This month we had great topics ranging from how nutrition can affect your mental health to what we control. The first show was important because the food you put into your body can give you a better chance to maintain a better mental health state. The next topic was discussing what do we really control emotionally. This allowed us to discuss our locus of control and how shifting it can help us manage ourselves in different situations. Finally, we wrapped up by asking the question, do we control our attraction? What do you think? Do you agree with the panel from the shows?
Tune in to see the May Month in Review Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Links referenced during the show: https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/love-actually-science-behind-lust-attraction-companionship/
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
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Episode #231 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Oh, welcome to Through a Therapist’s Eyes that is in the podcast where you get insights about mental health and substance abuse directly from a panel of therapists while in your car or personal time at home. We do not deliver therapy services during the show in any way whatsoever, but this is through a therapist.
This week we have the May month in review. So we have the man behind the curtains. Now on the mic. Mr. Neil Robinson. What’s up man? Hey, not much Doing well this week. I’m making it, making it. He
Neil Robinson: says with my, my week, my week is all messed up cuz of Memorial Day. I kept thinking yesterday was Tuesday. It is so.
It’s better that way. I find it’s better to think you’re day behind than to think you’re day ahead. Cuz then you’re farther from the weekends. Yeah. The
Adam Cloninger: Wake Angus are quicker. It
Chris Gazdik: does. Well it’s funny because man, it’s also the beginning of summers. Kids are outta school man. People start losing their schedule, losing their mind In the therapy realm [00:01:00] man.
We get like nohow and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the conversation with people like, oh I forgot I had an appointment. And I’m like, well I’m still here. You forgot it was Wednesday or whatever. Absolutely. That, that people just lose their their minds. So it’s been a little while, but we got Mr.
Adam k Clinger back with us. Okay. Hello sir. Man, what you’ve been doing, we missed you last week for the what would that be? April month in review? Yeah. I totally planned on coming here. Yeah, we had, well that was the last second,
Adam Cloninger: which is, which is a good thing. Cause I was able to finish my
Chris Gazdik: lift on my truck.
Yeah, well, well there you go. It worked out during the show. You did the lift instead of the show, is that what you’re saying? Yeah, I finished
Adam Cloninger: it cause I started it the day before.
Chris Gazdik: I thought you went out of town.
Adam Cloninger: No, no, no. We’re talking about last, last week, not
Chris Gazdik: last month. Oh, no, I’m talking about last month.
Last month. No, no. I’m talking about April month. In review, you had to get out. You, I thought you doodle out
Adam Cloninger: town. No, I thought you talking about last week when we were supposed to have the. Because remember it was the last Thursday of each month. Yeah. We, so I was gonna be here last Thursday. Right, right, right, right.
Okay. That’s what the, I’m sorry.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:00] That’s right. So the shows that we’re gonna get into, we have a lot to get into. I mean, these shows were content full man. You’re gonna have to check out these shows because they were really good ones. First of all, we talked about nutrition, everything about nutritional therapy with Cilla Purnell, and I wanna pump her up because we have a new line of service at Metrolina, which is our local company here in Mount Holly, that’s a suburb of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County in North Carolina, in the States here.
And she’s joined Metrolina. We made the announcement and, and her getting her to do therapy, nutrition therapy and, and all of the dietetic services. So there’s a lot there. And I’m not gonna be able to review that one a whole lot, to be honest with you, because she was one answering the questions.
And it’s a new world for me. But there were some cool topics that we talked about with that. And then we talked about, you know, Control what was the title, Neil? Help me out say here, what do we
Adam Cloninger: really
Chris Gazdik: control emotionally? Right, because people talk about control all the time in their relationships, and I can’t believe we [00:03:00] haven’t really talked about it yet.
So that was a really dynamic conversation about what do we really control, which occurs to me, my hand out I’m gonna need is way over there, so I’m
gonna have to find a spot to get my hand out on the other side of the room. Your hand out. Yeah. It was a, it was the centerpiece of the show. I forgot to grab it before the mics came on.
And then we talked about attraction. Do we control our own sense of attraction, which had. A lot of meat in that episode. So these are ones that you’re probably really gonna not just wanna stick with a review, if that’s your, your your pattern to really check out those shows. Cuz they were, they were very good ones.
But what are we calling this Adam? We’re gonna switch to our our Adams current events special. Yeah, that’s, that sounds good. So that’s the way we start these these, these month in review lives. He gives us a random current events that Neil and I have to pick and he tells me he’s doing something different.
So he’s throwing a curve ball. Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Cloninger: I’m throwing another curve ball. So in the past, what I would do during the month, I would think of a news article or hear a news up by news card. I would read [00:04:00] something that I thought was interesting, kind of keep it in mind. Then I’d try to find something else and then we would Like Chris would say, I would come and give y’all like one or two words and y’all pick and we would talk about it.
Well this time there was a news article that I just thought was really interesting. It’s not political, which is great cuz I thought some of the ones that was getting too political. Plus I felt like some of it was being repetitive even though it was different topic. It emp going back to the should we be worried about pollution?
We br you know, everything was kind of along the, I started thinking it need, we need to change it. So this time I wanna talk about a recent news article and I’m hoping, I’m thinking Neil probably has heard about it. I
Chris Gazdik: don’t know if you have or not, but before you go any further with what it is, go ahead.
A first time ever, I forgot to say, as I love to say on through a therapist’s eyes, the human emotional experience that we endeavor to figure out together. Especially with your current event. Special There I said it, you didn’t say the date either to get that in there. It’s June 1st, 2023. Nailed it. Well, we got.
[00:05:00] All right,
Adam Cloninger: so there was a, a recent article about an event that happened May 4th of this year. Have y’all read or heard or seen any videos about the orca incidents have seriously Oh, yeah, yeah. About the, the ships and stuff? Yeah. Okay. So, of course, you know this, this, this. I did some reading on it probably more than y’all do since y’all were laughing already.
So
Chris Gazdik: it’s an interesting thing.
Adam Cloninger: So, Basically for people that don’t know, don’t know. There has been a recent incident where, and it’s a third incident happened recently. Where, babe there’s been several, haven’t you? Yeah, well actually they had but since 2020, they’ve had 505 actual interactions with orca and ships in this area.
Not all ’em been violent. Dang. So, but they had three recent ones and one of ’em that actually sunk a yacht. It was like a 43 foot yacht or whatever, actually sunk it. They had to actually tow the boat in and while it’s being towed, it sunk don’t, don’t. So there was a couple things that were [00:06:00] brought up.
They’re, they’re actually attacking or gnawing
Chris Gazdik: at the rudder. Sorry, am I being disrupted? No, no, no.
Adam Cloninger: It’s good. I’m keep on talking anyway. Background noise. No, so it’s good. So I, you know, there were some theories about why they were doing this and Chris is thinking, how does this have to do mental health?
I get there. Okay. So. There’s some theories. One of ’em was like they’re, they’re playful. They’re just, they’re just doing stuff. One of ’em said they’re being kinda like teen rambunctious, where they’re like, you know they’re vandalizing or whatever. And then some other people said, well, when they’re, they’re, it’s a revenge and this is where it gets into the mental health thing.
So I started thinking, Hmm, revenge. So is there other animals that’s kind of been documented where people have theorized that maybe they’re doing revenge? Yes, there’s plenty of articles about it. Really? Yeah. There was another instance where in 2000, tw 20 or 2010, I can’t remember, I’ve been 10, we’ll go with 20 In [00:07:00] India, where two monkeys had killed around 250 dogs.
Apparently what happened is a pack of dogs had a. Killed a bait monkey, baby. A mon monkey. And these two monkeys went on Rampage and we were killing
dogs. They were taking them, dragging ’em to a high spot tree or a building. Serious and dropping them. Yes, yes. I started sob, kept on looking. Okay, so now I’m, you know, I got, you know, one kind of topic and it’s spun off into, yeah.
So now the article about Tiger or a Tiger had stalked a hunter, specifically one
Chris Gazdik: particular hunter. Oh, you’re just thinking of the, the, the movie that was out this summer. Wasn’t there a movie about a tiger that was like stalking? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was
Adam Cloninger: Lions. It was lions. That was Lions. That was lions.
Okay. Yeah, that was Lions. But, and there was a movie years ago about two li lions. Okay. The ghost Anyway. Ghost in a Darkness, I think, or something like that’s called. But here’s my thing I want to think about or ask you about. So if it is revenge, is revenge [00:08:00] at actual all. I don’t say I’m a coping mechanism, but is it something that survival instinct, that modern society is kind of suppressed as being, you know, taboo, so to speak?
Yeah. But if you think about it, if they’re doing this for revenge, is it really revenge or is it survival instinct where, for example, if they’re attacking boats, then there was one thing where they said about that one of the orca had actually been injured by interaction with the boat so previous Yes.
And her name was Julius or something like that, that named, so okay. They started thinking, well, maybe she’s attacking a boats for revenge or threaten in some way. And we’ll start thing about the monkeys. The monkeys, the baby got attacked, so they were attacked.
Chris Gazdik: So this is, this is where I, I really wish that John was with us Neil, right.
John? John would, would [00:09:00] be, I think. Ask his take on it next week too. More proficient than, than what I’m gonna be because I, I don’t know why I believe that. He just because he is a wicked smart dude, and I guess, you know, he has a
Neil Robinson: lot of weird studies in his
Chris Gazdik: head too. He does, doesn’t he? And, and so, I’ll tell you where my mind went, and that’s where I would really like to check out with John and
connect with him on it because we ascribe like characteristics and words and descriptions to emotions and whatnot.
And the reality of it is the, the way that we experience emotion is, is a combination of like, you know, it has a lot of biology involved in it, and so there’s anger and rage. And irritability. Those are different levels of how we experience, like, you know, a concept that, that revenge might be a, a part of.
And so, you know, there’s a social aspect to revenge, like, you hurt me, so I’m gonna get one back up on you. Right. And [00:10:00] we know that animals are also social creatures. So I, I don’t know of really any specific studies or per se that’s in my mind, but thinking about what I understand about emotional dynamics with biology involved, I know it, we, I mean, we know animals feel things.
I mean, anybody has a pet knows that that’s the case. So there’s emotional experience that’s a hundred percent clear in my mind going on. So how we ascribe the social dynamic of, you got me so I’m gonna get you concept does mix with the survival mechanisms of I need to live, I need to survive. And so if you’re a threat, then I’m gonna go out and handle the threat that, that will, that will take me out.
Is that revenge? What’s. Not
Adam Cloninger: really. Yeah. It is just a, it’s the term we use, but does it really,
Chris Gazdik: is it really, it’s a human term. Yeah. That tries to fit into much like a lot of our human terms try to fit into what we’re experiencing. And I think that language is inadequate to, to really adequately describe the fullness of the [00:11:00] human emotional experience.
Now I’ll make that statement cuz I don’t think you could put words on it as what it is that you’re describing. You’re experiencing it. That’d be good. Short
Adam Cloninger: right there. You know, that would be, it. Would,
Chris Gazdik: I don’t have my pen crap. Well, beginning of May month in review. And, and, but now the short has to be over because we just you know, maybe we cut and paste or whatever.
No, it was, it was good. It was a good, yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, you know, that really does play out in, in Animal Kingdom. But you know, we know that
monkeys particularly are very social creatures. I think I’m correct in saying that Orcas specifically, those, those whales are very social creatures as well.
Mm-hmm. I mean, they nurse their babies. I, I, I’ve seen doc, you know, discovery Channel documentations on that, and, you know they’re crazy. Elephant crazy. Elephants are also very, very social and, and elephants attack.
Adam Cloninger: Yep. They were camels and elephants were known to be the two most vengeful
Chris Gazdik: creatures.
Now, camels, I wouldn’t
Adam Cloninger: have thought of ever camels. Yeah. There was one incident. See, I went, [00:12:00] I went, rabbit hole is, I went to rabbit hole. There was one incident. Rabbit, rabbits, rabbit do rabbits tech. I, I didn’t go that deep in rabbit hole. So there was one instance where a camel had been tied up all day or something, and the camel did something where he decapitated the.
Owner or trainer or something. I don’t have, I, I think they could be aggressive. I didn’t really go into that, but it it did. They did say that camels and elephants are known for being ful and not forgetting you did
Chris Gazdik: something. I didn’t think camels were as socially engaged as No, but they’re,
Adam Cloninger: they’re saying that they they get angry.
They remember and they get you
Chris Gazdik: back later. No kidding. Yeah.
Neil Robinson: So I thought, well, you know the story about the chimpanzees and the zookeeper that he brought a cake to for one, chimpanzees for their birthday and only gave it to the one chimpanzee and later they all attacked him cuz they were jealous. That didn’t get a cake.
Chris Gazdik: Jealousy.
Neil Robinson: He was like kinda a, it’s kind of that weirder emotion thing. But the [00:13:00] other thing going back to the orcas is there’s some theories that
say that. Like you talked about the one orca that actually got hurt. Mm-hmm. It actually kind of taught its offspring about it. And so now other, other orcas are learning social learning.
Social learning, which is a interesting thing. So you add the revenge factor of that emotion from that one orca, but then you have the social interaction that then goes from there, that social learning, I mean, some of these, you look at the mammals in their brains, there’s a lot of stuff that they’re not that far off from us.
So if we have these emotions and these hormones and these, whatever, the limbic systems, all those terms you use on those, They’re, were they very similar to us? So I would not be surprised if, you know, revenge, like you said, anger, you know, dolphins and their lust and those types of things. And, and here’s
Chris Gazdik: the thing, you know, we are, and I know this gets into a political thing, but I, but I think it, it is true, you know, and you look at the, some of the environmental, you know, realities.
I mean, we are, I think, pretty clearly encroaching along a lot of the, you know, animal space. You know, we have bears that are [00:14:00] interacting with humans a lot more. And as, as they in, as we interact in their world, you know, more, it stands to reason that they’re gonna be incorporating in like, okay, well what is this new species that we’re dealing with here?
Mm-hmm. I see them a lot more. Yeah. You know, and I need to, I need to develop a strategy. They’re a threat now. They’re a threat. The hell. Yeah. And, and I’m not gonna die, so I, I’ve gotta protect my baby. Mm-hmm. And you might interpret it as a revenge. And again, to your point it, it, you know, it probably has a, a very natural mechanism of anger and anger in moving into behavior.
And the behavior mixing with a social dynamic can create like a real life jaws. I wouldn’t go that far, but yeah. No, that’s fascinating. I wish we had more time to talk about it, because that that’s a, that’s a, that’s a very interesting one.
Adam Cloninger: I liked it. I liked it. Absolutely. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t get the orca outta my head.
I just kept on
Chris Gazdik: Orcas are cute though. We can’t imagine them being, oh man. I talk about them forever,
Adam Cloninger: man. Those things are super cute. Was Free [00:15:00] Willie one of your favorite movies when you were younger? No, but Orco was, yeah. I dunno if you remember that. 1977 movie Orco. Nope, I do not. That was, well, that was before I was born.
The Jaws came out in 75 and 77. I was six years old. I went to the movie theater to see Orca, which was basically a Jaws spinoff, where it was Orca attack instead
Neil Robinson: of as, as a six year old. That seems like the parents didn’t realize what was going on. Yeah. Wait a minute.
Chris Gazdik: That’s we’re born in 77. I’m sort of stuck on that, but we need to get, we need to move on.
Yeah, that’s, that’s
Adam Cloninger: probably very accurate. I probably shouldn’t have been there,
Chris Gazdik: but yeah. All right. We need to get to our reviews cuz there’s so much to cover. There’s so much to get to with these good shows. I, I don’t really know how to review. You know, the, the nutrition u understanding nutrition therapy and dietetic services.
Cilla is awesome and I wanna plug her because she was my dietician as a, just to remind you. And I’m proud to say that I didn’t do a whole lot of exercise yet. But working with Cilla literally took my, so John calls me a true believer now because I’ve experienced what this [00:16:00] does. My cholesterol was 1 59 and I was on the verge of getting statins.
I still may need to pop into the statins you know, but on last test, I’m pleased to report my cholesterol level went down to 1 31, and I’m talking about the LDLs, the bad ones, right? And that was just with nutrition therapy that she was working with me on. And I’m, I’m a much better eater. I understand food a lot better, and the proof is into pudding, right?
Numbers come down from 1 51 to 1 31. And may still drop more, I guess. I’ll see. I’ll track it. So I’m pretty excited about it because when you talk about mental health and you talk about nutrition, you know it is a huge overlap. It is a huge parallel. So the questions that we ask is, you know, what is your relationship with food?
How can food help you? The help your therapy and mental health journey, right? And then pondering the thought. We centered our whole show around, treat your food as medicine. Have you ever heard of this, Adam? Treat your food as medicine or someday. Someday soon you will treat [00:17:00] your medicine like food.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah. I think my problem is I treat my food like narcotics or something.
Ice
Chris Gazdik: cream. That’s probably not good. Probably Cilla would want to reframe some of those. Yeah. So Neil, how would we, what do you remember from that show? I mean, that was there was a lot that she was really offering in her expertise and helping us understand what happens with literally just what she does in sessions.
I feel like
Neil Robinson: I th I think it really goes back to, you know, helping, helping the clients reframe. Like I said, that that relationship you have with your food, that was such a big part of it because, That relationship dictates how you use it, how you interact with it, what’s going on. Like that’s a huge part of it.
And when you look at a lot of the people when you do weight loss or you look at the diet side of it, you don’t understand that a lot of the diet stuff is habit. You talked about how you treat your food like a, an a narcotic. [00:18:00] I mean that’s, I mean that really is, and I know when I was trying to get back into shape along, you know, five, six years ago for one year I just washed my food intake and I lost 10 pounds without doing diet.
And so it makes a huge difference in what’s going on and it is something you have to, to tackle because a lot of times we grow into these habits with food. You know, you grow these relationships and a lot of it becomes unhealthy relationships and you have to readdress it. And so that’s why I love the fact that SUR is in here because weight loss and those, it’s a really big mental.
Aspect. And so her coming in, helping to get people, get to that point where the food starts getting balanced, which then as we talked, that helps balance your mental state because now you’re not eating so much junk, your body’s not trying to process crap, and you can actually start thinking clearer to start processing some of the mental health issues you’re running, you’re
Chris Gazdik: So let me do, let me do a legit plug, and I’m not, I’m gonna, you know, un unashamedly do. So because I’m a true believer, as John said, you know, we have the offer [00:19:00] therapy services nutrition therapy services. Evidently, DW told me just the other day, she got her first cold call from a, from a person asking for a nutritional.
I thought that was awesome. That was awesome, because again, I didn’t even know this was a thing. But we are at Metrolina, so if you’re cold, cold, cold I don’t know. Yeah. Cold calls like a,
Neil Robinson: it’s a cold lead. Like ba basically it was a cold lead. Someone basically came in and called, said, Hey, we need, was, were they asking specifically for her
Chris Gazdik: therap?
I don’t know. Or they were just asking for diabetic stuff. She’s the only one here that does it. So, yeah. So we are in local Metrolina Psychotherapy is in the Mount Holly area, and if you’re listening to this and you’re local, the phone number is (704) 461-8253 and you’re gonna ask her Cilla and nutrition therapy, and she’s gonna help you with wellness and really getting your life together with food.
Listen, she’s a registered dietician who’s a, was a director of research and program development historically for Aspire, where she used to work. She got a BS in Zoology, which evidently you get, before you become a dietician. A [00:20:00] lot of times you work with animals that fits with our. Our topic this morning.
So she’s got a BS in in zoology. She’s got a master’s degree in public health and nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill. And she has an integrated approach supporting the health and mind of, and the body to promote optimal health and wellbeing as the way she puts it. She uses mindfulness practices to establish a better relationship with food that you were talking about, Neil, and encourage positive body positivity.
And she really instills a balanced approach to nourishing the body. And again, I have learned more about food working with Cilla than I ever knew in my my life. She’s been a part of research articles. If you Google her, you’ll find her out there. Her interests are in medicine, yoga, and meditation, while promoting the success of the team that she is on, which is now Metroland Psychotherapy Associates offering nutrition.
Therapy. So again, 7 0 4 4 6 1 8 2 5 3.[00:21:00] But you know what we didn’t get to talk about a lot, Neil, during the episode with nutrition is a, a lot of the, the issues that do happen with food that are different than just the run of the mill compulsive behavior, which is, you know, addiction, food addictions, which we find with a lot, with severe obesity and, you know, just different issues that, that come along with you know, anorexia and bulimia and I don’t think we got to talk about that much at all.
Did we? You did some
Adam Cloninger: a little bit.
Neil Robinson: We, we did a little bit about it. Yeah, we you covered it. You know, I think there was some surprise that John brought up that he actually has some male clients that are going through that, cuz they’re famous and Oh yes. So I mean, we did, we did talk about it some, and I think there’s, you know, that’s one of those unhealthy, I think with a lot of those things and I’m not, A therapist, so I’m not sure.
But there, there becomes this unhealthy habit or this unhealthy behavior that you have to recalibrate with it. And so it’s, it’s very heavily, like I said, food is very heavy in the mental health aspect. I
Chris Gazdik: think that is a good, I’m glad that came [00:22:00] back up because that is a good part of the, the, the review that we’re doing, because that was totally new for me that John had brought that up.
Adam just being in the world, would you, you know how women particularly as deemed women will have bulimia or whatever, which primary characteristic is they will, you know, force vomit mm-hmm. Diet with, you know, vomiting, that kind of thing. Have you heard that or experienced that as primarily a, a woman’s issue?
Is that a fair
Adam Cloninger: Yeah, I think, I think, I think it’s kind of, It’s kind of an assumption as a woman, but I, I can see it being a man’s issue too.
Chris Gazdik: He revealed that he has, or even a kid’s issue, well, more of a teen. I don’t know if kids really get into that quite, quite so much. Teenagers do though. Because when you start being worried about special social media and stuff, well, yeah.
The, the media challenges that, you know, some crazy things that are out there, but. I was really surprised and a bit [00:23:00] embarrassed that I never even ask the questions or go into evaluations like I would very much more so dialed in when that comes up with a, a female client. And I need to do that with men because evidently men, if you really begin to inquire, you know about what’s kind of going on with their relationship with food, you will find that they are doing this too.
I was really surprised by that. It’s kind of like a, a, a therapist that don’t know much about addiction and don’t ask me any questions about that. That’s a pet peeve of mine. So now I have to be aware of like, dude, I’ve, I’ve been completely blind to this issue. Men, you know, dealing with their relationship with food in such a, such a devastatingly negative way as to purge the food that they would eat.
And that’s a thing. So I was very surprised at that, so. Okay. And Neil we, we got a couple of other shows to really get to, but how, how else would you summarize what we were talking about? Is any, did anything else really stick out in your mind as c was talking about what, what she does day to [00:24:00] day and, you know, session to session and how that works?
Neil Robinson: I think the thing that stood out that I think was. I think I’ve worked with the nutritionist before, so I wasn’t too surprised, but I think you, I think, oh, you have? Yeah, we, when I was in the health kick oh wow. I didn’t know that when, back in 2017. What, what are you trying to say,
Adam Cloninger: Adam? What are you saying?
Neil Robinson: Yeah, 2017 was a rollercoaster year, but they, yeah, so we worked with them and
Chris Gazdik: they Thank you for not saying that to me, by the way.
Neil Robinson: But I think the funny thing is, like John does, cause one thing that C said is she’ll make, she’ll take shopping trips with her clients. Right. And it’s when it’s a lot of that stuff.
Or they’ll, she’ll show them how to read labels. Yes. Which is a big thing. And I think when you, so like a, a grocery store you’re talking about or? Yeah, literally. And, and actually the person that we used to go to, she would go to their house and do like a pantry renovation thing. Oh my. Where she’ll literally look at what you have in your pantry and no.
Yeah.
Adam Cloninger: Nope. Adams,
Chris Gazdik: Nope. Adams, Adam would be [00:25:00] standing there with a garbage can,
Neil Robinson: not my ice cream. And so I think that’s the kind of thing you don’t realize that food is so ever present in your life. That there’s all these different aspects. And yet she helps in all those different areas because knowing how to shop in a grocery store, looking at the layouts, knowing what to look for, what not to look for, and those, I think that’s kind of the surprising thing that she does, that it is a lot more
Adam Cloninger: than meal.
That’s what a session
Neil Robinson: is versus just a meal. Oh, here’s some meals for you. And
Chris Gazdik: I think there’s a really, yeah, and they do that too. But, but, and here’s a really important point. As much as we just imagined Cilla standing at Adam’s Pantry, you know, with a ruler smacking him, goes things out in a ruler, whacking his knuckles, it, it isn’t like that at all.
It, it is so much more, you know, like I’ll reveal, like I have a, a, a habit, you know, getting my breakfast at Bojangles and stuff, and I, I oftentimes feel bad. Like, that’s really, I did probably four times this week. I went and got my breakfast. She’s like, well, that’s okay, you know, it’s fine. Really. And she means it.
Because you, you want a [00:26:00] well variety of food. And she would say, you know, well, let’s cut it down to, to just two times for the next week. If that’s, if that’s okay. And, and what else could we do for breakfast? And this week, you know what I’m eating for breakfast, I have prepared flat breads flat, whole, whole grain breads with a, a upside down over easy egg and sausage and avocados with some sauce in there.
And I am loving my breakfast this week. Avocados sucker. Ooh.
Neil Robinson: That’s one thing my wife and I grew, like out of everything they, avocados is the go-to for all of these health cuz it’s so nutrient dense. But I
love avocados. Tired of ’em or, oh no. I hate ’em. My, my wife and I hate them. My dad and my sister love ’em, but I just, I think they’re nasty.
They’re horrible.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, got I got something for you. So, no, try this, no California chicken sandwiches for you. Have you ever had an avocado? Now we have got a transition, guys have, have you have ever had an avocado on the grill? No. Okay. Just get an avocado, do it, cut it in half thing and put butter on it. And if you like paprika maybe, or [00:27:00] whatever, that’s good stuff.
And then you put it on a grill and you get it good and toasty and then it get, it gets crunchy on the top. You will love an avocado on the grill and then I don’t, and then a scoop
Adam Cloninger: of ice cream.
Chris Gazdik: Will you please try this for me, or can you come over to my house and I’ll make you something? Maybe
Neil Robinson: I’m, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna use my money to buy an avocado.
Chris Gazdik: I’ll buy the I’ll buy the egg on. But,
Neil Robinson: but no, I think the important, I think the important thing, going back to what you ate, like if you’ve cut down on rest of your meals and then you want to splurge with the bojangles for breakfast. Yeah, that’s, that’s fine. And I think that’s the part she does talks about is the guilt is the other thing.
If you eat wrong a hundred percent guilt hurts you, hurts your diets. So it’s like, yeah, you did that, but okay, the rest of your day you did well. You know, you choose where you decide to splurge, you just have to manage the rest of the time. And you then have to dictate know, how do I change and go from there.
And you found the changes. And so I think that’s a great thing that people have to understand with nutrition. Forgive yourself, I’m not gonna go
Adam Cloninger: into it, but after the show, I got, I got an [00:28:00] idea for one of your shows. This, cause all this conversation just, I’ll let you new later. Well, now you
Chris Gazdik: gotta put it out there, man.
No, I
Adam Cloninger: just, the next nutrition show, I got an idea for you. Okay. All right. Sounds
Chris Gazdik: good. So moving on, we have, that was what, episode 2 28. So we did 2 29 as well. What do we really control emotionally? So let’s get into this, this, this was actually generated from a handout that somebody brought in my office and I dude, it, it was, it was, I’ve used a handout several times in my sessions per, for the last month.
I mean, I, I pull this thing out all the time now and I don’t even use handouts and stuff anymore primarily in, in my work. So the questions that we ask during, what do you really control emotionally? What, what do we really mean when we speak about controlling behavior? And why do people get so caught up in this question?
Why do people get so upset about control and issues with control? And then what is the difference between internal and external locus of control mean in a psychology sense? Because that’s a big part [00:29:00] of, you know, what we, what we look at trying to, to move towards. And John and I had good dialogue with that.
So I guess off the front end before Neil, you’re like, what you remember with that show, Adam? How much do you think people worry about or talk about? Just in your conversations with having a controlling partner or, you know, my boss is too controlling and micromanaging. Like, on, on maybe scale at one to 10, how, how generally concerned do you think people are about the issue of control in their relationships?
Adam Cloninger: On a scale from one to
Chris Gazdik: 10? Yeah, let’s do it that way. Eight. And then eight. Yeah. You hear this all the time, right? Mm-hmm. I am amazed at how much angst this particular issue tends to create in my therapy relationships. There’s usually a very critical person in your life or a very controlling person in your life, or [00:30:00] somebody that is argumentative or wants to be right.
I is the way that, here’s a key word, these things are perceived. So that’s a little bit of a, of a tilt. But what do you remember, Neil? I mean, how, how did that, how did that show go? It went horribly.
Neil Robinson: No, I mean, ouch. Ouch. No, it was, it was a good show. Cause I think that, cuz I’m trying to think, cuz when I think of control I’m like, okay, what would I control emotionally?
And then you talk about dealing with the other people controlling you. So in my head, I forgot that we shifted the topic. So now my whole brain is all backwards cuz of the, what you described. So is that the difference between
Adam Cloninger: the internal and external you’re talking
Chris Gazdik: about? Or? Maybe, I mean it, that’s a, that’s a clinical kind of way of looking at what do we focus on?
Do we focus on things that we can control, internal locus of control, or do we focus on things that are controlling us and external locus of control. So if you’re, if you’re having a tough time with relationships and stuff, you’re probably focusing on the outside world and how it’s [00:31:00] controlling you.
Mm-hmm. And we wanna switch that over. And John and I had some awesome dialect dialogue about that in, in switching that over into like, what do I really control? An internal locus of control, which is way more empowering, way more fulfilling, way more engaging to, to feel good about yourself with. So I would think probably easier too.
A hell of a lot. Well, what’s impossible to control things you can’t control. Right. Which is external. Yeah. From you, you. You can’t control that stuff. Plus the
Adam Cloninger: external stuff can be
Chris Gazdik: embarrassing. Full of shame. Full of guilt. Yeah. Lots
Adam Cloninger: of boss embarrass you or something like that. Or spouse embarrass you.
Cause they’re Listen, it will
Chris Gazdik: eat your soul. Yep. If you try to focus on things that you can’t control, it will eat your soul. And what I mean by that is anxiety is created, depression is created like other things that people are doing, other things that people are thinking about you or things that you’re focused on and, and actually trying to control the things that you can’t control.
I, I just created a phrase. It’ll eat your soul. [00:32:00] It’s debilitating, it’s horrible. And we wanna refocus that to switch it to being in a internal locus of control. So here’s, here’s the handout. You’ll have to look on the YouTube, I guess, or I don’t know if we post this. I don’t think we ever did post this.
Camera’s got this this circle right that’s in the middle of the page. And the whole show is based around what’s in that circle, that what we can control. And then the outside of the circle, what we can’t control right outside of the circle, we, we can’t control, but we tend to focus on a lot, is the actions of others, the future, the opinions of others what happens around me, what other people think of me, other people’s boundaries, past mistakes.
These are all things that we can’t control, and we want to really switch it to the things that’s inside a circle in my control, my words, my mindset. I love this. God bless you, Neil. That that says what I give my energy [00:33:00] to. Right? That’s huge. You can, you’re empowered to, to change these things. How I speak to myself, being present in this moment, how I move on from failure, the boundaries that I set.
If you’re inside the circle. You’re gonna feel great because you’re gonna be able to do things for yourself that you really want if you’re outside of the circle. What did I say? It’ll eat your soul.
Neil Robinson: And I, well, I think that’s what we talked about too, when you talk about that controlling people, being in relation with the controlling person and the fact that.
Usually most people who are controlling, it’s a fear or they’re so focused on the external locus of control that they want to control you instead of changing themselves. And I think last time Cass even brought up in the comments about how, it’s funny how most people will, they would much rather look at what you’re doing wrong and try to fix you instead of just addressing yourself.
And there’s that weird thing where people don’t want to hold themselves accountable or be responsible for their own actions. They would much rather deflect and be like, Hey, you’re doing things wrong, [00:34:00] versus me being like, well, why did I. Do it that way, or why did I think that
Chris Gazdik: way? Well, I love to cite Craig on the show.
He talked about it early on when he and I were recording these episodes. Craig Graves was talking about how, and it probably stuck out in my mind because I
mean, I can really identify it personally, going into marriage counseling as he did, and then seeing people come into marriage counseling, as I see all the time.
I mean, you go in thinking, oh, you’re gonna fix them, you know, fix, fix this, fix this woman over here, man, because you know, I’m good. I’ve got my stuff together and we’re gonna go to this therapy session. It’s gonna be good cuz you know, she’s gonna have to deal with her stuff. Or she’s saying about this to the, about her husband, vice versa.
And I tell you what happens is you come outta that session like Craig said, he’s like, holy cow man. Dude, I got a lot of things to think about, A lot of things I’m contributing to this process and what we’ve created. And, and that’s what a therapy experience, a good therapy experience will do. Switching your focus in, as you said, in, you know, blame to the other person.
So like, what are you really [00:35:00] controlling? What are you contributing in your sphere of control to the problems that are going on? And then it’s like, ah,
Adam Cloninger: this reminds me of a, a little very sobering little comedy picture I saw the other day and it had a guy that was standing in a suit and he said, the caption underneath that said, for $200 an hour, I’ll meet with your loved one to convince them all your, all the problems are there, are caused by them.
Chris Gazdik: There’s a lot of memes out there, I’m sure that, that talk about this. So we, we went in and talked about also guys, if, if you remember John talked about things being subclinical, this really what we’re talking about here is, you know, you just feel like your wife is a controlling woman who’s on your case all the time telling you what to do, bossing you, treating you like a child or whatever.
And again, it can go, it can go vice versa. Those really, these issues that people, Adam, you said an eight on a one to 10 scale are so worked up about these are subclinical [00:36:00] issues and it’s, it’s frustrating because they’re talked about as being higher level, you control me kind of. Concept and that’s really moving into domestic violence, you know, so we’re, we’re not, we didn’t talk a lot about domestic violence in the show because that’s like clinical level controlling of somebody.
I mean, they’ll control what kind of underwear you wear. They’ll control who you speak to and you know, like not being allowed to talk in public, I mean, I’ve, domestic violence is horrible. And I dunno, I’ve
Neil Robinson: talked to some people that probably should be able to speak in public, so maybe that’s not a bad thing.
Well now
Adam Cloninger: it’s a public service
Chris Gazdik: thing. Exactly. And domestic violence sucks. I just gonna say like, if you’re experiencing any of those things we need to put the guy on the wall. What The woman abused. Yeah, I was gonna
Neil Robinson: say it. Go. It can go both ways. It is,
Chris Gazdik: I, I correct it quickly. So, because yeah. Men definitely are victims of, of domestic violence.
So in, in this show, the highlight in my mind [00:37:00] too is I say all the time cited in therapy sessions, the, the Serenity Prayer. You ever hear the Serenity Prayer, Mr. Clinger? I don’t know what you’re talking about. The serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference that has everything to do with this, this, this circle and handout and what you control and what you don’t control.
And man, that wisdom to know the difference is huge. It’s a journey. And as you get older and mature, you figure that stuff out. But boy, I’ll say it again. When you try to control things that you can’t control, it will eat your soul. It’s destructive to say the least. Closing thoughts? Well, did we end up with, I think that’s, that, that puts us out.
I mean, we landed on what you do to, to try to, you know, get out of the troubles with that. But any closing thoughts on that one before we go to the, I think the coolest one. No responses yet. So I’m gonna [00:38:00] move on episode two 30. Attraction. Do we control it? What’s that
Adam Cloninger: about?
Chris Gazdik: So what’s that about, Neil? I just wanna pause my brain because there’s so much that that’s about it.
Adam Cloninger: It’s
Neil Robinson: about your human nature and like you’re attractions what you know. Can you control what you’re attracted to? So, you know, when you, when you met Julie, was that, you know, did you control your attraction or did you just let it happen? Did you, did you have to work at it? Did you, you know, when you see other people, you know, what does that mean for you?
You know, what are you, can you control who you’re attracted to or what you’re attracted to? That’s the question. So, can you, Adam, control your attractions?
Chris Gazdik: What says you, you’re attracted or not attracted, or you were attracted and you lost your attraction? Or you wanna be attracted, you know, you should be, but you just can’t feel it.
I’m not in love. [00:39:00] I’ve fallen outta love. There are these phrases that we hear. Can you control the level of attraction that you have with another person? Control it. I, I, crazy.
Adam Cloninger: Right? I’m, I’m, I’m, you’re not talking about, not talking about refraining, you’re talking about controlling what, like you’re saying, like, if you’re attracting somebody, you’re like, Nope, I’m not gonna be attracting them and I’m not.
Yep. Is it
Neil Robinson: it’s both. Now, well, do you refrain or you, or you go into the attraction?
Chris Gazdik: Well, by refrain you were saying, can you refrain your behavior? And I think you’d quickly follow up with like, yeah, well, you can, well, I mean behavior, but I mean, I guess you could actually being attracted or not being attracted or getting your attraction back if you lost it.
Right? Well, I, I, I
Adam Cloninger: guess you to a certain extent, you could. And the reason I say that is because it’s like you can talk yourself into anything. I mean, you really can, you, if there’s, if you’re attracted to somebody and you can think of a [00:40:00] couple reasons you’re thinking, I really shouldn’t be. Cause whatever she’s best friends with my wife or whatever, you know, whatever reason is coworker, coworker, whatever.
So you could be like, ah, okay, well yeah, there’s also this and there’s also that. And yeah, there’s, I don’t really like her shoes she wears and whatever reason.
Mm-hmm. You just come with million reasons why not to. So I guess at a certain extent you could. Now the other way around, I guess you got say a woman’s found a man that’s, you know, man’s everything she’s ever wanted and she just doesn’t like him or whatever.
She might think, Hey, you know, well he’s man a good job. I guess I can, yeah. So I mean, I guess to a certain extent you could, but. You kind of know, but, and so certainly say yes. I know that’s a non-answer, but that, that
Neil Robinson: was such a
Adam Cloninger: politician answer that it was politician. Double, double
Chris Gazdik: speak. Neil, what did he say?
Adam? Cloninger for
Adam Cloninger: president.
Chris Gazdik: He gets, he indeed. Yeah. I don’t even know what he just said, Neil. Okay.
Neil Robinson: He basically [00:41:00] backpedaled. No, I, I mean, I, I mean, I think you
Adam Cloninger: can to a certain extent, but I mean, I’m, I mean, either you are or you aren’t, but you can kind of convince yourself one way or another whether you are or aren’t at the same
Chris Gazdik: time.
Let me throw a curve ball in this thing, okay? And put even to you the idea of arranged marriages. Many places around the world, you do not choose your spouse and you have an arranged marriage. Actually another person brought me an article about a long-term marriage. Advocation by this woman who talked about her arranged marriage and her process of attraction and how she went through like this, this, this crazy long term, you know, journey together with it.
So what about when you don’t even pick your spouse? I mean,
Adam Cloninger: as long as it works out good, I guess that’s okay, but, right. There’s all kinds of stuff involved in that too. I mean well, the arrangement
you’d, I’m assuming a parent. Would be involved in it. There might be some aspects that they’re looking at.
Usually
Chris Gazdik: it’s, it’s kind of a male dominated [00:42:00] society, and then man picks the, the, the, the spouse for his son and the families get together and arrange for the family’s agreement with, you know, that we’re gonna get our kids together or you got kings and, and, and, and whatnot to make Dows and different, different factors.
And it’s like, it’s not based on love to start the relationship, but, but
Adam Cloninger: that’s kinda what I was getting back to saying about convincing yourself that the same things that you would go to and convincing yourself to be attracted to somebody the same, also same things that the person that might have or helped arranged it was thinking about too, well, it might be good for my kingdom.
Well, they’d have money or you know, whatever the. Different things. So I mean, I, I, like I said, to a certain extent, I guess you could convince yourself whether to or not to, but
Chris Gazdik: this is something that is so powerfully a part of my therapy experience with people [00:43:00] creating, especially related to marriage, terrifying feelings about I.
Have been married to this person now, and I’ve made a mistake. I am, I’ve lost that loving feeling to go back to, you know, top gun or, you know, this isn’t the right woman for me. I never should have done this. I can’t even stand the way that she behaves now, or 20 years into a marriage. I’ve fallen outta love.
I can’t get it back. It’s now too late. And I mean, the emotions that this creates with people, the desperation, the shame that they feel like, I don’t even feel attraction to my spouse. I, I, this happens a lot in my therapy relationships with people, and I gotta tell you, a hundred percent clear in my mind is that the answer to my question is a resounding yes.
You absolutely control the attraction that you feel. [00:44:00] And we ha we talked about a, a myriad of ways that that begins to, to happen in, in, in more. We talked about losing it and whatnot, like what happens with the psychological process with people. And I, I shared an experience where somebody was, you know a newlywed for like several months in and just
couldn’t stand her spouse and figured out that it was an issue of projection, which is a psychological type thing where you take things that you experienced in your life or things about yourself and you project them onto your spouse and it just looks so distasteful.
Like, I cannot stand you anymore, but it’s actually, I can’t stand myself or I can’t stand the things that happened to me in my life. And when she identified, oh my God, I’m totally doing this, she was like, Totally in love again, like this is the best thing I ever did in my life marrying this guy. Matter of fact, months later in therapy, she, she looks at me and she’s like, I can’t [00:45:00] believe that I ever got myself into thinking the things that I was thinking about him.
Like, it doesn’t even make any sense. How did that, how did that happen? These same thing happens with buying a house. You buy a house, it’s the best house ever. You’re so excited to move in, and then you move into the house and psychologically you begin to focus on all the things that are screwed up about that house, any house that’s been built for any length of the time.
Do you know how many things are wrong with it? Yes, I do. You know what? Yes, I do. I know you do. Well, isn’t it the worst house ever if you sit there and focus on that and that and that, and that’s like, you know, the, the, the second floor of creeks, the roofs leaking, the, you know. Yeah. But you, you really,
Adam Cloninger: you’re not, you’re just focusing on the good things to convince yourself, but.
I’m gonna use ice cream again. Uhoh. So you need to go first? I can, I can think of a million reasons why I shouldn’t eat ice cream, but it tastes good.
Neil Robinson: It
Adam Cloninger: tastes wonderful. I’m not gonna say that. I’m gonna convince myself that I don’t like ice cream. [00:46:00] I can convince myself I’m not gonna eat ice cream. Right.
But I’m never gonna convince
Neil Robinson: myself that I don’t like
Adam Cloninger: ice cream cuz I like ice cream. I’m just using an ice cream example. It could be, it could be spaghetti or whatever. Well, you know what’s
Chris Gazdik: funny? I mean, you begin to taste, I mean, you know, we are, we’re gonna get off track with ice cream cuz sugar is a, is a physical thing that triggers a, a biological response.
But you know, you, you can really change your taste buds. Yeah. You know that’s true if you are used to a certain type of food and whatnot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you, you, you refuse eating other types of foods, you will dislike that. But when you switch to other types of foods and you eat avocado after avocado and you get into avocados, you will begin to love avocados.
Neil, it’s possible. No, absolutely not. Mm.
Adam Cloninger: No. California chicken sandwich for him.
Neil Robinson: Nope. No avocado toast. But I think the point you mentioned is it’s an effort. It’s an effort you have to do and you have to be diligent with it. And, and that goes back to, yeah, purposeful. [00:47:00] Great. That goes back to the idea of, you know, falling in love is something that happens.
But when you commit in a long relationship, whether it’s marriage or just a long-term relationship in general, or that commitment, then it become, goes from an emotion, a love, a feeling, to now it’s a choice. You have to make that choice to love that person or commit to that person repeatedly, because you’re gonna lose the rose colored glasses, the hor, all the hormones we talked about on the last show, which we can talk about in a second.
But you lose that. Chemical benefit. And so now you have to make that choice of, I’m going to still look at that person as in a positive light versus a negative light, which means you might fall outta love because now, cuz you spent the last six months complaining cuz she eats cereal really loud at night, in bed and you can’t stand it anymore.
You know, it’s a,
Adam Cloninger: it’s a true thing that loud cereal eating,
Chris Gazdik: you don’t, you can’t stand, I’m imagine we just, your level of, of, I’m just kidding detail, it would drive you crazy. Oh, the cereal. Neil [00:48:00] Yeah, what you’re, what you’re making me think about and, and I want you to go in Neil, if you would, on on, because this particular show had a lot of really meaty stuff and you see on the notes that I’ve got where the article love actually the science behind Lust, attraction and Companionship.
Science in the news with Harvard Education. I, I actually have a lot of show notes that I pulled out with this particular episode. So it’s one that you really want to kind of dive in cuz there’s a lot to a lot of this. And I got great show notes that, that, that I added to it cuz I really wanted to, to be speaking about these things correctly.
So, Neil, I want you to go down through and read like romantic love can be broken down into the three categories here, here, in here in a second. Because what I’ve, what I’ve found is that, you know, early on as a clinician, we began being trained with neurology and the chemicals that go on. And I, and I, I call it the biology of love.
And the reality of it is these chemicals that Neil’s gonna tell us about a little bit are, are [00:49:00] firing hard when you meet and greet and date. Have you found it yet? You know what I’m talking about? What are you talking about? You look like you’re looking to No, I am. I’m just reading something further down.
Okay. You got it. So, so we are engineered biologically Adam, to like basically have a new sex partner every two years. Like that’s what we’ve studied and found in psychology because of chemicals like oxytocin and things that fire off when you have attraction that, you know, love at first sight. You know, you, you have a physical attraction that’s just pheromones and things like that that we can go in de detail with.
But, you know, after six months and between six months to two years, it’s gone. Like the, you don’t get that chemical bump anymore. You don’t get that chemical aid and you’re basically in, you know, we see in marriages around that time we’ll have affairs begin
Adam Cloninger: to You’re getting comments? Yeah. On
Chris Gazdik: not gonna have a lot of, a lot of comments.
Adam Cloninger: I know somebody’s gonna be making comments.
Chris Gazdik: Uhoh [00:50:00] Oh. So in, in good comments or bad comments Now I’m scared. No, she’s gonna be mad. So, Neil, go on with, with some of the, the chemical stuff. Cause there was a lot of meany stuff about the, the chemicals that we were looking at. Yeah, I
Neil Robinson: thought it was very interesting cuz I mean, I like that it broke down the difference one, so, so yeah.
So it was three basic areas of romantic love. You had your lust, which is that first attraction, you know, then that was, goes back to, we talked about the testosterone and the estrogen, you know, the, the sexually sexual reproductive organs and the idea of, as John put it, rut or that desire to go breed.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Redding. Yeah. Rut.
Adam Cloninger: And,
Neil Robinson: and so you have that initial attraction. So you think about human nature, which gone, you have to be initially attracted, you have to have that very high level of drive. You know, once you get to that, then it goes through the attraction. You know? How do you, now, now that you’ve met that person you think is a good breeding match, how do you then go to those next level, which was, you know, dopamine, neuro, neuro, nerine, whatever it is, norepinephrine [00:51:00] like that one and serotonin, and it comes from hypothalamus, which is, I guess the part of the body that produces the, the serotonin, all those different pieces.
So that gives you those, those good feelings when you’re around that person, but yet you’re not. You know, driving or running to get to that next level. So, and that’s what I like to think of when I’ve talked, seen other shows, like it’s those rose colored glasses, that, that attraction time with the domine is that you have those rose colored glasses looking at that other person and you always have, you know, six months down the road they break because now you’re seeing the person for who they really are, cuz you don’t have those hormones and those chemicals basically shifting your thought process.
And that could take six months, it could take two years. It depends on your relationship with the person. And I think the last one’s interesting because that talks about more of the survival nurturing, when it talks about the attachment, the, you know, the oxytocin and the vasopressin, which also comes with the hypothalamus.
But it talks about, you know, they call it the, the cuddling hormones or the cuddling corn. Oxytocin. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that’s interest cuz the reason why those come in [00:52:00] was because it talks about. You know, breastfeeding, it talks about, you know, sex childbirth. There’s things that, that our body does to build a long-term attachment.
You know, when the mother has the baby and then she gets the chemicals to be attached to the baby to want to keep the baby, cuz attachment. And then when they’re breastfeeding, the baby gets that. So there’s, there’s that body are naturally forces us to want to stay with that person. And so our bodies naturally from start to finish, it’s short-term to long-term for survival and for reproducing.
And it goes back to what John talked about is that next thing is that outside reason to stay long-term. You know, what does that mean as far as relationships are concerned? So once the chemicals were off, how do you make that desire to stay with that person? Right? The chemicals
Adam Cloninger: are gone, but you’re still, you’re still attracted to the person.
It’s just your, your attractions based on different
Neil Robinson: criteria. You go from a chemical to a logical Yeah, you almost have to.
Chris Gazdik: And it’s easy to lose that attraction. Like it is a very, very [00:53:00] common experience to lose and gain and lose and gain back again, in and out. Like, you know, someone said to me not too long ago in my personal life, like, you know, like you fall in and outta love like all the time, and I was like, Okay.
Okay. Really? And, and there’s maybe you do, you know, I’m like, okay, well, like, what does that even mean? But but, but because when you’re experiencing it, you don’t really know. You’re not like really aware of what it ha is happening. You’re just experiencing it. And, and again, it can be a terrifying experience and a powerless experience when you feel that you can’t control this or manage this, but we’re learning that you, that you can, you know, yeah.
There’s, there’s a lot of chemicals in there. I didn’t even know what Vasopressin is. That’s a, you know, I’ve, I’ve learned since doing this deep dive on this particular topic, you know, how that works. And you know, like, I swear, I wanna like, Figure out how we can, you know, break down biologically into pill format or liquid [00:54:00] format or something.
Oxytocin. The cuddle hormone, right? Doesn’t it sound awesome to like be able to just like pop this at, you know, dinnertime and you know, like goose up on oxytocin just like a mother does when she’s breastfeeding and her body is just like exploding with its attachment chemical. This sounds awesome, right?
Mm-hmm. Now, being dudes, we don’t have any idea what it’s like to experience a new baby, but the bonding. That I’ve heard people describe is a powerful part of a mental health stability. And if you don’t get that crucial initial bonding experience, arguably psychologists and stuff have said that can easily lead to reactive attachment disorder, which is a horrible experience of being detached from important figures in your life.
That bonding experience is
Neil Robinson: huge. Well, it’s kinda like the idea of, you know, when a child’s born, you get that skin to skin contact. Right. To kind of release that even for the father and the mother. It happens for dads too. It’s, it’s, it’s a great thing I think a [00:55:00] lot of fathers should do when they’re babies are born, is actually go through and actually.
Take part in skin to skin, take your shirt off and hold the baby to start building that imprinting. Kinda like ducklings, you got that imprinting kind of thing going on. That’s, I mean, it sounds corny, but that’s like biological. It’s, it’s huge for both, both sides of the, both sides of it. You know, the father, because they don’t get to experience the childbirth and they don’t get that physical attachment.
The baby doesn’t get that physical attachment to it. So I think it’s very important for if a father can’t do that. Dude, that’s
Chris Gazdik: interesting. I never even thought about that, Neil. As far as in child birthings, you know, if we, if we begin to study this, which by the way, I know that we know like very little about the topic, we’re talking about neurology is by far the greatest bastion of what we’re gonna learn about in the mental health field, in, in the medical field.
All told in, in the, the decades to come. Cuz right now the map that we know is like just barely scraping the surface. And Neil, you just raised something that’s super curious in my [00:56:00] brain, like, Will we begin and I predict we will, I’ll make the bold statement. I will predict that it will be a, become a part of the birthing process that after the child is born you will have, you know, shirt off and, and skin to skin contact with the baby for the dude.
And we don’t do that at all. Yeah,
Neil Robinson: I, I’ve, I’ve seen some videos recently where you started and that’s kinda why I thought about it, cuz I’ve seen that before and that’s fascinating. I think it’s a great thing to do. But, you know, one thing to also think about, and I was thinking about as we were talking, you know, you look at
the chemicals that gets produced, that, that build these stages in our, you know, in our attraction to someone.
What about the hormonal imbalances where someone has a higher or lower level of these naturally?
Chris Gazdik: Exactly.
Neil Robinson: You know, like if they have extra testosterone and they’re always constantly going, going back to the womanizer idea or Yeah. Someone who you know Yeah. You know, maybe they. Build quick friendships or has a boyfriend or girlfriend super fast, and because their [00:57:00] chemicals are, and then they drop and they drop, and then now they’re no longer, they go through relationship after relationship because of a chemical
Chris Gazdik: imbalance.
Y we’ve talked about on the show that I have a sneaking suspicion and researchers are catching onto this. I think that, you know, with, with personality disorders, it’s heavily impacted biochemically by the level of hormones and what goes on in production, mis production or underproduction or overproduction of the hormone system.
And that creates all kind of relationship troubles, which is the primary piece of, you know, antisocial personality disorder dependent, borderline typo personality disorder. There’s these things that I think are really dramatically impacted by hormones, but then you got menopause and the, the, the massive changes that happen in your.
Body at that point. I see that Major impacts in therapy as to that men as well. Absolutely. Go through physical mane changes, [00:58:00] man. Menopause. Mano pause. Actually it’s called ande. I like, I like man menopause. Man menopause. You have man menopause. Adam? I don’t think so. He doesn’t wanna have this conversation.
Neil Robinson: But you, you talk about a lot of the guys who have like low testosterone do, do
Chris Gazdik: you know you have estrogen at Adam? Yes, I do know that. I was shocked when I found that out. I’m like, dude, like I don’t want that stuff. Are you kidding me? Yes, I do know that. Right. We
Adam Cloninger: need it. And we have testosterone too.
Chris Gazdik: That’s right. Yep. Different loads though. And I think we’re gonna understand what affects those loads, how they operate. And here’s a big component of what affects those loads. Fear. Right. Dramatic pause, fear, and you can put onto their insecurities. So John asked me, and right in the beginning of the show, you remember, I loved it, Neil.
He is like, so Chris, what, what do you think as far as the emotion focus therapy component with this and how does that go into like, the insecurity [00:59:00] states that people get into, you know, in the back and forth and I’m like, oh, it’s tremendously in my mind it is, it is, is an impact. You know, like how are you supposed to really feel loving feelings when you’re in a terror state about engulfment and or abandonment?
Like it drives you into a state of fight or flight where you will fight, freeze, or flee to save your life as what your body chemistry is telling you when back to us. I about
Adam Cloninger: earlier. Huh? Back to what I was talking about earlier. It’s a, it’s a ice cream. Yeah, well, no, I was talking about
Chris Gazdik: the orca sub. Oh, the orca.
Are you going all the way back to the
Adam Cloninger: Yeah, well, I mean, it’s, everything we’re talking about is a, is a survival
Neil Robinson: thing, right? Yeah, that makes sense. Come full circle. Yeah. And you planned that, right? I did.
Adam Cloninger: Yep. Well done. That was
Chris Gazdik: my, that was impressive. Orcas. Yep. Chemicals, revenge, social dynamics.
Emotional control and attraction with emotional control. I love it. Think of this, what really affects our [01:00:00] levels of attraction? Okay. We just got into some things that make my head hurt when it comes to the biological crazy to understand and humans are really learning all kinds of things about this.
Secondly is psychological. Very hard to self recognize. We, you need to listen to the show to get the full depth, but under the psychological terms, we talked about projection, we talked about reaction formation. We talked about issues
with detachment. We talked about all of the psychological defense mechanisms that we, we have in, in, in mental health.
The these things are going to destroy the feelings that you have. And it’s really, really hard to self recognize when you’re doing this. And chances are, by the way, couples out there, you’re doing it to each other. Like both people are doing these levels of these, at least when you’re in fights or in recovery or in tough spots.
And then you got social and emotional, [01:01:00] right? So biological, crazy to understand. Psychological, very hard to self recognize. And then the social and emotional dynamics that are in our life with our modeling, like the models that we have in family culture matter tremendously. Right. So gosh, there’s just a lot there.
Did I, did we make your head spin, man, Adam? I mean, you know, is this, can you, can you control the way that you feel attraction towards others? What, what says you Listen, I feel like
Adam Cloninger: there’s been an exorcism, my head’s been spinning so
Chris Gazdik: much green soup coming out here shortly to match the hat and the shirt.
Seriously, sum us up. What do you hear with all of that? I know that’s a lot. Mm-hmm. Right? You know, from what you were thinking before and what you’re thinking now as to can you control the experience of attraction towards another person, either getting it, losing it, getting it back. Like what is I, I
Adam Cloninger: still think it’s a matter of definition of what attraction is [01:02:00] because it’s, You, you’re attracted to somebody and you, you lose these hormones you’re all talking about and everything, these traction hormones.
So, but you, you, in a way, you kind of choose to still be attractor to ’em, but it’s, you’re just changing the type of attraction really. So, I mean, you’re in a, depending on how you look at it, you’re kind of choosing, but you’re
Chris Gazdik: not choosing. So you’re going from like, you know, lust and, and, and, and what that is.
And then attraction and what that is. And then attachment and, and what that is. And I’m sure that during a long-term journey together, you go through different stages of, of all of those. So that, that’s probably what you mean by how you
define it. We talking about attraction, we talking about lust, we talking about attachment.
Yeah. There’s different biological markers and realities that go on in that. It’s a very confusing world. It really is. And I think there’s a lot, lot more that we’re gonna need to be learning about how this works. So there’ll be another episode later on this man, we need [01:03:00] to have probably a lot of episodes on this because I see it causing terror and causing divorce and causing all kinds of shame when people are like, I can’t even stand my spouse.
There was one, one dude, one, one person long time ago. He was, he was really, really upset and he was having a hard time revealing to me why he was upset. And what he shared is like, God, dude, I can’t stand the way that my wife smells. We talked about that on the show. Victoria was like, well, I love the way my husband smells.
I thought that was hysterical. But he was really tore up about this. And this is after 20 years of marriage, right? And, and there’s probably a lot that goes into what was going on there, but that’s a big thing. Elle, that’s a big thing. Yeah. Oh
Adam Cloninger: yeah, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. That’s, that’s a big thing. And, and can you imagine?
Yeah, it’s, it’s throughout the whole relationship journey, it, it can be a big deal. So, alright. My brain’s tired after all the deepiness with [01:04:00] attraction. I think we need to taxi it in closing. Thoughts, comments, things you’re thinking about. Nutrition therapy. Cilla is awesome. What do we really deal with with control and can we change our focus of control into an internal look as a control and attraction?
That torment that it can create. When we lose it, when we don’t have it, we think we should. How do we manage that? A lot of really cool shows we did in in May. Closing thoughts. Let’s get us outta here.
Adam Cloninger: I think the common
Neil Robinson: theme is through all three of these things, you do have control in each one of these.
Don’t kid yourself that you think everything is out of your control, your diet. You can control your emotions, you can control your attractions, you can control. So if you take that and you make it about what you can control about
versus everything else, feel comfortable to know that in anything you’re struggling with, you do have the power to change or adapt or grow or decide to make.
You can make those [01:05:00] decisions for yourself. And I think that’s the big thing out of the, out of these three shows with all these pieces, you can control it, but it will take work and keep that in mind,
Chris Gazdik: purposeful. I can’t think of a better way to put it. Neil. Well said. Guys, take care. Stay well and we’ll see you next week.