The One You Feed - Scott Gornto

Episode Date: July 14, 2015

This week we talk to Scott Gornto about the stories we tell ourselvesR. Scott Gornto, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Sex Therapist and Expert on Relationships and Personal Development. Scott works with Individuals, Couples, Families, Groups and Businesses. His recent book is called: The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Stop Jumping to Conclusions. Free Yourself from Anxiety. Transform Your Relationships Our sponsor this week is Casper Mattress. Click here to get $50 off (use promo code: oneyoufeed) For more show notes visit our websiteSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know, if I can't control my anxiety, then I'm going to try to control my external environment. 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 No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Scott Gorto, a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified sex therapist, and expert on relationships and personal development. Scott works with individuals, couples, families, groups, and businesses. He is the author of The Stories We Tell Ourselves and a frequent Huffington Post contributor.

Here's the interview. Hi, Scott. Welcome to the show. Great. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. I'm happy to have you on. Your book is called The Stories We Tell Ourselves. Stop jumping to conclusions, free yourself from anxiety, transform your relationships. And I'm really happy to have you because that's one of the things we talk about on the show a lot is the fact that we're always telling ourselves stories and that we have some degree of, of choice. So when I saw the title of your book, I was like, well, we've got to have this guy on as a guest, a whole book about this topic. So happy to have you. Let's start off with the parable. Um, our show is called

the one you feed and it's based on the parable of two wolves where there's a grandfather who's talking to his grandson. He says 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 grandson stops, and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather, and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather 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. That's great. I love that parable. You know, the first thing that comes to mind is the term duality, that we all have this internal duality inside of us around a number of things, whether it's, you know, I love my job and then there's another part of me that's frustrated with my job, right? Or I love my wife or my husband and there's another part of me that can't stand them, right? There's that internal duality that we face as human beings constantly. And I think in terms of the parable specifically, another piece that speaks to me around it is when I think about, you know, I do a lot of work with folks dealing with

trauma, early childhood trauma of some kind, whether it be abuse or, you know, some type of bullying or physical or emotional or sexual type abuse growing up or an event that took place and then going into adulthood and doing behavior that is addictive in nature, whether it's food or sexuality or drugs or alcohol or a number of different escapism, numbing behaviors. So these behaviors end up coming out in a variety of ways. And I think if we talk about that world, when we're talking about addiction in particular, whether you feed the addict or whether you feed the healthy part of you depends on what's going to grow and take over. And so

it kind of hits me on a couple different levels. One is the internal duality that we all face. There's two parts of us that wrestle with decisions in life. And when those decisions become more complex and the love and the hate are mixed together about 50% each, then the anxiety and the depression can kick in, right? But then on the addiction side, you know, that part of us that we feed different parts of us that are either unhealthy or healthy. So we have some choice in that. So it's just, it's a fantastic parable and concept. And you guys sound like you've got a great thing going there, so it's good. Well, thank you.

So your book is called The Stories We Tell Ourselves. Will you, for the listeners, describe what you mean when you say that? Yeah, you know, I think that our perception or the way that we view the world has a lot to do with our behavior. world has a lot to do with our behavior. So, you know, I think I like to think of, you know, a belief system is a group or a set of opinions we develop loyalty to over time. So if, you know, I believe or I create an opinion that my wife means X when, you know, by what she just said, or my boss gives me a look and I interpret that through my own lenses, my own perception, or if my friend doesn't text me back and it's been a day since I've texted or going on and on and on, right? 16-year-old daughter doesn't text when she's on her date with

her boyfriend and she's passed her curfew. And so we tell ourselves narratives. So there's these internal narratives that we play out. And I think that we have a tendency many times to tell ourselves more negative stories that end up not being true. In fact, most of us as human beings, and some people do it stronger than others and more intensity, but most of us as human beings, you know, we end up doing this quite a bit. And I would say a good 95% of the stories, maybe higher, don't ever come true. But we, we, we would tell ourselves these sort of anxious or anxiety ridden stories. And so that's a bit about, you know, the, the narrative, the story within the book, but that's what I mean when I talk about the stories we tell ourselves, these negative anxiety ridden stories that we make up

and create. Yeah. I think one of the things that one of the, one of the teachings that I learned that I think fundamentally changed me more than any other was, uh, the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron talks about drop the storyline and feel the emotion. And your book, your book talks an awful lot about that, about getting, um, more into your body out of your brain. Um, but one of the things that you said is that when we're writing the stories in our head, we are the screenwriter, the director, and the star of our own movie. Yes, yes. You know, if I create an internal narrative about a text I sent over to a friend and they've not responded, you know, I'm the star because it's about me. I'm not considering that they have another life, they have their their own life and maybe there's something else going on, right? They've got their family or they've got something else going on.

They forgot, right? But I'm the star. And then I'm producing it and directing it because I'm walking through the path in my brain of what's going on and making up a narrative. And like I said, most of the time it's not true. So, you know, what I love what you said earlier about dropping the storyline and feel the emotion. It is that's exactly what I'm trying to get at is that I'm I'm a real big believer on trying to pay attention to your internal experience. When you get into your head, I'm not talking about the anxious narrative of your brain. I'm talking about getting into your body a bit more. And so, you know, when we tell ourselves these negative anxiety-ridden stories, one of the things that we have to do is catch ourself doing it. And the other thing is that we catch ourself by noticing what we feel in our body.

The better we become aware of that, the more we can pull our brain back into our body and not let it float away somewhere and take us into fantasy land. And the fantasy is the movie, the script that we create over here, rather than living in real life with what we know to be true, what we know to be false, and actually having a conversation with the person. Yeah. And it's remarkable to me how much those stories, what they are, the content of them, um, really affects how we feel about a situation and how, if we get different information, we can feel dramatically different in the, um, I don't know if you ever read the seven habits of highly effective people. It's a book I love, but he tells a story, you know, Covey tells a story of being on a train with a couple of kids who are running all around on the subway, running all around the subway, just creating havoc, yelling, screaming, driving everybody crazy. And he's getting more

and more irritated. And he finally turns to the father and he says, sir, you know, you're, could you, you know, could you deal with your children? You know, everybody on the car is really upset. And the guy looks up at him and says, oh, I'm so sorry. You know, we just came from the hospital. We, we just lost their mother. And in that instant, everything changed for him. That's right. That's right. You know, his whole, everything he thought about that man, all the stories that he was telling himself changed. And I think that's a lot of what you are, you're stressing is if we can get away from whatever story we're making up and try and find out the reality. That's exactly it. I also think that there is something to be said about us telling ourself more positive stories. You know,

if I'm driving down the road and I cut somebody off on accident on the freeway and they pull up next to me and they decide to flip me off because they're angry, right? I can tell myself a story that I'm the bad guy. I could tell myself a story that that guy's had a bad right? I can tell myself a story that I'm the bad guy. I could tell myself a story that that guy's had a bad day. I could tell myself a lot of stories, but a positive story I might tell myself is, hey, you know what? Who knows what's going on in that guy's life, right? You know, he might be struggling, you know, who knows what situation he's in. And so if I'm able to live with a little bit of empathy and compassion rather than anger and revenge, talking about the duality there and those two parts of us, then perhaps I'm able to give that guy the benefit of the doubt. And many times in relationships, if we've been burned or if we've lost trust or if we've been wounded in our past or there's been a traumatic situation, there's a lot lot of things that influences certainly, but that we have a tendency to go more towards the negative. And,

you know, I wish it wasn't the case, but I think it is for most people. And like I said, some people do this more than others in terms of the intensity, you know, in terms of the negative narrative. So. Yeah. If you, if you recognize that you're making it up, um, narrative. So, yeah, if you, if you recognize that you're making it up, then you can choose to, to try and make it, you know, make it a little bit more positive. You say that, um, much of the pain in relationships can be traced back to the stories that we tell ourselves. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that, um, you know, think about, you know, I do a lot of work with couples in my practice as a therapist and, you know, practitioner, you know, working with folks dealing with a range of issues. And certainly, you know, these narratives that we play out are in the context of relationships.

I mean, you know, they aren't in isolation. They aren't in a vacuum. They're in the context of relationships. I mean, you know, if they aren't in isolation, they aren't in a vacuum, they're in the context of relationships. You know, each one of those stories that I shared earlier, the examples, the teenage daughter that's on a date, the boss who gives a certain look, you know, or the boss who sends an email at, you know, 3.30 on a Friday afternoon and says, we got to talk Monday morning, first thing, important news, you know, and the narrative you play yourself in your brain all weekend, right? These are stories that we play out from a not knowing when we don't have all the information, we tell ourselves stories, but we could even play that in terms of friendship or a dating or committed partnership. You know, I think

about with my own marriage, I'm married and, you know, my wife will say something and I'll commit to a certain opinion about what she meant by that. I'll jump to conclusions, react, get angry. So I've done all sorts of steps. I've digested what she said. I've developed some loyalty to a certain opinion. I've created a belief around that. I've solidified that belief. And then I've reacted all in about one second. And so if you break that down and you begin to think about, you know, how is this, you know, what's the context here? It's in the context of relationships. So much of the pain that we struggle with internally has to do, and this anxiety has to do with that, it's really in the context of relations. Because as human beings, we're relational people.

We are meant to be in some level of community, whether that's in a small group, a partnership, a friendship, a family, a community, something, a business that we're relational creatures. So that's what I mean by the pain is that we end up jumping to conclusions and living more in our head sometimes than we do actually engaging with the person and having a conversation. And here's the rest of the interview. You say that anxiety and ignorance are vacuums and our imagination rushes in to fill the space. So I think I think what you're saying is 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? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening?

Really, No Really. Yeah, really. No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com. 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. As people, we have a desire to understand what's happening, what something means. And if we don't know, we're going to fill it in. And you also say that assumptions wreak havoc in our relationship. So what are some things that we can do in those moments where we get something that sends us off into creating the stories? Maybe we don't have, let's maybe two situations. One would be, we can't go find out the truth right away. So what are some things like the example you gave?

Okay. My boss sends me an email three 30 on Friday, says we've got to talk Monday morning and I can't get an answer till Monday morning. What can I do with myself? You know, how can I, how can I work with those stories over that long weekend? Well, you could first run for the hills, right? You don't, you don't know, you know, there, I mean, there's all sorts of options people do, right? They, you know, they turn to alcohol, right? Or some escapism or numbing. Some people make choices to turn to a friend to talk about it. numbing. Some people make choices to turn to a friend to talk about it. Other people bottle it up and go inward and internalize it and try to, you know, not think about it, right? There's all sorts of reactions, sort of a fight or flight reaction. From a healthy standpoint, what I talk

about in the book is that, you know, I think a first step is trying to get a little more information. You know, send an email back and saying, hey, you know, give me a heads up on what we're going to be talking about. I'd like to have a little more information. You know, and let's say the boss sends some more information, you got a little more information. If he or she doesn't send more information, then you've got to sit with the not knowing. And I think there is something to be said about sitting with the not knowing. And I think there is something to be said about sitting with the not knowing. It's hard to do. Most of us want to control. And we want to control because we want to feel safe. And when we don't feel safe, we look to a lot of things to try

to calm us. And so I think healthy ways of doing that is learning. I'll walk through a seven step process on how to manage anxiety, a very simple way of managing different aspects of anxiety. It's certainly not comprehensive to all anxiety that's out there. But some of the circumstantial anxiety we're talking about, it can be helpful. It can be helpful. And so, you know, and part of that process is learning to define what, you know, literally writing down, you know, what is it that I can control in this situation? What is it that I can't? With the situation with the boss, I can't control if he or she hasn't given me more information. I can't control getting more information. It's out of my hands. So if I'm learning to say, you know what, I've got to learn to surrender to what I can't control. Now, that's easier said than done. It sure is. At the same time, it's part of what it means to be human. I mean, you know, I was on a flight recently, and the turbulence was just terrible. I mean, I've been on a lot of flights over the years, and it was the worst turbulence I've ever been on and been in, rather. And it lasted for an hour and we were 35,000 feet. And so I kept reminding myself that, you know, no flights or very few flights

ever come down into the sky from 35,000 feet. You know, I'm everybody in the flight attendants flying up and down, you know, hitting the ceiling, hitting the floor. People are yelling, you know, of course I've got a 12 year old sitting next to me on his iPad, smiling, watching a movie the whole time. You know, it doesn't I've got a 12-year-old sitting next to me on his iPad smiling, watching a movie the whole time. You know, it doesn't help things when I'm making myself anxious over here, right? He's all calm. But I literally said to myself, with all the anxiety I was feeling, I said to myself, you know, I can either – I'm making up stories. I have no idea.

But you know what? I can't control this. I'm up in the air. I have no power over what happens next. control this. I'm up in the air. I have no power over what happens next. And I made a decision to over about 20 minutes to work on literally thinking in my brain, I've got to surrender to this. If this is what I'm going, then this is it. And I can't make myself hold on that. Now, that's fighting against every part of me as a human that wants to fight for life. At the same time, I had to come to a place of surrender, and spirituality is important to me,

so I leaned into that a bit. And I've got to be honest, I was able to get to that place after probably 15, 20 minutes. And I was able to calm myself for that next 10 or so minutes, 15 minutes of turbulence, and then it stopped. but you know, the turbulence stopped. And so, you know, I think that that's just one small way. I mean, I think it's something that we have to work at is learning how to surrender. And some of us want to hold onto life really, really tight, me included. And, you know, that's something I'm continuing to learn to put into practice, even what I've put down on paper and what I've seen in clients over the years.

Yeah, the less tight your hold on life, often the better it is. And I think a lot of that, what you described there, and you talk, you spend a lot of a lot of the later part of the book talking about this is, is the awareness of that what's even happening. So, okay, now I'm telling myself a story and the story I'm telling myself is that this plane is going to go down. And then once you have that awareness, then you can, you can work with trying to soothe yourself or find other things. You've got sort of an awareness spectrum and you spend a lot of time talking about that. Can you go a little deeper into some of your thoughts on awareness? Yeah, I really appreciate you bringing that up a moment ago, too, about awareness.

Yeah, sometimes I forget about that piece. That's certainly a step one in the process is just the recognition. It gives you a little power when you can name it and have an understanding of it. It's kind of like, you know, I remember a buddy of mine in graduate school, he had a brother that spent three, four years trying to find a diagnosis for some physical symptoms he was having that were so painful for him. And they went from doctor to doctor to doctor to doctor and finally found a diagnosis and the freedom and just knowing what it is. You know, so I think there's a level of having an awareness of what you're feeling that gives you a little bit of power in that dynamic. So in terms of just awareness in general and my own journey, you know, as a therapist and just as a person, you know, I like to have an understanding of things. And not just trying to control things or manipulate, not that, more of an understanding of a level of awareness. So I try to start with my body and my emotions and what's going on inside of me.

And I find that to be one of the most important pieces to being grounded in conversation, whether I'm talking with my wife or my kids, that I've got to get grounded first and notice what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking so I'm not just reacting. And I think awareness is power because it gives me the option to be proactive. So those are a few things to come to mind. But yes, a lot of my work with clients and certainly a lot of the language in the book is about awareness. And I think there's certainly a lot of the language in the book is about awareness. And I think it's, you know, there's certainly a lot of Eastern thought in an awareness and paying attention to your body and your breathing and yourself. And over the last, you know, let's say 20, 20 plus years in the States, we've gotten a little more of a, I think that's, that is

begin to weave its way in a healthy way into a lot of different fields, whether it's in medicine or psychotherapy or certainly yoga or in exercise. So it's sort of weaved its way in a number of different fields more than probably it ever has. Yeah, you describe kind of the one of the results of doing this type of work is becoming a person of presence. And you talk about what a lot of those benefits are. What are some of the benefits of, you know, doing this thing where we where we work on our awareness and we train ourselves and we become more of, like you say, a person of presence? What comes to mind, number one, is peace. When I'm functioning in those attributes, and I'm noticing a sense of peace in my own life, and I think other people recognize that there's a sense of centeredness or groundedness in me, and I think other people, when I recognize that in someone else, when they're living out qualities like humility, and having good boundaries in their life with others.

And they're able to have a sense of self-confidence. And they're able to have those different six different sort of ingredients or points that I make there. And those are three that I've named. There's really a level of peace. named, there's really a level of peace. And I think, you know, isn't that what a lot of people would like to have in their life is more peace? And I don't mean a peace like, you know, just a momentary peace, but a sense of contentment or groundedness that, you know, different philosophies and religions sort of speak to it. I know in Judaism, you know, the word is shalom. It's, you know, this essence of being, you know, having a full sense of peace or an embodiment of calmness. So it's more than just one word. It's sort of

an embodiment. So that's what comes to mind. I mean, I think there are other things as well, but that's really what I'll highlight. What are some practical steps that we can take to increase our awareness? You know, that if you think, if we would think of as a muscle, you know, our awareness muscle. How do we practice that? How do we strengthen that? I think, first and foremost, it's starting with your body and your breathing. You know, everybody can pay attention to their breathing. Everybody can pay attention to noticing what their body's doing, where I'm feeling tension. What part of my body am I feeling it in? How big is it? Right? I remember asking a client today, she was feeling

a lot of anger, tremendous amount of anger at her parent. And this is, you know, a woman in her sixties and her mom's still living. And she has a lot of anger towards her. And she said, she could, I said, where do you notice it? You know, she said, I'm right in the middle of my chest. I said, how big is it? You know, it's about the size of my fist. What color is it? Just really getting clarity about, you know, what is the anger saying? So it's just, it's really kind of narrowing in on what you physiologically feel because your body teaches us things. And it's not just, let me try to think more about it. You know, it's, it's an awareness of body.

So that's one. I think also what can increase awareness is by practicing learning how to be more present, which I focus on two key elements. One is breathing, taking deep breaths. And the second is letting your senses come alive. So as I'm sitting in this room talking with you, I can look around the room and I can see a painting across the room, right? And I can notice the colors and the texture. I can feel the chair that I'm sitting in, right? Or I could smell the air that's around me, a candle burning, you know? So allowing myself to be in the moment can increase awareness because I'm paying attention to my senses. So those are a couple of things. And

certainly I talk more about this in the book, but those are a couple of things that come to mind. And if you're, if you're, I'll say one other thing, if you're talking with someone else in your relationship, you pay attention to what you're noticing. What do you notice in their hand expressions, their facial expressions, their words, their body posture? Just paying attention and let that be something that speaks to you. I think awareness can come in a lot of shapes and sizes, but that's just initially what comes to mind. One of the things I like that you do in the book that I think is important to stress is that we're not very good at this when we start, but that we can definitely get better at it by continuing to do it. And I think there's a real tendency. I think I was this way for a while when I would try and, you know. 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 spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by.

Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel

might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No, really. Yeah, really. No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com 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. Be in the present moment. And I would find that that was really hard and I would do it for a second or I would think I just can't do this. And the tendency is to give up. Whereas if you, if you keep working on it, my experience has been you, you move closer and you talk about that. That's a continuum of, of becoming, you know, becoming a person's presence kind of is at the far end of having spent a lot of time and

energy to get there. Yeah, that's true. That's true. The awareness continuum increases. And so you're able to catch yourself while you're doing it or in the very act to be a choice with behavior. Yes, I'm aware that there, you know, that's the great thing about this is it's not just, okay, there's some people who are born with this and some people aren't. And, you know, that's the great thing about this is it's not just, okay, there's some people who are born with this and some people aren't and, you know, oh, well, you know, so sorry for you. You know, you weren't born with this. No, this is something you can develop. Some people do have a more natural ability to this because their intuition or their family they're raised in or the training that they've done. But we certainly can all grow in this. And it is, if you don't know how to do it at first, it is something that you can learn over time. And I do think there's a level of awareness that comes with getting older.

You know, I think that there is a level of, you know, experience and history that teaches us things that there's awareness there. But yeah, it's a skill that can be developed. You had a line in the book that really struck me, and it says, people who can't control themselves try to control other people. Can you expound on that? my external environment so I can feel less anxious. And anxiety in my mind is one of the most significant aspects or ingredients that are in committed relationships. People feel anxious because the person's pulling away. People get anxious because they're in conflict. People get anxious because they've got to talk with their partner about something that's difficult. conflict. People get anxious because they've got to talk with their partner about something that's difficult. This level of anxiety is, you know, and I'm using anxiety in a broad sense, not just people who get nervous about something, but I'm using it in a broader sense. So yeah, when we, as human beings, when we can't, you know, we can't control ourselves, meaning we don't know

how to self-soothe or manage our own emotions, that we're going to try to control our environment. That's our next best thing. And usually it's the people around us. So you could think about that. I'm sure if you spent some time thinking about that in your own family, you could probably come up with scenarios that stand out to you. I know I could for me and my family and in my own life that I've done. Clients, I could think of stories over and over again. I was listening to a story today.

An adult in his 40s, mom staying with him in her 60s or 70s. She gets anxious because he doesn't do what she wants when she comes to visit. She tries to control him. What does he do? He gets anxious about her trying to control him so she tries to control him. Well, what does he do? He gets anxious about her trying to control him. And so he tries to control her, right? This is what they do. And they drive each other crazy. I want to spend time together, right? No one wants to be controlled. And so people typically pull back in those kinds of relationships. So, you know, learning how to balance emotion in yourself is a big, it's important factor in terms of friendships and

professional relationships and committed partnerships because you know that will that will become problematic and uh you know like i said people don't like it so so one last question we're kind of at the end of time yeah or observation but you had another line that really struck me and this one really struck me, um, as like really pertinent to, to me in certain cases. And it said, when we fail to share our deeper experiences about life's events, we're actually providing right material for the other person to create stories about us. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one of the most significant areas that I do work with with clients is helping them learn how to talk about their heart and their mind, because that breeds intimacy. You've got to have a level of awareness first, though, right? I've got to know what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling and be able to share that with you. Now, people who do that well and are proficient at that, you get to know them. People who don't do that, you don't get to know them and they're that makes up more stories because they're not given material. There's plenty of couples in relationship who don't know one another. They may know things about each other, but they don't know their day-to-day personal experience like,

hey, I'm struggling with this, or I'm happy about this, or this is what was difficult for me, or that hurt, really hurt when you said that, or I'm really angry at you about that decision you've made, you know, and this is what's going on for me, or I heard this song and it stirred up this emotion or this experience for me, I wanted to share it with you, right? Those are letting people in. And when you do that, most people are able to say, oh, gosh, wow, okay. That's pretty vulnerable, number one. But number two, I feel like I know you, you know. So that's what I mean by that. If we're not showing up and letting the real authentic us show up, then it becomes problematic on terms of people knowing us. Yep. Well, I definitely think I have, uh, probably produced a bunch of stories in people's heads based on, based on that sentence, thinking back over some of my past. So that was really,

really helpful for me to, to read. Um, so I think that brings us to the end, but thanks so much, Scott. I really enjoyed, um, you bet, you bet you bet enjoyed talking with you i enjoyed the book um great have uh links to all your stuff on our show notes at one you feed dot net and uh thanks again you bet really enjoyed it thanks uh thanks for having me all right take care okay okay bye you can learn more about scott gorto and this podcast at one you feed.net slash scott