a thrill or excitement necessarily.

It's satisfaction, I think, is the closest sort of feeling that I would come to contentment. It's like you're not going to sometimes like what comes out of this alignment. You might be like, shoot, I have to apologize. You're not going to always feel excited when there is that alignment in your decision, but you're going to feel that satisfaction of being authentic. And that's almost like that click that happens. You're like, ah, and then it helps you deal with all the other stuff that comes to the consequence.

Yeah. So I think that is a great place for us to wrap up. I could talk to you for much longer, and I am going to get the chance to talk to you for a little longer in our post-show conversation. Listeners, if you'd like access to the post-show conversation, to ad-free episodes, all sorts of other good things, and to be part of what we're doing here and join our community, go to oneufeed.net slash join. Sarah, thank you so much. This has really been a treat. Thank you so much for having me. It was such a fun conversation and you really got me to think about a lot of things in a very interesting way. So thank you. You're welcome.

If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.