The Taproot Podcast - ⛵Carolyn Robistow on Gray Area Drinking and Brainspotting for Harm Reduction and Addiction

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Carolyn's Site : https://www.carolynrobistow.net/meetcarolyn Carolyn's Podcast: https://www.carolynrobistow.net/brainunblocked Meet Carolyn Robistow, the life coach transforming lives for overachievers struggling to control their drinking. From her college days of budget-friendly 12 packs to her sophisticated wine-loving phase, Carolyn's journey with alcohol has been a rollercoaster of self-discovery. 🤔 Facing the hard questions like "Am I an alcoholic?" Carolyn navigated the gray areas of drinking. Despite her discipline in other areas of life, alcohol remained a challenge. Not an everyday drinker, but definitely not living her best life. 🚫 Carolyn's turning point came after multiple attempts to quit, including online courses and facing the harsh realities of her relationship with alcohol. Her breakthrough? A mental health therapist exploring Brainspotting. 🧠 Discover how Brainspotting, a technique for addressing the neuroscience behind compulsions, transformed Carolyn's approach to drinking. She's now helping others with her 3-pillar framework combining Brainspotting setups, education, and daily practice. 🎧 Tune in to learn about rewiring neural pathways, overcoming the fear of a sober life, and harnessing self-control. Carolyn's story is a testament to the power of informed decision-making and understanding our brain's response to alcohol. 🔥 #Overachievers #ControlYourDrinking #CarolynRobistow #LifeCoaching #Brainspotting #SobrietyJourney #MentalHealthTherapy #AlcoholAwareness #SelfDiscovery #HealthTransformation #PodcastGuest #Empowerment #SelfControl #AlcoholFreeLife #Mindfulness #NeuralRewiring #Inspiration #Motivation #HealthyChoices #WellnessJourney #SelfHelp #RecoveryStory #SuccessMindset #LifestyleChange #MindBodyHealth #EmpowermentCoach #WellbeingWarrior 🎧 Tune in for an inspiring episode that's more than just a sober story – it's about reclaiming control and living your best life! 🌟🎤👏🏼 Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/ Podcast Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.podbean.com/ Podcast Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/GetTherapyBirmingham/feed.xml Taproot Therapy Collective 2025 Shady Crest Drive | Hoover, Alabama 35216 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Email: [e-mail]

We running this, let's go! I'm on a boat! I'm on a boat! Everybody look at me, cause I'm sailing on a boat! I'm on a boat! I'm on a boat! Take a good hard look... Captain's Log, Stardate, December 4th, 2023. Coming to you live from a boat with Carolyn Robistow. We're talking about gray area drinking,

and using brain spotting to reduce drinking and during life coaching i am i'm wearing my i'm on a boat shirt like i told you and the uh for for audio listeners i'm actually not kidding about what's going on in the video this time carolyn is on a boat um i am on a boat it is not the start date it's a water boat not a do you keep the captain's log like do you to, or does the electronics do that for you now? Is there a black box on boats? How does this work? Yes and yes. So you don't have to, unless you're a, and speaking of I'm on a boat now, like the noisiest things are going to be around me and trying to maintain minimal noises.

It's a podcast of erite. Yes. It's what we strive for. If anything is so loud, it's problematic. Just let me know and I'll see if I can do something about it. So if you're a licensed captain, you have to keep a captain's log. Neither of us are licensed captains yet. Do you have a quill?

Do I have a quill? I have a pointer. I have a brain spotting pointer always nearby. Does that count? Maybe I should put a feather on it. So is it a digital type thing where you dock and whatever, just in case the boat is found adrift? I do.

I keep it on my iPad just because that's where I take all of my notes for all of the things. But I did get my husband like a nice branded bound captain's log that has like the boat name kind of you know embossed on it it's really fancy is it like a like driving a cdl like truck like do they they audit your log or you're just supposed to have it if you're um i don't know because we haven't done that in the captain's license train i'm sure when you get your captain's license they'll tell you what you have to have it for but really for us it's gorgeous because we want to be able to remember and even then we talked about how

we have been on the boat for close to three months now and already i'm like where were we when that happened what was going on wasn't that this person and it is already running together so makes sense that you wouldn't yeah and pirates is that a thing like any any like related it is yeah pirates are a thing we've not been in waters where pirates are we've done all of our traveling so far in the atlantic uh intercoastal waterway so we've been kind of if you imagine like a boat freeway that actually cuts through land that people really only are aware of if they live in the area and so there's always been like a slice of land and then the ocean we've not gone people kind of talk about it like are you on the outside or the inside when you're traveling and

we have only thus far traveled on the inside what's it called when you go like all the way up the coast and then down the mississippi river and make like a loop around half the country there's like some like club of people that do the loop oh yeah we're in that club that's we're starting in the spring we're in you get you get stuck certain places where there's like not gas and provisions like you have to prepare that's that's wild yeah it's called the great loop the club is america's great loop cruisers associate agl seattle something like that but we are in it but yeah i think that we have like uh exhausted as much as i know boats that is fascinating yeah so carolyn life coaches and brain spots and does a lot of uh cool work

from a boat which means that she can can see you internationally or outside of Alabama, unlike me. So I wanted to not only because I like her podcast, and I like some of the stuff that she's put out there, but also make it available to people who email me outside of the state of Alabama and ask me to see them for brain spotting. Because if you're in Alabama, there's a little bit of a wait list for Taproot. And if you're outside of Alabama, I'm sorry, but we're not able to see you at all ever. But Carolyn can and she does, you know, a lot of the same stuff, but more specific stuff than we do. So that's exciting. So, like, can you go through a little bit of, like, your approach and the services you offer and how all that stuff works?

Absolutely. My approach. Well, let me back it up. We always joke that there's like two therapy profiles that you can write. And one of them is like specializing in complex trauma for the sensitive trained in the CBT for the focus of is like, sometimes life is an ocean that becomes a beach. But when it is a mountain, the streams of our thoughts don't meet the iceberg of our heart in the same way. And those are like the two. They are. I'll tell you now. Okay.

Mentally, I'm going to compose my psychology today profile because I don't have one anymore. I stopped. I took it down when I stopped seeing clients and moved just to coaching. So I tell you that he tries to help you out because instead of just like write about what you do, which they mess up, they're like, describe your ideal client. And then it'll tell you how they're going to format it. So when it smushes it together in a paragraph, it kind of has the flow of good copy editing. But describe your ideal client. Just it's such a funny phrase to me like yeah i'll tell you my if i had a profile today it would start with in the immortal words of l woods

after getting into harvard law what like like it's hard? Except we'd be saying it about changing habits and our relationship with alcohol and perfectionism. I think those are kind of my main things. But what I love is specifically about how I've woven in brain spotting with this, you know, kind of traditional coaching work is that it does make it where people are like, Oh, God, that was so much easier than I expected. Not that it makes it easy per se. But it just, and this is so funny to use this, this phrase, because it is so often associated with drinking, but I feel like brain spotting takes the edge off of this work. It just takes the edge off. So it's not quite as intense or hard for people to make the changes

that they want to come and make or any, any type of subcortical. I say brain spotting, cause it's the one that I use the most, but what I mean is any type of brain body-based subcortical focused process. I think that's my favorite uh line from Breaking Bad is where like all the guys are sitting around in the basement they're like does anyone have any meth and everyone looks at him and he's like just enough to take the edge off yeah exactly you know actually just enough to take the edge off but yeah so that's that's how I would start my psychology today profile I think well. Yeah, and I think that's it. There's so many people assume that it's about intellect or knowing something or having information or being told what to do or a list of steps.

And I don't know, maybe in 1955. But at this point, we've all seen The Sopranos. We sort of have intuited the CBT. We sort of have intuited the stereotype of we sort of have intuited the stereotype of psychoanalysis that arguably is psychoanalysis like we know that information we just need our brain to feel different you know like I'm not drinking because I sat down and did the math and then was like oh I don't know how to count life I I keep losing i can't count beyond three so who knows you know like it isn't that it's that this feels good i feel bad i come up with ways to feel good because that's what my

brain is designed to do and like you know salt sugar fat dopamine um like yeah yeah we seek it out and and if if something gets in the way we find a way around it. So sorry, I didn't mean it. As you were talking to I was like, Oh, yeah, there's paragraph two of my psychology today profile, right? Because it's broken into these three main like sections is like, here's what I know to be true is that people want to be moderate drinkers, like that's kind of what they aspire to as the kind of gold standard for healthy. Right. But what I know to be true is that moderate drinkers do not actively

moderate their drinking, which is to say it is an adjective to describe their behavior. It is not the verb they are using to acquire the behavior. They're not actively thinking, okay, so if I had someone, and if I know I have an event on Friday and I'm going to have four drinks and seven per week for women is kind of like the standard in the US, the guideline. So I'm not going to have drinks four days this week and then I'll have the four on Wednesday.

Like people who are truly moderate drinkers, which is to say they just drink when they want to and only when they want to. And they never drink more than they want to. They're not actively doing that. It's like we're looking at this result and then trying to codify how to make that happen. Yeah, that's kind of my experience is that no one's actually doing the recommendation. They're just figuring out that they don't do the recommendation. And then saying, I guess I need to do the the recommendation but then when they do therapy they just stop most of the time or cut back to like christmas whiskey at christmas you know right i just don't know a ton of people who've come in and i mean i don't do what you do but i just don't know a ton

of people that are like yeah i'm drinking 30 beers a week. All right. Thank you. I got to three. That's fun. Like it just tends to just be something that you don't need or you move on from or something, you know, your relationship to it changes, which means that it's not where all of your intellectual energy is going. And that may not be your experience at all. Well, I just don't see a ton of people that are like, yep, I've had my seven for the week. Are you starting next? Like, it's just like, it's not coming up if you're not doing it no one's doing the fda recommendation well or or they are using

it as sort of a prison for themselves and then they feel like they are a crappy human being when that does that doesn't work for them like to just say and so what i find most of the people i work with um they are not going to seek out therapy for substance use issues because they don't really qualify for it, which quite honestly, yes, we've got the DSM and we've got substance use disorder, but this idea of alcoholic is a self-diagnostic term. And so there's this like fuzzy space of, well, do I talk like if I'm drinking the way the people around me are drinking, is that something I go to therapy for? And the answer is not really, which is why you're saying you don't see a lot of it, right? Like most of my people either are

therapists or have been in therapy or are currently in therapy and they're in therapy to deal with the trauma and the relationships you know and then this drinking is kind of this side thing where maybe we ask about it at intake and we as professionals clock it as not you know substance use disorder and then it just kind of goes by the wayside yeah i don't have a drinking problem i have but my therapist keeps bringing up my drinking problem yes exactly exactly but so or even their therapist maybe drinks at the same level they do and it's like yeah that's fine because so for my people what i what i love is there's this spectrum out there that jolene park started and it's called or she didn't start it actually she popularized it kind of like made it more common vernacular is gray area drinking which is kind of like this drinking between the gray

area between healthy and and abuse or addicted when i like that because it isn't people calling addiction one thing like i just i see on linkedin and if you know uh not festivals what do you call conferences all the time like the the hardcore 12-step guys yelling at the non-12-step people about how both are wrong and I kind of disagree with both of them you know and but it's like you can admit that like addiction is a problem but not all addiction is the same yeah you know but it's that fight about like that all or nothing and I know that 12 step, you have to kind of buy into that in order to stay sober at the beginning. And some people need that. But then there's people that are angry that it's extrapolated to everybody in gray area drinking

just seems a lot more general. Like I've never brought that up to somebody and have them be like, no, absolutely. I'm not a gray area drinker, you know? I think where it gets confusing though is, so now we can, you know, self-label as gray area drinkers. At what point then do we gauge, well, where is healthy gray area drinking and where's unhealthy? Well, it's gray. It's hard to say, right? So I have pulled out a subset of the people and these now are the people I work with. And then I work with a different group of people that we can get into. But as far as drinking habits and alcohol goes, there's this subset of people that I call Groundhog Day drinkers, which is they're in the gray area. So that's kind of part of it. But another way, another criteria that applies to

them, and there are three types of Groundhog Day drinkers. So I kind of have like a little, I actually have like a video I could share if anyone were listening, or like, oh my gosh, I need that video. Like they could just reach out to me and say, can you send me the types of Groundhog Day drinkers video and I'll send it. But when it's a Groundhog,

when you're a Groundhog Day drinker, it doesn't matter, it's not about amount or frequency. It doesn't matter how long ago or how recent your last drink was or how many you had it's that feeling of groundhog day which i love a good 90s rom-com and groundhog day is that 1993 bill murray andy mcdowell movie right they're still making them as a genre like i don't know have you seen little italy yes yes because it was like a jumping off platform for for just this idea yeah but i and i love it but so it's that idea i call them groundhog day

drinkers because it's that idea of they have a drink however many they're gonna have whether it's a few or a lot or whatever but it's that next morning waking up and that repeated oh i just wish i hadn't had that one or had that last one or had those extra or gone to that event at all. It's that feeling of why can't I just stick to my goals? And that's what makes a Groundhog Day drinker. It's not about because for in I have been every type of Groundhog Day drinker. And actually, if, if we have time for a soapbox, I will climb on the soapbox about what we're getting taught about it is bass accords. But the thing is about all of them, it's not about how many you've had. If I had had one drink, I woke up thinking, God, why did I even have the one?

I just should have stuck with my zero. If I drank a bottle of wine, it was, God, why did I do that? I should have just stuck with the one I was gonna let myself have. But it's that repeated learning of whatever I did is not what I set out to do. And so that's why I call them Groundhog Day drinkers. And I think that gives this subset of the gray area population,

something a little more tangible to say, okay, so I'm in the gray area. How do I know if it needs addressing or not? Yeah. And so then how do you go about treating that if somebody comes in and that's their experience? Yeah. So I treat it using, I have a three pillar approach that I call the trifecta of change. Cause I love the word trifecta so much. It just feels good to me.

Does it mean it's like three things together, right? Yeah. Is it the same as triumvirate they're different is it i don't know because i know the word triumvirate i'm former english teacher by the way okay so like words are my thing i love it but i feel like i could go down a rabbit hole of where words are the same and are not the same and the what i love about trifecta is this idea of three things that come together and make something powerful. Um, and so in those three pillars, which kind of to answer your question of how, how do I treat it is we walk through these three pillars and part of the, the challenge is that the three pillars much like with trauma healing right are not a linear sequence where we don't go okay let's do pillar one for two weeks and then we're gonna do

pillar two they're not steps um having grown up in houston i always liken it to you know hurricanes would come through and we get all of these floods and then people would raise their houses and start to put pillars under the houses and you don't just like jack up one corner of the house and you have to do and then jack yeah you have to do a little bit and then go around and a little bit more to each pillar and then go and add a little more to each pillar so the whole thing slowly rises so part of treating it is figuring out how the nuances of how to add which pillar at which time, because Groundhog Day drinkers are all different, right? So you're saying that instead of doing steps like a hierarchy,

being able to do multiple things at once has a synergistic effect where they are all stronger. Yes, thank you for saying that in such a succinct way for me. I think I answered my question too in that like the triumvirate implies limitation on three, on power, like Rome. Yeah. And Trispecta is the synergistic effect making them all stronger. So I was curious. So everyone go take your SATs now and score high on the English because those words will be on there. Can you go through like what some of those steps are, how you work, frame it, where brain spotting comes into that, you know, whatever you feel like is helpful? Absolutely. Oh yeah. Tell me when to stop. Just cut me off when you need to.

I have my tea here that I'm drinking for the non-drinking episode. There you go. I've got my water. Oh yeah. It's a non-drinking episode. There you go. I never drink. Oh, okay. So the different pillars. So the first pillar and because there does have to be a first, like you have to start somewhere, even though it is really synergistic. The first one is the first one because it's the easiest to put in place and does not have brain spotting in it yet

um and it's just what i call uh oh it's the personalized daily support plan which for most people who so let's just stick with and i don't know when this episode is going to get published but we're recording at a time where the holidays are about to hit in the u.s and um you know new year's eve is coming up, New Year's resolutions, which historically for the Groundhog Day drinking community. Politics is coming up around the dinner table. Politics is also coming up. But also the idea of dry January is real big in the Groundhog Day drinking community. And so what happens with dry January is everyone approaches it like this.

Let's just take a break. Let's just take a break from alcohol. It's a 30 day break, a reset. And oh gosh, I'm about to mix my metaphors. Let me get back on. We'll get to that one in a minute. So what happens is people start to share strategies, right? And they'll say things like, yeah, like if I want to drink, I'm just going to go for a walk. And then a Groundhog Day drinker will say, okay, well then this works for all of these people. They just take a break. They just cut it out for 30 days. And if they want to drink, they just go for a walk. And then when that person goes for a walk and then still pours a glass of wine, they think they're the problem

when really the walk wasn't the daily support they needed. So we have to personalize the daily support, which is true for all of our clients, right? Like, you know, even up to, you know, very, very complex, extremely complex PTSD, right? Like we need to personalize how we're self soothing. And so that's the first pillar is, I call it a values based nurture plan where we it's almost like an acceptance and commitment therapy type activity where we really hone down what are the person's values and how do we build a support program out of their unique values? And what I think is great about that is that I've never seen two people have the exact same set. Like it just

is, it's a really easy way to individualize. So that's the first pillar we put in because it is the easiest and the fastest to put it. Um, as we get our value-based nurture plan, and then we talk about, okay, what does it look like to implement this plan? And then we build in the supports for implementing it. Um, the second pillar of the trifecta is the subcortical change, which is just straight. This is where we learn how to do brain spotting and my clients because we're not working on clinical things um they'll do they have the option to brain spot with me in a group which we'll do every couple of weeks and i'm giving them guided audios and um kind of a calendar a customizable calendar if they do this self brain spotting exercise x number of times so it's a very like self-paced it's like

a free spotting type exercise or something um no because i am still using four sometimes five depending on the person really specific setups for it um but we are always coming at it more i say always but you know nothing's ever certain in brain spotting we are attempting most of the time to come at it from a resource place because it is self-led brain spotting not clinician-led brain spotting um so we bring that piece in they learn the different the different setups they do the guided audios it's almost like if you think about um you know a lot of people ask me well I don't want to go to meetings. Like I don't I don't meetings are not what do it for me. And I'm like, yeah, no, I don't want to go to meetings either.

I also don't want to leave. So I liken it more to a group workout class, like a group fitness class where you don't go in it, like at the beginning, you talk to people, because maybe you know them, because you see them there all the time, because you've all got like class pass, and you're, you know, at the same classes all the time. But you're not then telling them, here's what the workout was like for me. Oh, I went, you know, I was gonna order a cheeseburger last night, like, you're not really sharing all of that. You're just going in, kind of maybe talking about, okay, today, the goal is legs, we're all going to work on our legs, right? So maybe they going in, kind of maybe talking about, okay, today the goal is legs. We're all going to work on our legs, right? So maybe they come in and I say, okay, today the goal is

we're going to do the crocodile setup. So we're all working on creating one synergized story around alcohol and then we do it. So it's more like a workout class for your brain than it is like a meeting per se does that make sense yeah i've i've heard that there's some places i don't think there's one in birmingham but i've heard from some people that live in other cities that there's like basically like moderation groups where they just like get around and talk about moderation and kind of health and probably have accountability without total sobriety yeah i'm sure mean, that's kind of the beauty of the gray area, right? And the beauty of the ever-connected age we live in, right?

Which is you can jump online and find a community that matches what you're looking for. And I think that's what's unique about my community of people too, is while I don't work solely with entrepreneurs, I do work a lot with entrepreneurs. And it's that mindset of, I want to get out of this unhealthy relationship with alcohol, not because I want to, you know, necessarily have stellar health, or I want to, you know, beat an addiction, which is true for some of my people but the vast majority are people who like they're just too effing busy trying to run a business to be held back by the ankle weight of alcohol they're those like nobody's got time and energy for that they've got bigger things they

need to be accomplishing so when you get people to realize how much time it actually is taking up because it's like oh yeah okay. Okay. There's a mistake, whatever. And you realize like, okay, you slept till this time. And then the rest of the day was still kind of a waste because you're not firing on all cylinders and now you're behind for the week and now your

sleep's behind. So you're tired, you know, like it just, and I, like, I think too, like for people in the gray area,

like, like tiredness becomes a trigger, but then alcohol makes you tire a trigger but then alcohol makes you tireder but then it makes you wake up a little bit while you're drinking it but then it still makes your quality of sleep terrible and it becomes this vicious thing and i don't know if you like go into like a lot of the psychoeducation about like the the way that it works in the brain but i think that's one of the nefarious things about it and why it's one of those drugs that's like allowed you know quote unquote where a lot of them are not is that

it's a stimulant antidepressant in different parts of the brain at the same time yeah and so you're kind of addicted to one half of it and then the other one is a problem you know some of this yeah well and perfect segue thank you into the third pillar which is I vacillate kind of between, or oscillate, I'm getting in my head about more words now, between informed decision making and embodied decision making, because the pillar is the same either way. But it's that idea of first, we got to know these things, right? Like, if I'm having a glass of wine at night or a glass of whiskey at night, because I think it helps me sleep, well, I need to get some updated information on that. Right. Um, but the problem that most of my groundhog day drinkers have is that knowing it is insufficient. And that's why we have this groundhog day phenomenon, because as you and I know, like we learn in this one part of our brain and we you know that information is stored in a different part than this like intrinsic drive and even just to go back to and i don't know if you have more

updated stats on this but like how the decision making time or the action time between the subcortical and the neocort or the prefrontal cortex where like subcortical is moving or amygdala i guess is moving at like 0.03 milliseconds which i guess is like or 0.03 seconds which i guess is like 30 milliseconds versus 0.7 seconds for the top which is like 23 times as slow i mean it's lightning fast in the difference but that's 23 times as slow, right? And so what I'll tell people is that's why alcohol, the way you're describing it too, with this, like the vicious nefarious cycle of sleep, is it's like an ankle weight, right? Like,

we put two to five pound weights on our ankles, and we can walk around for, you know, 10 minutes, 23 times that, 230 minutes, you may start to notice it. Maybe you wear it for an hour, try it for 23 hours. It's gonna be a noticeable difference. But it eats away very slowly when we're Groundhog Day drinkers versus full-on high-level substance use disorder.

The impact is just a lot. I mean, nefarious really is the right word, right? Because it's so subtle, but it's compounding. And so that's why the third pillar is because is the informed decision making and embodied decision making, because we need to learn that information. And then we need that information. So we talked earlier, and I know you and I talked kind of pre-podcast about this on our phone call about the idea of like the one continuous story and you know like that being like a solid way to describe it but not really sure scientifically how that's working out um

other than neurons that fire together wire together but that third piece being well how do i embody information and it's that difference between knowing something and like knowing yeah and so that's the third pillar is take first of all let's get some stuff and let's know it but then let's like know it so that you act from that knowledge not just beat yourself up with the knowledge like a guilt stick later on groundhog day. I think it's that like intellectual memory is tied to like referencing the future and referencing the past, but it doesn't affect me right now. You know, it's like, I'm going to drink right now so that I don't drink later on. And then that way I'll get it out of the way or whatever, you know, like, but it's not

feeling it's, it's not felt or experiential. It's not embodied. Exactly. It's, it's a memory or experiential. It's not embodied. It's a memory that we're kind of referencing about something that isn't my behavior right now. But, you know, everybody who has their last cigarette for, you know, five years or something. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And very similarly, how right now me that's waking up saying I'm never going gonna drink again is not the same me that's like

at this level of drinking people aren't crawling out of bed and pouring a drink so it's it's not happening at the same time they're not even wanting a drink until hours later when they've you know been fighting with the kids all day and running their business all day and are trying to finally settle down and quiet their business running brain, which, you know, you as a business owner know, like that's a tall order to not take work home with you when you are so actively involved in a business, right? Like it's very different than being an employee. And so then because there's such a huge time delay in those two experiences, like you said, that information is not accessible in that moment. Yeah. It appears to be irrelevant in that moment, even though it's as relevant as anything else in the world could be.

Well, it's not me and my reality that I'm thinking about. It's what I did before that I feel bad about and what I'm going to do different tomorrow. But it's not what I'm doing. Right, right, right. right yeah so those are the three pillars that's how we end so we we do a little bit at a time on each one weave them all together and snap crackle pop the trifecta and you do a lot of other stuff too i mean you don't just see people who are doing gray area drinking i mean you do kind of coaching with other, um, with other people or other types of issues. I do. Yeah, I do. Um, my second biggest part of what I would call a caseload, which is not, I mean, I guess anyone can call it a caseload, right? Like I'm like, not to sound

clinical is, um, just really high performing folks who are dealing. So when I was practicing under my license, my specialties were anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. So now I've just kind of taken that a few notches down and I'm working still with business owners at this point. Now they are not drinking because that's kind of like the order of operations or I say not drinking. They're no longer concerned about their relationship with alcohol. They're at a healthy level and it matches what they want. And they're no longer actively moderating. They're just either drinking or not drinking at what is- They're doing what they want and that's lining up with what they want to do. Yes. Yes. Thank you. And so then we work on things like people pleasing, healthy boundaries,

a lot of attachment stuff, but again, not the trauma end of it, which is hard. It's a fine line to walk, right? And I know there are a lot of coaches out there who don't take that line very seriously. And they'll end up doing trauma work, even not as a licensed clinician. I have a huge, you know, soapbox about that. I think if you're going to be doing that level of work you need to be working with someone who is following all of the ethical and state licensing things in your area but it is an important line but it is kind of a great one you know it's like trauma sort of in everything but when you're really digging into something you know how deep can i go you understand what

people get lost but yeah you do here are some coaches on instagram something, you know, how deep can I go? And you understand what people get lost, but yeah, you do. Here are some coaches on Instagram talking about, you know, stuff when it's like, well, you know, what are you, what are you doing? It gets a little cringy and, um, Well, and then the crystal starts coming out and the yoga starts coming out. That does, that's where I'm really, that's where I get really nervous is that it's like, you know, I got a lot of crystals in my office, but you know, they're not medical interventions, you know?

Well, and I, you know, and I love all, I support all forms, whatever works for whatever person, but if we're going to be talking trauma, it needs to be someone with some sort of license. Just because there's a governing body and there, and there are repercussions for the person if harm does come out of it, right? Like if you're working with a coach, you don't really have a lot of repercussions. Well, you're bound by the laws that the person who receives the service has active in their state. And you don't know the laws of 50 states a lot of the time. So if I get online and I say that I'm a therapist and you receive services to me as a therapist, and that's a regulated term in your state.

I mean, I think hypnosis is only regulated in all, but three, it's only three states, but I mean, depending on the intervention you're doing, you can't say you do it without a certain kind of license. And you look at the internet, it's the wild west. Nobody even knows the laws that they're breaking. Exactly. Well, exactly. Which means you don't, I mean,

when I used to do liability training with churches would go in and be like, this is why you have to have the window here and whatever. And somebody be like, but what if somebody asked him to be like, stop, look in my eyes, pretend I'm on a jury, say what you're going to say. And then they would be like, sit down. And I mean, like that, that's my line is with clinicians at Taproot is like, imagine what you're writing is being read in court would you still write that thing yeah and we say that with my group of friends that are all therapists too but um i guess kind of what i was getting at is so with that in my background and doing the work i do as a coach we may not be coming in for that but i am more than equipped to handle and recognize if and when it comes up to where it's not like i don't have to put the brakes on and be like stop we have entered trauma area i cannot do this right like i can continue to hold that space and let that process complete and then say listen as a licensed clinician and not working with you under that license what i know is that was a clinical something and not working with you under that license, what I know is that

was a clinical something, and then I can help them find the appropriate resources. So it's a piece of A, recognizing that it's out of the scope of what I'm practicing right now, and B, still being able to hold that as it comes up and not having it. Because I think it can be really harmful if it comes up with someone, let's say as someone is not licensed and i'm not trying to knock other coaches by any stretch of the imagination but like you said the internet is the wild west right like and so well i mean a lot of the people saying that they do coaching are not even licensed as coaches you know but there is no license i mean there's no governing body for it like even like i have a coaching certification but it's because someone

decided to make a coaching certification right like there's not a state or national board that's over what you're doing nope and there's no ethics committee but i just mean there's people that are saying like i'm a coach that decided that that was what they were going to call themselves yesterday yeah it's a self-diagnostic label as well yeah um but so even let's say even if a coach is really you know all about best practices and he and helping people heal and will recognize oh trauma you know came out they still might not be able to handle a person in that state and they may do more harm even with the best of intentions. Right.

So I think it's, I think it's when you're not there, you don't, you don't know what happens when the person gets off. You may never see him again because you're doing teletherapy, you know? So it's right. Well, not teletherapy, telecoaching. Yeah. Telecoaching. Yeah.

Tell us something, you know? Yeah. Tell us something. But yeah, so it is, I mean, there's just a lot of nuance to the work so all that to say the other people i work with tend to be um really high performing people pleasing mostly business owners we do a lot of brain spotting around perfectionism healthy boundaries money shit can i cuss on your podcast oh yeah please okay money money shit i just feel like there's enough podcasts out there. I mean, I'm not going out of my way to be offensive or something,

but I also have just had an ax to grind for a long time that I feel like mysticism and psychology can be, like, funny because it is hysterical. Oh, it's hilarious. Yeah, they've shipped all of these podcasts where they're like, here's the 10 tips to stay healthy in spring by eating broccoli. And you're just like, I don't want another one of those podcasts. Like, I think that like, you know, or even the Jungian people, which are some of the, you know, cooler therapists, some of the time, it's like the, you know, the, the, the, I think one of the reasons this Jungian life was so successful is just because they spoke English. I mean, where you had like other people, and then they're just like the power of

the archetype is so strong you have to be careful it's like your office isn't a strip ball man come on like i think what happens too even just from a marketing perspective is that there are people who then aren't going to come in because they don't have that like chilled out like zenned out vibe where that speaks to them right so they do need to be more of us who are like anyways this shit is freaking nuts right i feel like it's hard for business owners to find therapy sometimes because a lot of times the therapists are like threatened by it or something you know like there's like they view it as like i don't know what the word for it you know what i mean you you see that energy come up i mean mean, because I, like, I've done this.

It's a power differential, a power dynamic. Yeah. That a therapist needs to address in their own therapy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that, again. And I don't know that it's, like, getting it done and leveling up. I think it's knowing that you're not done is the thing.

You know, like, I know where the shadow is in the room because I'll tell you. Like, you know, it's the person that's like, oh, no, I did CBD for six years. I'm all better. You know, that's, you don't know where the shadow is in the room because i'll tell you like you know it's the person that's like oh no i i did cbt for six years i'm all better you know that's you don't know where that's and i think too like how beautifully and i when i found the brain spotting community i was like these are my freaking people like oh yeah And I think that the uncertainty principle is part of what makes it my people because I have an absolute love-hate relationship with uncertainty. I worked with anxiety and OCD because those are experiences that I can really connect with and that just like need to latch on and feel a sense of certainty and a sense of control over things I have no control over and how healing is not how do I find better ways to control it, but is rather how do I release control, which is now we got to talk quietly about our crystals and releasing control. But at the end of the day, that's what it really is. And so the uncertainty principle was a

freaking game changer for me. And I hate it. I want no part of it it's the freaking worst and it's the best at the same time well I think that's how you and I mean it may not be the kind of stuff that you're doing but like with trauma therapy like I don't listen a ton to what people are saying as much as like what they're feeling and that's the thing is like you can you can figure out pretty quickly yeah you're afraid of not knowing what's going to happen tomorrow. And guess what? You don't know. Like you might get hit by a bus.

What does that do to you? What's going on in your body? You know, I'm not saying I hope you get by, by bus. I'm saying, let's not talk about what you're in control of. Let's talk about what you're running from because I'm expensive and you'd like to change, you know, by the hour friend. Yeah. And, and, and, but people will map that somatically so

quickly i mean their posture just shows you you know like what what what happens to them and it's like it looks like you're wearing a backpack or it looks like you want to hide something or it looks like you want to just like go and disappear can i tell you that's just so interrupting during no this is an interrupting podcast. You want to push back. During one of my brain spotting sessions with my own therapist. And so just a little self-disclosure here. Most of my parts show up as cartoon characters, as animated characters or childhood characters, like from Never Ending Story. So if they're not animated, they're still very like, you know, the luck dragon.

No, no anime. That was kind of a Gen Z thing. Yeah's more i'm i am not gen z i'm a zenial so i'm in that like weird sweet spot but um it would be more like oh but anyway so then my um my backpack literally showed up as this little disney character that like clung on my back and i was like and we just in that we knew he was my backpack but it's just i just you said you could physically see a person when they had their backpack and i had a somatic experience just you saying that and i was like oh my little backpack guy and like i can picture him and i'm like people who are watching the video are like god she's gesturing a lot yeah i like back before i did any kind of brain spotting or even emdr anything um i was doing like a lot of kind of brain spotting or even EMDR or anything,

I was doing like a lot of kind of like meditation as a stuff. And so like whenever there was somebody who came in that like, didn't know that they were angry, I would just start doing them because it was all customized to you. People I think thought I was going to buy a script or whatever, but it was like what you could see the semantic thing. But I'd always just be like, you're walking in the woods and the straps of your backpack are very hard very they're digging into your shoulders you feel it in your shoulder blades

you feel it in your knees but only you can carry the backpack because you have to do it and you're resentful and you feel the sweat and i'll take the backpack off you know it's like because you can once you just make somebody feel the thing you can see how it's showing up somatically in their posture immediately and just help them well and that's the attunement piece right that's that's the attunement and i get on that soapbox all the time with my so i'm a brain spotting consultant as well so i help people go through the certification process right and i and i lead a free monthly consultation group on it and so many of our conversations around it are it's not the setup the setup is sexy because it's got this series of steps we can say well which setup is right for this and which setup is right for that it's the fun metaphor

somebody came up with that they're proud of it's cool sounding but it's not the work and it well and it's it's not it's not it's not it's not the work and it's not the thing. It's the vehicle for the, the setup is the vehicle. The thing is the uncertainty and the attunement. Um, anyways, I'm not going to climb on that. Well, the uncertainty on the behalf of the clinician too,

because like I've said this before, but it's like, I was talking about for both of them. Oh, I can teach you how to hold the stick and I can teach you that when the pupil does this, then you maybe need to bounce a little bit or that you need to check the stick and I can teach you that when the pupil does this, then you maybe need to bounce a little bit or that you need to check and see if there's, if they actually are

on Adderall, even though they're saying they're not on Adderall or, you know, maybe it's just not whatever. Like I can tell you all that, but when the patient is liking it and going into the uncertainty and feeling a distressing thing that no one else has helped them connect with, and you put the stick down because I don't want to make people feel bad. You know, you haven't done your own work and you don't know that there's a good thing on the other side of the bad thing. I cannot teach you that. Go to therapy.

You're not ready to do brain spotting. Yeah. Well, and you haven't, I would say on top of that, maybe you've not had that experience for yourself and go get a practice partner and experience it. Because the second you have that, you're like, oh my God,

I'm so glad that person did not move that pointer. I will share. I had that. And I, a lot of times when I'm assisting with, with pie fry, I'll share this experience because in my very, my very first phase one, my very first demo or practicum, right. It was the outside window. And I looked everywhere except for that pointer.

I mean, I was all over the place, but I always knew where it was. And I always felt really appreciative that the person just held it there because it felt like it kept me. It is the thing that kept me from flying into outer space, which we would call, you know, it kept me from flying out of my window of tolerance would call, you know, like kept me from flying out of my window of tolerance or, you know, moving in and out of dissociation. But it was like, I needed it there more than I would have thought. I would have thought, okay, once you find the eye position, then like, there it is. But I needed that person to be holding that place. So I didn't have to manage that. It was like, I could go wherever and come back to it. And it was just a really, it was a really powerful experience.

And so going back to having had that experience, I will hold that thing until the end of time. And I'll be like, let me know when you're ready for me to put it down. And I don't know if you ever have this where, and I don't know if this is you too, where like there really always is a pointer within reach for me. And I will be holding it and I'll say, you know, okay. and just let me know when you're ready and they'll go okay and i don't know if they're okay meant i'm ready or okay i'll let you know so i'll hold it and hold it and eventually they'll be like

you can put that down i'm like okay i will put it down because i take so seriously not putting it down until a person is ready for it. Yeah. Yeah. They're totally in control and they know that they're in control. You're holding the space. And similarly, when someone says, I need you to put that down and they mean it cause they can't like that is it

being up is what pushes them out of the window of tolerance. Yeah. I believe you. So wait, these are the ETT ones. Um, when you do the color stuff the color stuff yeah yeah yeah the traditional pointer too yeah well that um that so

when what do you see as like uh the place that therapy needs to go you know like you you have started you end up in brain spotting brain spotting like you're kind of describing the thing that i noticed where people who are open to brain spotting and get into it even if i know nothing else about them i know that they were okay with something that wasn't a hierarchical system of steps if this happens then do that do the 12 movements and then you, like I know that they're going to be open and that's generally going to be the kind of clinician that somebody's asking for when they say, you know, what's the first thing to look for? It's not that, I mean,

I think brain spotting works for an amazing amount of people. It's like one of the wider nets out there, but even if you don't need that exactly, you're going to end up with somebody who's open to uncertainty, you know know and open to just letting something happen where a lot of the models don't make room and what do you see yourself and and just the profession like heading you know post post that oh that feels like a big question i see myself trying to remember that and this maybe is not at all what you were asking but it's where it goes which is case in point i see myself finding out more about the ways to make this accessible to people outside of the therapy room which is kind of what i love about the coaching aspect and about

how brain spotting doesn't much very unlike lots of other modalities where like the licensed clinicians have a lockdown on it it's not that way with brain spotting um for better or for worse kind of depending on who you talk to but i think that making it more widely communicated to people that it's it's not only for trauma and I and I tell people too part of how I picked brain spotting and and got into brain spotting is because I did not want to be a trauma therapist and you know I was a little baby therapist and I didn't want to deal with trauma and everyone who is a therapist is laughing right now going ha ha ha that's impossible it all stems from trauma right like people still say it. Yeah.

And I got into the therapy space and I was like, well, shit, it turns out, which goes back to even with coaching, right? Like it's, if you're truly hitting, like not hitting people where it hurts, but like getting deep in with coaching, you're going to bump up against a little bit of trauma. It's really unlikely that you won't. Well, it informs your purpose in your life's trajectory and all the stuff you're going to coaching for, but there's difference in understanding how that informs your life and making it conscious and really trying to dig into somatic chunks of stuff that is hard to get out of the subcortical brain. I mean, there's just two different things,

but yeah, you're in conversation with it.'s just right right but so working with a coach who has that background and knows even what to do when you do butt up against the trauma right but so what happened is i was you know i was having this realization of like well turns out i'm gonna be a trauma therapist because all of my clients have some varying level of traumatic experience that needs to be cleared out. Right. And my population also did not, I work with a lot of people and by the time I closed my practice, a lot of my clients did realize they had trauma. But when I was, you know, early starting on, there was a lot of like, not really like no no my life has been pretty good um not a lot of traumatic

things have happened you know and then come to find out that things that maybe the broader world would not have called traumatic but were in fact very heavily traumatic for that person well i think trauma is like so it's become well i like that trauma is more the focus of therapy now and gets brought up a lot but i also feel like in doing that it's become too big of a word well yeah there's strain trauma there's acute trauma and there's also just like i know that like i mean half of yeah i'm calling all this trauma because it's become too big of a word but like you witness something in Iraq. Your buddy gets blown up.

You keep re-experiencing that as a flashback. That's PTSD. That's trauma. Okay? I see dad hit the wall one time and almost hit me. But then he never did hit me. But I thought he might. And I've got this strange trauma of that went on all the time.

And so my body was ready for it even though it didn't happen but i didn't have the experience so i'm not allowed to have it so it's not where you're gaslighting yourself yeah so like i'm having a reaction to something that didn't really happen like self gaslighting which is also thoughts with me and cbt but anyways we're calling that strain trauma now right you know which i'm glad there's room for that but then there's also like everybody said the family is normal and fun and this is what it's good and it's supposed to be like this but i knew that it this wasn't normal and fun or right but i called it that with language in my head but i knew something was wrong

for 18 years and now i can't you know that is trauma too but it's like we're putting and then you know i could go on but you kind of know what i mean there um i do well and what you're making a case a point for you're making a case for my point which was most of my clients did not recognize their trauma and had and so i was sitting there like between emdr and brain spotting going okay which one you know am i gonna like set up shop with because i did not have the budget to do both and i knew my people my people i love them so much and they are googlers and they're going to research the shit out of anything and i knew the second they googled emdr it was going to be ptst veterans and all these

things and they were going to immediately dismiss versus brain spotting they were going to immediately dismiss it versus brain spotting they were going to google and be like there's i don't really know like it's not really out there so i then tried to really hard tackle the seo in my area for brain spotting and i i dove straight into it because i wanted to be the first person to speak it into existence for the biggest variable for seo is time too yes so that i but so that i could speak it in a way that made it not about the trauma like yes it does that but it's so much more than that and i think that's true of all these support because people will be like well emdr is great for all that too like yeah no i'm not saying it isn't i'm saying if you google it good luck yeah that was why i that was how well the rigidity

like the emdr i mean one of the reasons that I left is that I was saying, hey, I'm noticing that the pupil wibbles here and that the person has a reaction on that spot. And when I stopped there, they visualized things from the experience. Do the 15 movements. They're holy and handed down by Shapiro. And you can't change the 15. And I was like, why am I i paying for 300 an hour for a consultation where you're telling me the number 15 over and over like i can read you know and there's no ability to to evolve you know i do and i do i

know many many emdr therapists who who are evolving with it and i think that's amazing i just think when people like you and David came out and said, Hey, I'm noticing this. It sounds like you just, it's a shame that you weren't met with more curiosity. Well, but Shapiro said, if you change EMDR, you're not doing my EMDR. You know, whereas David said, this is supposed to go on and change. And so, you know, the free spotting people can say they do brain spotting, but evolved EMDR, you know, according to the founder is not EMDR. Yeah. Well, and I don't know, I got out of the rabbit hole of EMDR.

So I can speak to what my understanding is, but it's all going to be opinion, not informed decisions, which again, is my third pillar. So I try not to do it, but like, yeah, I do. I, I, that was how I stumbled into brain spotting. That was how brain spotting chose me is because I needed something that my people were not going to Google and immediately dismiss because they were already dismissing the fact that they had trauma, not dismissing, but they were already on this, on, on the stand, taking a stand of, that's not what I'm here for. I'm not here to process trauma. I'm not having flashbacks because they weren't having what flashbacks look like in the movie. Right. But, um, gosh,

that was a whole long conversation that's done that of us just talking about like, who else do I work with? Well, I think like brain spotting, you find the more things in the file because there is this openness like even if somebody googles emdr and they see somebody say actually you can use emdr for creativity and that's result number one on google you're still sitting there being like what do you want to treat where what is it like how is that affecting you what's the bad experience you know what's the thing with brain spotting it's just kind of like i don't know feel the energy look at a stick and then your body your your brain is just smarter than any analyst it's smarter than any patient your deep brain will tell you what it is and sometimes we really want it to be page one of the file and we're just talking

about that and talking about that in cbt or something and then you just like go for a minute and get the front of the brain out of the way and brain spotting is like here's all the other paper in that file man it's a lot of other things are on that same you felt trapped you know network which which full circle is so true around alcohol right like people think it's just about i don't want to crave it and i want to not have a craving and it's not it's it's it is so woven in and it is a web in social relationships and family relationships and our relationship to our business and our bodies. And it's, it's so woven in. It's really hard just to say, I just don't want to crave it, or I'm just going to take a break. That's, um, I know, and I'll wrap up soon. That's my,

one of my main soap boxes that I get on. And this is actually, I have a, in addition to the, what type of Groundhog Day dream for are you, I do have another free training I can share with anyone who's interested, but where I talk about three of these points, but one of my main points is if we're going to take a 30 day break from drinking, that to me, and we're going to call it a reset. And yes, there are physical things that happen in those 30 days. Like that is undeniable. But to me, that is, and we're going to finish the 30 days and then say, okay, now I'm going to go towards moderating, right?

Because I've realized I don't need it. I don't want it as much. I'm much healthier without it. I feel so much better. But the problem is we've effectively taken our dirty laundry, shoved it in the corner for 30 days and said, well, yeah, now I don't smell it. I don't have to look at it like I don't have to deal with it. But the laundry is still not clean.

Like we didn't actually solve the problem. We just shoved it in the closet for 30 days. And then when we get it back out. To then say now these clothes are clean is it's a damn lie yeah well i mean what happens is your tolerance went down so you're drinking less just because it's affecting you more and it'll take you know three months for it to creep back up and then oh january's here again you know and then you're on groundhog day yeah well yeah i don't know it's it's it's it's interesting too because like the younger generations are pretty i mean you know things maybe could change but the data has stayed pretty consistent that

people drink less and there's certain things like they're savvy yeah like they're they're risk averse i mean some of it i think is that whatever you call it delta you know 10 or whatever but you know they can get marijuana easier some of them. But there's also just like there's a risk averseness. And like just looking at like market trends and things, things like wine, like when boomers sectors that have grown for like five years are like investment bottles, like over $300 a bottle and, and like buzz balls that you get at a gas station. But when we think about the genius of alcohol as a money-making franchise for a money-making company, like way to do it. When you start to realize the number of conversions you're about to have is going to decrease you better increase the price of every conversion and sell the more expensive stuff to maintain that i think

i mean business wise it is astounding like i am in like all the admiration for the industry but i think what you're talking about too with with the younger generations or i guess they're not even that young anymore but i'm just that old they're old enough that they could be drinking if they wanted to. Exactly. There's this savviness because it's similar to, you know, those of us who grew up when the studies were able to tell us that like smoking was actually not healthy for you. Like we have that now we've got more hardcore evidence that alcohol just really has zero health benefits and any that we get touted or just

You're absorbing the benefits when you study it of socialization, extroversion, community, and then there's like a secondary effect, but you, every time they try and generalize it just to alcohol, you, you can't, it's not good for you. Nope. And that's why, that's why I get on my soap boxes because I know that there are people who it's not bad enough that they want to go to therapy or they want to go to therapy for their trauma and they're paying, you know, a zillion dollars an hour, which is well worth it. Right. Like, but they're picking and choosing what needs to come up in that hour and it's the trauma and the drinking is just kind of this other side thing where it's not problematic enough to warrant therapy time,

but it just nags at their brain and they end up on that groundhog day where it's like, okay, I'll try again today. Okay. Dry January is coming up. Yeah. Well,

and like, there's a lot of people who I think genuinely want to work on that, but they're not at the place where they need 12 step to be alive or employed or married or whatever. And they're afraid that if they go to a therapy office and say that, that they're going to be told you have to go to AA and come back. You're not ready to commit, you know,

whatever. And yeah, I mean, maybe that's right. Some of the time, not every therapist who says that to somebody, they didn't need to hear it, but there are people who I think avoid therapy because they don't want to hear that and if they need something else i'm glad it's there yeah oh thank

you yeah that was well said yeah and i it's important to me to be part of why of how there is something else there for them yeah not to take away from any of these other methods but just to add and say there's a subset of people who, even if that were right for them, they're not going to do it. So we need to get them in another way. Yeah. You have anything else that you were working on or that you would like to talk about? I mean, brain spotting and gray area drinking are kind of what you're loud and proud about on the internet, but are there other kind of insights or questions you, I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean, I get loud.

The uncertainty principle. You're like, Oh gosh, don't, I will go all day on that. Mostly that. And then, like I said, the perfectionism and the business ownership thing and how a lot of it to me is people end up buying these like Aaron Condren planners and, you know, overhauling their schedule to try and be like their most productive version of themselves, especially business owners,, I want to get into, uh, you know, playwriting. I need to like buy 12 hours of David Mamet talking or something. And you're just kind of like, I don't know. We just have this weird thing where like, I don't know, why would you want to be like Steve Jobs? You know, like it just like, that's so many people. I get that there's aspirational things

about these people, but there's a lot of that kind of like the cult of the executive that is not healthy you know oh absolutely and a lot of well i'm not gonna go that was about to go straight back to alcohol you're right it isn't the thing i'm most loud and proud about because i think it's the first domino that needs to fall before these other things fall in place but to go back to this idea of business ownership right i have a i have a friend who I know who she calls it for her clients. They want to be time rich. And so that's why they aim for the CEO mindset, right? Cause then it's time wealth. It's, I started my business so I could have, I could afford the lifestyle I want and I don't have to be tethered to my business, right? Versus that hustle startup

mindset. And so I'm not, I don't want to steal her terms, but I was just like, oh, yeah, you nailed it. But so a lot of the business owners I work with, they're like they get in their own way with the perfectionism and the overthinking. And then they want to like color code a calendar because it's like, well, then I won't procrastinate. Procrastination is a huge thing. I brain spot with a lot of my clients is the business owner ones is the procrastination. Because we look at it similarly to not necessarily a trauma, but yeah, where it's like, well, there's some sort of like thing in you that's saying like, don't do like anything but that, right? Like it's an anger. So much of that avoidance is like, there's an anger that you kind of don't like what you're doing or how you're doing it or your relationship to it.

Yeah. And then what happens is people try to figure it out. Well, am I angry at it? Is it because I'm afraid of success? Am I afraid of failure? All of those questions are in your top brain. And that is not where you need to make the switches. We need to get in the brain and body to make the switches.

So that's just kind of the that's kind of the next level of work i do with people is okay we've dealt with the alcohol now let's deal with any lingering perfectionism procrastination stuff yeah i think like we we think emotionally and we're like our thoughts come from emotion and then we figure out what they are with thinking but we pretend it's the other way around because it feels good because that's a sense of control it feels like i'm in control more than i am but then that's why i love and hate uncertainty well but we do it the opposite when we're dealing with like society things because that also makes us feel in control like people pretend that like politics is about values or something and it's like no i think it's about material reality whereas like with your body like in your brain like what you're thinking has so much more to do with what you're

feeling and then you are rationalized not just rationalizing that that sounds like it's too reductive or writing it off too much but you're figuring out what that is later but i mean just look at the way that the brain is wired and running you were feeling first before you were in language or in time you know so start with that and and we pretend it's backwards that no i'm just going to think my emotional way i'm going to solve an emotional problem intellectually by talking about it and then eventually i'll feel different yeah and you know and there are people who because they thought about it differently not because they thought about it differently they thought about it differently, not because they thought about it differently, they thought about it differently,

somewhere something shifted and they mistakenly assumed that was why it shifted. And so we're giving it the credit when that was a coincidence or a springboard for something else to happen, if that makes sense. And so it gets the credit sort of like, oh gosh, listen to how I really am like a soapbox person, aren't I?

Learning so much about myself on your podcast? So much like the idea that dry January gets the credit for a reset for drinking when really it's not like we're giving the credit to something that didn't do anything. It was a vehicle, but it didn't do the thing. We have to get, we have to figure out what did the thing and then focus on building that skill, which I think is what you're saying. Yeah. I mean, analytical therapy is where that happens. I mean, Irvin Yalom used to say, you just let them talk until they feel and they'll say, it doesn't matter what they're saying. They'll say the same thing.

And then all of a sudden they'll feel it or something. And I love a good Yalom quote. I love a good Yalom quote. Well, like there were, like, I remember listening to like seventies, you and gain analysts, like tapes, like they were, I were digitized when I had them in in college but they were like literally like ripped off cassette tapes and you could hear like the rewind scrub and stuff um but they were like one of the things like they would all agree on that at the time i was like what are you talking about and now it makes sense was that like the patient only changes in this place in between being awake and being asleep and you see them

in the room for two years. Mom made me feel small anyway because of this mom made me feel small. And then all of a sudden like, whoa, mom made me feel small. And they felt it. And, you know, brain spotting takes you into this place between waking and asleep. But a lot of people feel like they're going to sleep

or their clock stops and they lose time. You know, like it's that part of the brain that is informing what we do, but where the ego is so afraid to let go and admit that it isn't in control. You know, which is the uncertainty principle again. Yes, it is. And again, that goes back to that third pillar of the trifecta, right? Which is like there is a difference between knowing something and knowing it.

And that's the same thing you're talking about is like I can say it and say it and say it and then one day i freaking say it and i feel it when i say it and so it's how do we facilitate that process well and i think like when people get a self-help book or they go on a certain kind of like religious or like secular you know life change course kick or you know executive coaching like whatever that's so much of the thing that actually happens is it gets you outside of yourself enough to have some perspective. And then it looks like it was the 17 step for success, you know, tier that you got to spend $5,000 to get the blue scarf or whatever. But really you just saw yourself differently because you did something different.

And like that could be free or a lot less. It could. something different and like that could be free or a lot less it could and i think i think it's out there for free and i think there's enough about thing in the work i do out there for free that someone could probably piece it together for themselves and make it happen and i'm happy about that and what i virtually basically sell is well i can walk you through it a little bit faster than your trial and error method of figuring out how to make it work and i think that's true of therapy right like you know that well that's not always true of therapy because we don't heal in a vacuum and we need that relationship and that rapport i think is really important but the that's true of cbt let

me put it that way cbt but i think you can cbt yourself if you have the right information but it's a lot of guess and check and trial and error and then of course there's cbt is not the part of brain we want anyways but it's an it's an analogy anyway okay we should start wrapping sure yeah i want to be respectful of your time. I can let you go. Yeah, no, I don't know. I think that's true though. That the, the way that the, the, the models of therapy that are actually new, cause a lot of them it's, you're just kind of putting something in new paper or whatever.

But like the ones that are actually new is where somebody, you can see the therapist tried this and this and this and this and none of it worked. And then they did this thing that worked for them. And then they were like, what was that? How do I say it? And how do I replicate it? And then, ta-da, you know, you have, you know, Eric Erickson or something. And like those are, they're all attempts to go back to the place where you healed and then share it with other people when they're genuine, you know, and you know, the cult, the cults are the exploitive modalities are the ones where somebody is appropriating the language of healing and change to, and somebody who hasn't done it can't tell the difference.

So, you know, of course. Yeah. They're getting very well said. I like that. Make that a soundbite. Yeah. I'll send you a little clip. Yeah.

Well, I really appreciate you coming on. If people want to get your services or find out more about you, like your free consultation group with their provider, you know, what, what do you, what do you want them to go? We can link to anything in the show notes. So definitely check those out. But we want to, we want to tell us some places where we can find out more about what you do and definitely tell us about your podcast.

Absolutely. Yeah. So the easiest way to find me the fastest is probably Instagram. And I'm just at Carolyn Robisto. I say it's the fastest because it's the easiest. It's just my name. There's no hyphens or anything. Just it's my name. Go find me. And every other way under the sun to connect with me is on there in some way, shape or form. So it's kind of like the, the easiest one-stop shop. Including my podcast. My website is Carolyn Robistow, but it's.net, not.com. I slept on that. I actually got rid of that calm and then I couldn't get it back. And I was like, Oh, there you go. That's what happens.

But my podcast is called brain unblocked. And if you thought this was a soapbox, boy, I tell you what, there's 70 some odd episodes over there. Plenty more soapboxes about it. So come join me. Well, great. We'll link to all of that stuff. And if there is if there's anything else, send it to me and I'll link it in the show notes.