Well with Arielle Lorre - 30: KARA LOEWENTHEIL - Unf*cking Our Brains

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

We all have brains and our brains are producing thoughts 24/7; that is their function. But we are prone to attaching ourselves to our thoughts, accepting them as truths and letting them dictate our lives. Oftentimes, our thoughts are rooted in fear, insecurity and self criticism. If this is familiar to you, then this is your episode! I talk to Kara Loewentheil, Master Certified Coach - and host of Unf*ck Your Brain - about:   - How to live on purpose without careening through life with things just happening to us - Not acting on thoughts that aren’t true - Unf*cking social programming as women - Mastering self critical thoughts - Confidence  - Not attaching to emotions   and so much more! If you like this podcast, please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe.    Connect with Kara: https://unfuckyourbrain.com www.instagram.com/karalowentheil   Connect with Arielle: www.instagram.com/ariellelorre www.instagram.com/theblondefilespodcast www.youtube.com/theblondefiles www.theblondefiles.com    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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So, would auto-hue without your re-sadviseur or sunnycars. Today I'm talking to Kara Lowentail. Kara is a master-certified coach with a BA from Yale and a JD from Harvard Law.

In the last three years after pivoting from a legal career, she has grown her life coaching business from zero to seven figures. She's the host of the iTunes top-rated self-help podcast Unfuck Your Brain, which has been downloaded over five million times. And she's been featured in outlets like Marie Claire, MindBody Green, MSN.com, the Huffington Post. I am low-key obsessed with Kara. I told her so in the beginning of the podcast. She is just a smart woman. She is badass. And I love, love her approach to retraining our brains into better thinking, better feeling, and better living. So I hope you enjoy this podcast. There's so much value here. And you guys, I really highly recommend that you go check out her podcast. Clearly, five million downloads. She doesn't need my help. But when I listen to any of her episodes, I have

like one epiphany after another after another and they're pretty short and they're manageable and they are just so, so helpful. On another note, if you like this podcast and you want to support what I'm doing, please take a minute to rate review and subscribe in the iTunes. iTunes app, such a simple little thing that really goes a long way in supporting this. Enjoy the episode. I'm Ariel Lorry and this is the Blonde Files podcast where I talk to experts, influencers, and inspirational people in the world of wellness and beyond. Okay, so I'm here with Kara Lowenthal.

Welcome. Yes. I just, I'm just so proud of you for getting my name right. We had to give it a second just to let it echo because so many people I'd come on their podcast. No offense to any of my previous host. They're like, I'm such a big fan. Here's Kara Lowenthal. And I'm like.

I know. I did that yesterday. I'm guilty on my Instagram. And as soon as I said it, I was like, damn it. I knew. And then I was like, I can't go back and like delete the past three stories. So I just have to like have a moment of humility and take accountability. Anyway, I'm really obsessed with you.

just not in a creepy way but i have kind of gone down like a deep black hole of your podcast it is that's the experience i like people to have just kind of over into the void i feel like even just in the last couple days there have been so many episodes that where i've had like one epiphany after another after another you're very concise to the point and um you're so articulate and like so good at communicating valuable information that we can all benefit from. So if anybody who's listening hasn't listened to unfuck your brain, listen to this episode first and then go over. So I'm really excited to have you here. Yeah, me too. So I always like to rewind a little bit with my guests and just get some context. So you have a very impressive pedigree, I'll say.

and like a well-bred show, like an impressive career, but I want to rewind and talk about like younger, Kara and like, what did you want to do? Like when I was really young? It's funny because I realized the other day that maybe in my, not like when I was six,

I just wanted to be like left alone to read books when I was a little girl, you know, and the teachers always be like, go play at recess. Recess isn't for reading books. And I'd be like, I don't see why not. Like, why can't I just sit in the corner and read my books?

But I remember in high school just thinking, like, why can't I, like, you know, I had this idea that, like, in Europe, there were public intellectuals. Like, people who just get paid for their opinions. And I was like, why can't someone just pay me for my musings on life? And then just recently I was like, oh, no, wait, they do. Like, that happened. But I had to go through some other things first. But, yeah, I never really had a, like, I'm going to be a ballerina. I'm going to be an astronaut.

Like, I don't know what I thought when I was younger. But then in my teens, I got very involved in feminist work and repriments. productive rights work and that was my career before I became a coach. So I was pretty kind of single-mindedly focused on that starting from like age 18. Yeah, I'm just curious because I feel like when people get into like a helping profession, which coaching is, it's usually, or maybe not usually, but very often because they've had their own personal experience or challenge that they've overcome. So I was wondering if you had anything like that in your story or if you just kind of naturally transitioned. I mean, I think I had the challenge of having a human brain, which most of us have, which is the biggest challenge

there is. Yeah. So it wasn't like, oh, I had like this one traumatic experience I overcame. It really was more like I was always interested in, in high school, I think it manifested more as being interested in philosophy and like concepts of the good life. Like if I look back at my high school yearbook, which I did recently, I was, it's like, you think you've grown and changed so much. I totally have. But I like look back and the quote was like, just basically like, what is the good life and I was like oh that's I've been obsessed with the same thing since I was 18 so I think in that it was in that context that was what I was interested in and then I went I was interested in psychology I was just always looking for I think I just always had the sense like I was like a weird kid

who seemed much older than my years and people always like like came to me for like adults would come to me for like advice when I was 12 it was like a I was a weird kid and I think I always just had the feeling of like most everyone else but everybody seems kind of crazy. Like nobody seems to have total control of what's going on with them. Like everybody seems kind of nuts. And there just has got to be a way to like live your life on purpose better than what most people seem to be doing. I was, I think I was just, that's what I was always like, how do we do this on purpose and not just be like careening through life? Like I get it, you know, this shit happening to us and just. So I feel like

it was like a slow progression in that way. Like I always was into, I like sent myself to it. When I was 16, I was like, hi parents. I'd like to go to therapy. And they were like, what? You know, like, just because I was like, I want to talk about like what the experience of being a human is like and what's going on in my brain and nobody else is talking about that. So find me a professional. And then I was always into therapy and meditation and I went through a yoga phase. It was just, you know, I worked with other coaches. It was just a long progression of like, how do you get better at living a life, a conscious life with intention that you create on purpose? I think I've always been interested in that. And since you kind of began these practices when you were younger, probably well before other. people adopt them. Like I know for me, I got into meditation just in the last few years because I had to because my brain is fucking crazy. Right.

And like I got into therapy. I was in therapy when I was younger because everyone was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. But when I got sober six years ago and then I really embraced therapy because I had to. So I wonder of having that experience of doing these things that are incredibly beneficial. I don't want to call them like improvement or self-help or anything. but if you feel like that benefited you or set you apart from your peers or gave you an advantage or if you just have more insight.

I think that they all helped develop like skills that are now useful to me, but it was, you know, like meditation or yoga or mindfulness, whatever. But none of them were that helpful at the time because it's almost like I was developing skills, but I didn't have like a framework to use them in a way that helped me. When I found the kind of coaching I do, I found my teacher and I found this very kind of analytical way of entering the work. All of a sudden, everything made more sense to me. And then all those tools that I developed could be useful. But for most of my life, the whole reason I even found my teacher was I was like, all right, I tried yoga.

I tried meditation. I tried all these things. I still feel crazy. Right. What's happening? Hey, you can't like therapies yourself out of it. Yeah. Like my therapy was very talk therapy oriented.

And while I'm sure it was helpful, it was not. I don't remember. I mean, I have a terrible memory. So if my therapist is listening to this, I'm sorry, it's probably me. I'm sure you tried. But I just like didn't. I don't remember a lot of conversation of like this is a, there was like kind of no cognitive behavioral or like dialectical behavioral therapy or any kind of even like, what is it called? There's another form. Oh, act like awareness, whatever. But I just don't remember any of that. It was just like I talk over and over about my negative thoughts and feelings and nothing ever, you know, changes. Yeah, I mean, I'm a proponent of therapy, but I kind of see it in a few different ways. So, like, one, I think it is helpful to just be kind of guided through your own thoughts because you come to realizations on your own, right? Like, through the conversation, and that's like CBT. But I also think that sometimes it can be, it can kind of reinforce things and maybe help you, like, you, me, I don't know, just in my experience, kind of like stay in like a victim mode

or like reinforce a resentment that I have against somebody. So, okay, so I'm curious how you went from there to, you went to law school. Yeah. Right? You went to Yale and then you went to Harvard. Okay, smarty pants and got your law degree. And did you ever plan on going into law or? Yeah, and I did.

I went and so I graduated from law school. I mean, I've always been, the through line is like I've always been a professional feminist in some way. It just used to be political and now it's more. mental. Yeah, I mean, I was in the reproductive rights movement, so I went to law school to be a reproductive rights litigator, meaning like to sue, you know, basically sue state and federal governments over restricting access to birth control and abortion and all kinds of reproductive health care. So, yeah, I went to law school. I clerked for a federal judge. I was like getting all of the brass rings, like, okay, I'm going to have this, I'm going to like rack up these

accomplishments that I'm supposed to feel confident at the end of these. So I like, and, you know, it takes a human brain so long to learn things. And, If you're not, if you're trying to learn it organically, you never really get there. Like, I kept doing things and being like, okay, well, I went to, got to Yale. I still don't feel confident. Maybe if I go to Harvard. Okay, I still don't feel confident. Maybe if I get this.

It's like at each stage I was doing like a more and more selective thing. And yet mysteriously, my brain didn't suddenly change itself. So I clerked. And then I did litigate for two years. I had a reproductive rights fellowship. And like another perfect example I had got, there was one fellowship in the country in my field that year. And I got it. I didn't feel confident, right?

My imposter syndrome just came with me. And then I switched into academia. Same thing. I just kept going through the same experience. And at the end of my legal career, I was running a think tank at Columbia Law School. And then, you know, the next natural step was to quit the whole thing and become a life coach. Yeah, I mean, I do love what you're saying. And I was just having a conversation with somebody before about this.

Like, when we're looking for these external things to validate us, we're never going to feel validated. And I think we all know that on like a rational level. But we still think that like maybe it's going to help like move the needle a little bit. And it's very crushing, right? When you keep hitting those marks and the goal post keeps moving. And, you know, it kind of is rewarding for like a day. Yeah, exactly.

And then when you have that that realization that like it's an inside job. Yeah. So when did you make the decision? Why did you make the decision to, leave it all and start your own thing. Yeah. I think that I was lucky in that I was supposed to go on the running a thing tank had evolved out of like a fellowship and I'm supposed to go on the academic market to get a like teach, you know, to become a law professor. And it's a big procedure. It's not like you send out some resumes. It's like you got to go do these job talks all over

the country, which are like 90 minutes long and then everybody like yells at you about your paper and then you have to like go out to dinner. It's like a whole big process. And then you usually, you know almost nobody gets to like start at NYU or Columbia or Harvard you got to go you know live somewhere else at a quote unquote lower ranked school whatever it's all nonsense but just it was like going to be a lot of work in a big life change and I was sort of like it would be kind of like I don't want to do all that and then two years later be like now I'm going to become a life gauge it's just like let's if we're doing this we're doing it now like that would be crazy um so I think that you know I had that external kind of marker milestone or deadline that helped but I I have to say I did not, I think I was so, I was extremely attached to like the social and intellectual prestige of my career because that's what I valued myself on at the time. And so I don't think my brain could even handle consciously thinking about it. I think it was like happening unconsciously. I had just found my teacher's work just because I wanted to feel better and I was like applying

it to myself and it really changed my life. But I wasn't like looking to become a life coach, you know? But then I woke, my experience of it was that I woke up one morning and like, February 2015 and it was like the revelation had arrived overnight and I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go become a coach. I'm going to coach lawyers. I had this whole like plan. But I will say maybe six months later I was out in California seeing a friend of mine who one of those friends were like when you get together it's great. You don't really keep in touch in between. So we hadn't been touched at all. And I was like big crazy news. Guess what I'm doing? You know? And she was like, you've been talking about quitting your job and becoming a life coach for years. And I was like, what are you talking about? This is a brand new crazy decision I've made. She was like, you're always saying, oh, I'm just going to run away to Costa Rica and become a life coach. I was like, oh, wow. That's true.

I did not actually want to move to Costa Rica. Humidity is not good for me. But it's like that had been coming out sideways as a joke because my brain couldn't, like, allow that possibility. That's so interesting. Yeah. So it's like, I experienced it as this big, like, shocking revelation. But apparently I'd been talking about it for years. I'm not taking it seriously.

So what was, I would imagine that you had fear in that. How did you navigate that? I mean, I think I had done, you know, I had one of the most transformative pieces of the early work for me. I mean, the fun thing about starting to work on your mind is like it's so hard in the beginning, but also you get to have these like, what? Mind-blowing breakthroughs. Once you're, you know, you're more skillful at it, nothing's that shocking. I don't think.

And one of them was about failure. Like I had really grown up with a fixed mindset of like you just do this. things you're naturally good at and it's like humiliating to be bad at something or fail at something. And so you never try any of those things if you're not naturally amazing. You know, just do things you're naturally amazing at where it's safe and you can succeed. And one of the first, maybe like the fourth, maybe podcast of my teachers was Brooke Castillo, the Life Coach School that I ever listened to was about failing on purpose. And I was like, what? What is happening? What do you mean? Like it totally blew my mind. And so I think like that opened up a lot of the space for me.

to even think about like you could choose to do something and not know if you're going to be great at it or like you know and then the rest of my fear i think was just recognizing i mean i you know it's one thing to know it intellectually versus really understand it but that you know i had all these thoughts and fears about what other people were going to think that was like my big hurdle i wasn't really worried i mean should have been more worried about running a business since i had no background in running a business at all and had never displayed any aptitude for making money the past. You'd think that would have concerned me, but I wasn't worried about that. I mean, I was just, like, down the list of worries. I was worried about it, but I was really just mostly worried about what other people would think. And that was all, of course, just my own thoughts about it. And I didn't, you know, I think a mistake, misapprehension people have is that you need to, like, work on it until you're not scared and then you'll do the thing. Oh, yeah. And I was like, no. I was, like, terrified and also felt horrible and anxious and ashamed, all the things.

I didn't wait till I convinced myself that nobody else would have negative thoughts about it. Also, looking back, like, of course they did. It was a crazy thing to do. Like, my parents really handled it pretty well in retrospect given that I was like, hi, I've never been to business school or had a business. I'm just going to quit my job.

You know, they were like, what? Yeah, I was curious. I was going to ask you what your family thought about that after, like, the trajectory that you were on. Yeah. I, you know, at the time, of course, I was like, oh, they don't, whatever. But looking back, I'm like, I think they were pretty supportive of all things considered. That was like, I was like having a nervous breakdown.

You know, I do remember that I specifically told them at, it was like, every February we used to go to Florida for my grandfather's birthday. And he would have like a party with, you know, all the family. It was like a big party. And I remember that I told them at the party because I was like, if they lose their shit, at least like, weren't. They were like a little concerned, which was legit, you know, but they were pretty, they would just, they would send me emails. They were sort of like, maybe you want to stay in the fellowship for an extra year. No reason to rush it, you know. Right. But once they, they were really only nervous until, once I started making money, they were kind of like, oh, all right, you're going to be okay.

That's always what happens, right? I had the same thing. Like when I was, when I got sober, I went back to school for counseling and I was doing this thing that was to help other people. and I had this Instagram account as a hobby, and it kind of like took off. And I had no clue when last year I came to a crossroads where I was like, well, I can't do like counseling and like this internet thing, whatever it is. And everyone was like, you're doing what? And then as soon as like the money comes in and like recognizable brands or whatever that marker is, then people are like, oh, okay. And it's like more validating. Oh yeah. And now my father's like, she learned it all from me.

that's so cool he has his own business also so now all the now it's like you'd think I was his right doesn't pro d'hete the whole my gosh that's amazing so how did you come up with unfuck your brain and like can you define what what that means yes I can so I think on the way that I my specific version of unfucking your brain is there's two levels all of us I think just humans have to unfuck our brains in the sense of learning how evolution and evolutionary biology have shaped our brains and cultural forces. We all have cultural forces too. Like learning to see how all the things that you think are just true are your optional thoughts are not necessarily true. And that all the feelings you have that you think are telling you something true about the world are actually

coming from your thoughts. So the way I teach it is like your thought causes your feeling. Excuse me. And so we all need to unfuck our brains in the sense of like, I mean, it's hard for me to remember what this is like, but like most people, most of us are going through life, just think whatever we think and then being like, well, that must be true because I thought it. And so I need to act on it, right? Or like I have a feeling. I should do with the feelings set. Like just completely responsive to whatever our brains or bodies are generating and just like acting on that all the time without ever really stopping to think like where is this coming from? Do I want to rely on it? What's going to happen if I act this way? Like so I think we all have to do that. And then my version is the

feminist version is I think we also, society teaches all of us how to think. But if you're a woman or part of any other marginalized group, you're taught to think in specific ways about yourself and your role and your capabilities in ways that I think you internalize and hold you back. And so we have to unfuck all of that social programming to unfuck our brains. Okay, so how do we do that? So it's really two steps. You have to, number one, just become aware of it.

I think that a lot of women understand conceptually that social, you know, their social forces or they get social messaging. But then they have their own. self-critical thoughts and what they don't understand is those are the same thing. So I think that if your brain said to you, like if you looked in the mirror and what your brain said was like in a radio announcer voice, like, glamour magazine says you have too much cellulite. Like you went, no offense to glamour. It's great. But like, you wouldn't be like, you would be like, that's weird. I don't think I think that. Like that's an external thought, right? But that's not what happens. What happens

is like you get all the messages. It goes into your brain and gets all mixed up. And then it comes out in your own voice, which is like, well, I know I should love my body, but I just really think that like my thighs are kind of gross so I shouldn't wear shorts, right? It comes out as your own voice and it just seems like a true thought about yourself. And so we have to learn how to recognize that and recognize those patterns, which is why I think, I think what's different about my approach is having that background of feminist theory and then having the legal background. It's like, you learn to become a pattern spotter basically when you're a lawyer. And that is one of the things that I'm able to do is, is like spot the patterns and be like, okay, see how all of you think

this thing, two options. You're all like fundamentally flawed in this exact same magical way, right? Or it's like I just did a retreat in Nashville. I had nine women there who are coaches, one of who's a yoga teacher. But it's like everybody there thinks they're like the one person in the world who's like unworthy in the specific way. And I was like, what's the, what are the chances? Like statistically, I got the nine worst people in the world all at this retreat. Right. It's like we start to see that. So you have to learn how to spot it. And then you've learn how to change it, and then that's the second part of the work, is working on shifting your thoughts. And I think because I come from a very, like, intellectually rigorous background, but also I'm

just whether, I don't know, people who learn to astrology are always like, you're such a tourist. I'm just very grounded and practical. So it's not like positive manifestations or vibrations or like, you know, it's like, I'm very like, okay, what's the terrible thought you think about yourself? Okay, what's a slightly less terrible version of that that we could practice instead and like move our way up what I call it the thought ladder. So you're like really getting concrete about shifting your neural pathways little bit by little bit. And then that builds over time until the new one becomes the default. But I'm very focused on like the how to. How do you actually do that? As opposed to just like, that's a good idea. So if you can figure out how to change your thoughts,

go for it. Right. Yeah. And the neurons that fire together, wire together, right? Yeah. Okay. I have kind of an un-reath. Well, you mentioned evolution. Yeah. I'm just curious. This is kind of like a side note, but do you think our brains are like way more fucked now? Because from an evolutionary standpoint, like even just in the past 10 years now that we're staring at a screen all day, being bombarded with pictures of like Photoshop people and like I don't think our brains are meant to like wake up and have a screen in front of it. Do you think that we're more fucked now than we were? So I guess my answer is yes and no. I mean as a coach, I'm always like all these thoughts could be true. I don't know. I do definitely teach like when I, like for instance, when I do body image work

with people, I'm like, you need to clean up your Instagram feed. Like, don't have people on there. Don't have, if you're a size 20 short brunette, don't have an Instagram feed full of size to nine foot tall blonde people. Like that's not, you know, so you want to be looking at people who look like you, at least as much as you're looking at people who don't look like you. So I do think that that has some impact. But I also think if you look at historically, every time we invented new technology, humans like freak out about how it's replacing the old one and everything's going to hell. So when they invented the printing press, people were like, now no one's going to value books anymore and the monks. And then they invented the phone and everybody was like, no one's going to value

letters anymore. This is the downfall of civilization. And it sounds silly to us, but if you go back and look, they were like very serious. People were like, now that there are phones, humans will forget how to write. Right. And the art of letters will be lost, right? And it was like a, there was like a moral panic about it. So I just think every time we invent a new technology, it's like first we use it for sex, then we use it for amusement and distraction, and then we decide it's ruining things. Like people were writing similar shit about seriously, like serialized novels in Victorian newspapers that we now consider the classics of literature and like old and boring. And back then they were like scandalous and ruining, you know, the nation's young women. So I take all that with a grain of salt

just because I don't think it's like for me, the question is always is a thought. helpful. So if you think staring at a phone isn't good for me and that helps you stare at it less and you feel better, great. But often when we tell ourselves like modern technology is going to trap us, like then we just feel like a victim and trapped and, you know, powerless and that's not helpful. Yeah, I love that perspective. Okay. I'm going to shift my thinking around that. Okay, so I'm curious, what are the most kind of, what are the most prevalent issues that you're seeing coming up with the people you work with. So I think, I mean, you know, I attract obviously people who my work is feminist mindset

works. So that's who I get. And I think all of it comes down to confidence in one way or another. But I think the ways that that manifest are people pleasing, which if you listen to the podcast, you know I call people deceiving because people pleasing sounds so nice. And we all think that means we're like good people. So then we like lean into it. We're like, I'm just a people pleaser.

but actually you're just lying about what you think and feel to someone else to try to get them to like you. So people pleasing is a big one. I think imposter syndrome, right, comes up a lot. And imposter syndrome is associated, I think, sometimes with a certain kind of professional job. But really, I see women having that in all areas of their lives, including, like, being a mother. Like, it sounds funny to be like, I have an imposter syndrome about being a mom. But a lot of women do kind of like, I'm not a good mom and people are going to find out. And I'm not suited to this.

and I don't know how to do it. So I think imposter syndrome, people pleasing, I think I don't have a catchy term for this, but it's like external validation seeking. Like just when you don't, it's like not having your own back. When you don't have your own back, when you don't have a good self-regard, when you don't like yourself,

you're just constantly, I call it like the emotional vending machine. You're just constantly trying to push buttons on the outside world or other people to like spit out some validation for you. And that can be your whole life. like running around trying to punch the buttons in to get some validation. I think that's a big one. But I mean, it all, I think, comes down to, like, there's just the human element of it.

And then there's the specific kind of way that women are taught to think about themselves in our society, which is that they should always worry more about what other people think and other people should be happy first. And it's selfish for women to care about themselves. Like, I just don't think men are taught that in the same way. So how do we retrain our brains around this? I know that you have a, this is what you do. Yeah. Go work with Kara. Come join the clutch.

Well, really, because it is, I can like talk about the overall, but it's so specific, right? Everybody has their own version of the thought. And interestingly, like, a lot of people have the same original thought, but when you're trying to find a thought that can be the next thing someone's going to practice thinking, it, like, varies hugely. Like, like, a thought that worked great for someone else will, like not feel good to you. And then, you know, so it's not like I can say sort of like, I can say sort of like, I. What I do is teach people how to figure out which thoughts will work for them and then how to practice them. But the way we change it is really just that same process of like we have to develop awareness. So we have to like have a process for getting our thoughts out of our head and down on paper.

So we can start to look at them. And then we have to go one by one and work on shifting them. The good news is that it seems like you have 10 million thoughts, but it's actually like five thoughts in different costumes. So in the beginning it can seem overwhelming. But after a while you start to be like, oh, it's you again. okay I know when I'm practicing thinking about that. It's, you know, on a podcast especially or in a book or whatever, it's like you're trying to speak at this level of generality.

But one of the most important insights I have for anybody trying to do this work is to not try to coach themselves at that level of generality. Like ultimately, every coaching call could boil down to you don't think you're good enough. Let's talk about that. Right. But when we're talking about it at that level of abstractness, it's like a narrative. We can't do anything about it.

And everybody thinks that they should come. in and like work on their self-esteem in some general sense and that'll filter down. But it's the opposite. You have to work on each individual little situation in the beginning and that builds up. So when somebody is like, I need to work on my self-confidence, I'm like, okay, what's the last time? Yesterday, when did you feel insecure? Oh, you were in Starbucks and the person ahead of you ordered a whatever and then you started thinking that the priest didn't like you, like, that's what we're going to work on.

So it's the opposite of what you would expect. You really have to like dig into the specific details of your day. thoughts and then how you're going to shift that thought a little bit. Does it, do all these thoughts kind of boil down to like insecurity and not feeling enough and not feeling worthy or, I mean, I feel like when you really get down to it again, not to generalize, but it would all kind of be from like the same root. Yeah, I think a lot of it is that. I mean, I don't know if it's all that, but yeah, I think a lot of it is that. Like, and I have a colleague who's like the opposite coaching I do.

She's a Mormon coach for some Mormon. Oh, coach for Mormon women. She has this episode that she talks about it as like the human void. It's just this like that everybody has this kind of emptiness, which is not exactly how I think about it. But it's like I understand that episode because so many people seem to have the same experience of like having that, you know, not feeling secure or not feeling safe or not feeling worthy or whatever it is. But I do think that that's mostly learned because some people don't have that. You know, it can get disproportionate. It's like there's a selection bias because all I do is talk to people who want coaching all the time.

Right. So there's people out there who need coaching and don't know it, but there's some people out there who feel fine. They don't feel unworthy or whatever else, right? Or at least not a majority of the time. So I try to be mindful that like my section of the world is all people with brains like mine. Right. But if you have a brain like mine, yes. I think it mostly boils down to like there's something.

something like a lot of people seem to believe that there's something mysterious wrong with them that they can't put their finger on and they can't explain and they can't fix but that everybody else is going to find out about and i always say like if you're always looking for something to fix you're always going to feel broken yeah and you'll always find something to fix right and you'll never be better yeah yeah it'll just keep moving right people do that with their bodies like plastic surgery i think it's fascinating because for a lot of people they're like they're obsessed with this one thing that if they just change that, they're going to love how they look, and then they change it. I can speak to this.

Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. And then like for two days, it feels great. And then your brain finds another thing. Because you've trained your brain to look for flaws. So that's what it's going to do. Yeah.

So I kind of want to talk about that. Part of your work is helping women retrain their brains around liking themselves and being happy with themselves and their appearance, right? Mm-hmm. I have had plastic surgery. Mm-hmm. And I was just on a podcast this morning and they were trying to like get to the root of it. I'm very open about it because I feel like, I don't know.

I just don't think that there should be a stigma so much around it. So many people do. Yeah. And I think that people have unrealistic expectations nowadays. And so like while I don't encourage it, I'm also like, hey, this is what I did. And I felt like for me, so I got my nose done a few years ago. I had wanted to do it since I was 10-ish. so do without what you will.

And, you know, I got to a place where I was like, okay, I'm an adult. Like, I still am unhappy with this thing. I'm fulfilled in the rest of my life. So, and it actually, like, it didn't make me happy, but now I love my nose. And I felt like, so it wasn't like an unhealthy thing. It is a slippery slope because, well, one, I live in L.A., so it's like, it really is like getting a coffee, like getting plastic surgery done. And once you have that in your head, at least for me, once I realized how easy it was to like, oh, I can just make a little change. Like, that's not a big deal.

I'm like five days and I'm good to go. Then I'm like, oh, what else can I do? And that's where I think it gets a little bit sticky. But can you talk about, like, how you work with women or what the goal is when you retrain thinking around that? Yeah. I mean, you know, to me it's never about what I would call the A line is called. It's like the action line. Like, it's never, any action can feel a different way,

depending on what you're thinking and feeling about it, right? So you can get plastic surgery and it can feel amazing. Or you get plastic surgery and it can feel terrible, right? It all has to do with what you're thinking and feeling. So it sounds like in your case, you had done a lot of work on yourself in your life. And so then it was like, it wasn't like, okay, if I just changed my nose, then I can love myself, right? Like, that's where people go wrong.

Yeah. So I totally obviously don't think there should be a stigma at all. And I think, like, anything you can, that's what's so fascinating about being. a human is like we're always trying to take action to solve our feeling problems. And then we're like, I don't know. I took the action. I took the action. You know, it doesn't feel better because it's not going to come that way. So I think for me, the goal is always like, I teach with everything I teach. It's not just body. Like love it before you decide to change it. Right. So if you're unhappy in your marriage, learn to love your marriage before you decide if you want to change it. If you're unhappy in

your job, learn to love your job before you decide to change it. If you're unhappy with your body, learn to love it before you decide to change it. Because, what people don't understand is that because we're so fixated on this idea that the outside circumstance causes our feelings and our thoughts. We're just like, if I just change that damn outside circumstance, everything's going to be fine. And what we don't understand is that your brain has habits and you're training it to think a certain way. So it's like training a puppy not to go to the bathroom, like to go to the bathroom inside for a year and then expecting it to magically go outside if you change houses. Right. If you train your brain to look for what's wrong in a relationship and how the person isn't making you feel the way you want to feel,

you can leave that person and marry someone else and you're going to have the same damn problem, right? And if you train your brain to look for what's wrong with the job, same thing. It's like people want to complain their way to happiness. It doesn't work that way. And so with our bodies, too, like learn to love what you have. Then if you want to change it, you can change it, but it won't matter because you'll, you've developed the skill of loving your body. Right.

And like imagine some people go into plastic surgery wanting or whatever it is, weight loss, whatever they do, like wanting to come out a certain way so they can love themselves. And then sometimes they come out that way and then they're like, well, that's weird. That didn't work. Right. Now I got to do something else. Or it doesn't go the way they thought it would. Right.

And now like that's not a good outcome either, right? Something goes wrong. Like if you learned how to love your body the way it is, then whatever. And especially with bodies like, we're all going to age, right? Our bodies are going to change. Change is the nature of the universe. And as humans, I think we're always trying to like, hold. hold it still. We just were like, if it's good, we're like, it has to stay exactly this way

if we think that things are good, right? So we don't want anything to change it. We're like very vigilant about making sure nothing changes what's good. And if it's bad, quote unquote, then we're like, okay, I got to get it good, right? But our bodies are such, that's why we've so much trouble with our bodies. I think they're such a daily reminder that like we can't control everything and that life is temporary. And like we're all going to get wrinkles. We're all going to get older. We're all going to get saggy. We're all going to get whatever. And So I like learn to love it now. Like wherever you are, you're at the peak of conforming to traditional beauty standards now that you can.

So we should all do that work now. And I definitely, and I have some, you know, it's not like nobody can see me on here. It's not like I benefit from some conventional beauty privilege, whatever. Like I'm a fat woman, but I'm very hourglassy and very femme. And I have clear skin and long hair and whatever, right? So it's not like I don't benefit from any of that. but I for sure am so much more confident in my 30s than I was in my 20s when I was much thinner because of my thoughts and my mind and I see like people around me when I have friends who have had

an enormous amount of validation for their looks their whole life and have had like you know just the world treat them a certain way because they really fit a conventional beauty standard it's so hard for them to deal with aging and like losing that pretty privilege and it's it's such a losing game for women because the standard is like a 17-year-old. So it's like 21, you're already on your way out and downhill, you know, in a way it isn't for men. Men get to be the silver fox. And we've all decided like one woman is allowed to be sexy overseas. It's like Helen Mirren is it.

That's it for everybody. The rest of us need to be 17. So it can be a slog that work. It can be really like repetitive work you have to keep doing in some ways. But it's so freeing. Like now when I work with people who are still in it, it's like hard to remember that I used to spend all day, every day thinking about like, what did I eat and was it too much

and what am I going to eat tomorrow and what does my body look like? And it isn't good. I mean, just constant chatter. Like there's no way I could have built a seven figure coaching business in three years and had that mental chatter. Like it's such an energy suck. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of it and kind of going back to what you were saying before

about like being so if like things are good now and you don't want them to change and you're like that all causes us to not live in the present moment. And like if you're not present, you're capable of like feeling any gratitude or like appreciation. Right. We're like things are good now. So I need to be very vigilant to make sure they're good in the future. So that in the future I can enjoy them.

But I'm not going to enjoy them now. Right now I need to. Yeah, exactly. Same thing. So I also want to talk about kind of differentiating between self-love and liking ourselves because self-love, especially in like the industry, wellness industry, is kind of like a hot topic right now. And I think it's very marketable. So can you talk about the difference between those?

Yeah. And I would actually talk about the difference like between self-acceptance also, right? Because I think thinking that we should like ourselves or we should love ourselves can just become another thing we're like failing at. And to me, self-acceptance on some levels is the deepest because it's like I can accept even when we're, when I don't love my body or myself. I can, like, I can notice and observe these thoughts. I can hold space for myself, even when I'm not liking myself. It's like that next level.

In terms of self-like versus self-love, I don't know that I use, when I use self-love, what I really mean is like, sort of like having your own back, which to me means like you're never going to abandon yourself or someone else's opinion or someone else's desires or, like, you're just never going to kind of, be mean to yourself or take someone else's side against yourself.

Like self-respect. Yeah, but it's almost like, it's like self-partnership. You know, it's like you, like my last long-term relationship ended a year ago. And I bought myself this ring, which I'm wearing right now, which is a, it's a French design called a white-to-ring, which is traditionally an engagement ring. It's black, it's black and white. It's like a black stone and a white stone. And I picked it because I was like, and there's a French design. And there was nothing wrong with that relationship. It wasn't codependent.

It was a lovely relationship. And now I'm dating and that's enjoyable too. But it just was this pause for me in the space of my romantic life where I was like, okay, I am my own partner first and foremost and that's the most important partnership I have. Right. I'm never going to like abandon that. And this is like even in the context of having like lovely healthy relationship. It's not like I was in a codependent nightmare and I was like, okay, I have to learn to be nice to myself.

But it's just this reminder of like being single doesn't mean I'm alone. I'm always my own partner. So to me, that's like, just like you would say, your husband or your wife or your partner is like your main person, your main priority, it's like, you have to have that relationship with yourself first. So to me, I don't know, self-love, self-life, self-like, self-acceptance. It's like, that's what that really means. And it has nothing to do with, like, what you eat or if you go to the gym or like whether

you get acupuncture. Yeah, like, whatever. That should be nice, right? But you can love yourself, you can loathe yourself eating a salad and you can love yourself eating cake. It doesn't have anything to do with the, again, it's never the action. It's like, what's the thought and feeling behind it? So what are some ways that we can kind of foster our relationship with ourselves? So I really like to, as a contrast, to think about the way that you, most people have a pet

or have had a pet. So to think about the way that you love a pet, which is like, they don't have to do anything. My cat does nothing. I have to take care of him. He contributes nothing. he only wants something from me at the most inopportune time for myself. I had to interrupt a podcast I recorded yesterday three times because he insists on eating a plant and throwing it up. And I still totally love him, right? He has to have to do anything to deserve my love. He doesn't have to return it. He does not validate me.

That is for sure. But a lot of people have had like a pet or an animal that they love unconditionally. And I think like as a thought experiment, that can be a good entry just into like what would it be like to love yourself or someone else in your life the way you love a pet. which is like unconditional love and no question about their worthiness. Even when you're mad at them, you still love them, right? Even when you're yelling like, stop eating the plant. Why are you doing this? It's like you still love them.

Yeah, they're perfect. Yeah, you're never like you are an unworthy. It doesn't even make sense to try to talk about it that way. Like you are morally unworthy as a cat. That doesn't really make sense. But that's how we think about ourselves. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so I'm curious if you could tell the listeners to do

one thing for themselves today or start doing one thing like adopt a new habit what would it be well obviously they should listen to the podcast give in go listen on fuck your brain give in and listen um i think we haven't talked about this a lot because we've been talking a lot about thoughts but a really important part of my work is teaching people how to allow and process their emotions which most of us don't want to do so most of us are running around like chickens with their heads cut off all the time just trying to make bad emotions go away right or avoid them we're just like, I feel anxious. What can I do to not feel anxious anymore? Right? And that can be like, maybe I'll send a text. Maybe I'll drink wine. Maybe I'll watch Netflix. Maybe I'll do all three

things at once and see if that, like we're constantly trying to escape from negative emotion. And so I could say like do a five minute thought download where you write your thoughts at and pick a thought to change. But honestly, the thing you can do on the go anywhere is to practice allowing and processing an emotion, which the way I teach it basically means to identify the physical sensations in your body and to repeat them to yourself in like a body scan in a very concrete way. So if I'm feeling anxious, and I still do this, I would say to myself, okay, as opposed to thinking, oh, I'm so anxious because blah, blah, blah, blah. Or even I'm so anxious because my thought is blah, blah, blah, which is still just repeating

the thought and telling myself I'm anxious, right? I would say like, okay, what do I feel? Like right now, my heart feels like it's going a little bit fast. I feel a little bit of hollowness in my chest. And this is like real right now when I'm feeling. Like not because of this podcast. Just from like rushing around this morning and not having eaten probably. But like it'd be like, okay, I feel a little bit of hollowness in my chest.

I feel like my heart is going a little fast. It's like a little hard to take a full breath. That's it. All that's happening right now is that my heart's going a little fast. And even that's like too subjective probably. And there's a little hollowness in my chest. Like really reducing it to the physical sensations, it signals to your brain. when you're constantly trying to run away from an emotion,

what you're teaching your brain is that your emotions are dangerous, and they need to be avoided at all cost. And that's how we end up with, like, everybody in the country being addicted to gambling and porn and drinking and Netflix and everything else, right? Because we're just like constantly trying to get dopamine to drown out our negative emotions or distract ourselves. And so when you do that, you signal to your brain that, like,

everything's okay, we're not dying, the house is not burning down, it's just a little hot in here, and it distracts your brain from just ruminating on the thought. causing the anxiety, you give it something else to do. So doing that practice of like processing an emotion coming up, I think that's the single biggest thing that would change somebody's life just by practicing it today. I'm going to start doing that today. Yeah. It's really, really powerful. And I remember when I first started doing it having like, I used, it's actually fascinating to, like, whatever, things going on in my life right now that I have a little bit of

anxiety, which I used to be anxious all the time. Then I found this work and I worked on it. And then I really don't get anxious anymore ever. And like, having it come up, I'm like, this is fascinating. What is this? It's so much lighter than it used to be. But I remember when I first did this, having like incredibly intense anxiety and doing that exercise, like in a cab on Mercer Street as very specific memory of just being like, I was going somewhere and I was in that cab and I was just like, my heart is beating fast. My face is hot. My heart is beating fast. My face is hot. That's all that's happening. I'm safe. I'm not dying. And just like doing that over and over again. And when you do that enough you teach your body not to freak out and to allow the emotion. And it passes so much

more quickly. It's like we think we don't want to lean into feeling it because that's going to feel so bad. But actually it's the resistance that feels terrible and perpetuates it. Because your brain is like, hey, I got to tell you something. You're like, la, la, la, I can't hear you. And it's like, oh, I should be louder. I guess I should yell. She has her fingers in her ears. Let me be louder. Whereas if you're like, oh, tell me your message. Okay, let me process it. Okay. It goes, it passes so much more quickly. Something for me that was pretty astounding was when I started meditating. I do TM and I used to do like apps and all that but I didn't really find it beneficial and

when I was able to and people don't have to meditate for 20 minutes twice a day even just for two minutes. Yeah. When I was able to see how quickly my thoughts passed through my brain. Yeah. I almost couldn't believe and I still do this but like how I can attach myself to one when it's really just like we all have monkey brain. brain, right?

Yeah. It's just electrical signals up in there, but we're like, this thought is my identity. Right. Like, what if it's just not even true? Yeah. Do you recommend people meditate? Sure. I mean, my experience, and I think for a lot of my clients, is like, we can meditate

better after we've learned thought work because it was so excruciating in the beginning and we're so anxious. And I think because a lot of people misunderstand meditation, like what you're describing is, like, observing the thoughts that go by, but people think they're supposed to have an empty brain when they meditate. So then they just get really stressed out about how they're still. thinking. Yeah, that resistant. Yeah. So and just like, and I think like literally misunderstanding what's supposed to happen or what they're trying to get to. Like you can't tell yourself not to think,

right? It's that it doesn't work. Yeah. So, yeah, so absolutely. Like I think obviously meditation, there's MRI studies that show what it does to the brain. I think, you know, depending on what your goal is, like for me, it wasn't just stress reduction, but also like, how do I create this life that I want? And so for me, like, one of the things that coaching offers is a active framework. work for like continually pushing myself towards discomfort resolving it and being able to move forward and then doing that again and again. I'm curious. I don't know if you can speak to this, but you've built a seven-figure business in what four

years? Yeah, three years. How did you do? Seriously, thought work. It's really like, it really is. Like, I think that the biggest thing about thought work is that willingness to feel uncomfortable. Like the reason most people don't, who want a, not that everybody should. have a business but if you want one right the reason is people don't have what they want in any area of

their life is they're not willing to feel uncomfortable and i think often especially with money and business people think i want to make that money so i can be comfortable and if that's your motivation you'll never do it because you have to be so uncomfortable on the way that if the goal is comfort you're just going to give up right you have to have a bigger goal and so for me i have a mission goal which like is about reaching women all over the world with this work. I really feel like what I'm doing is teaching women how to liberate themselves from the inside out and every woman needs to know how to do that. So I feel like I am on a global mission and that's motivating.

And I think the business and money are part of how I make that possible, right? A seven-figure business reaches a lot more people than somebody giving out free coaching sessions in the lobby. So there's that. But also my desire to blow my own mind with what I can create, which is like we could have a whole other podcast on money mindset, but like I didn't. you know, I had to do a lot of work on my money mindset. I did not, like I said, I had no background in business. I made like a decent salary as a nonprofit lawyer, but it's not like bringing

in the big bucks, you know, like I had never expected myself to be someone who could make money. I didn't think, I thought I could make like a night, a little amount of, like a decent, okay life amount of money, you know, but I did not by any means think I could just decide how much money I wanted to make and go do that and create that. I had to do so much work on myself, on my own thoughts. And I almost hate that term because it's not to improve. I can prove myself. It's just like, these are the thoughts I have, and I'm getting these results. I want a different result.

I'm going to have to change my thought. It's not a moral issue. It's just I want to have a business. Right now my thoughts are leading to no business, so I need to change my thoughts. So it was a lot of thought work around like selling, my money mindset. I used to be so uncomfortable. I was on a lot of like nonprofit boards when I did reproductive justice work. I was uncomfortable fundraising for nonprofits that I believed in.

I'm not even getting the money and it's for a good cause and I was still excruciating. So I think people sometimes now listen to me. They're like, well, you're like natural at selling things. I'm like, no. I had to do a lot of work on it. So the answer really is like thought work, doing the daily grind of being like, it's like this dialectic kind of. It's like you do thought work.

You get a little more comfortable with this little thing. So you can do that thing. Then you're like super uncomfortable again. Then you do that like you just and you just keep doing that and then you make a million dollars. What happens? And there you have it. There you go.

Well, how can people work? with you and where can they find you? Yeah. So you can find the podcast anywhere. I mean, anywhere you can get podcasts on fuck your brain. And then the way to work with me is through the clutch, which is my favorite thing in the whole world right now. It is my feminist coaching community. And it's, I felt like there was a big gap in the spaces in the world. There's like a lot of coaching spaces where people don't have a political lens or consciousness. And it's very like vague and aspirational. And then there was a lot of social justice. feminist spaces online that are very intensely judgmental and kind of validating.

And that's not really what I'm not a big validator. I'm more of a tough love. They're like, wasn't a space for people who do have those feminist commitments. And by that, I don't mean like, you know, you went to Radcliffe and you like won't, whatever the stereotype is, right? Just women who are conscious that like they're taught to think about themselves as women in a certain way and that they have certain patterns and that they want to work on those. There wasn't a space for like that kind of consciousness and really deep.

I don't use the term spiritual because that's not how I think about it, but it is like deep self-work that traditionally I think is associated with spiritual pursuits. There wasn't a space for that where it's there's like we're taking responsibility for everything going on with ourselves and we are learning and in community and in conversation around those things. So that's the kind of like, that's why I want to create the space. But it's in more understandable layperson terms, it's like a membership community where you learn how to do exactly what I've been describing. I teach you how to process your emotions.

I teach you how to figure out what you're thinking. Most people have no idea what they're thinking. You think you do. It's like the tip of the iceberg. Access all those unconscious thoughts that are basically running your whole life without your awareness and how to shift them a little bit by a little bit. And then, of course, like, that's the meta skill. and then we have, you know, specific, like, modules and programs for all the main things women struggle with, which is, like, their relationships, dating, work, their body image, you know, parenting money, all that kind of stuff.

So it's the best thing ever. It's just like. I'm literally joining today. Yes, do it. It's so fun. And everyone should do it with me. And you're badass. I love talking to you and listening to you.

And thank you so much for coming on. Yeah. And everyone can find you where Instagram. Yes, unfuckyourbrain.com or forward slash the clutch. And then, yeah, I have a hard to spell, but unique names. So Kara Lowenthal, if you Google, if you get anyone named anything close to that, it's me. Just Google it. Thank you so much.

My pleasure.