When a client starts therapy, one of the first thoughts that is brought up is why do I need to talk about my past traumas? When you first bring up past experiences, it hurts because it is painful. There is no way around those early experiences as you start opening up, but when you look at how a person heals and grows, it requires that you go through discussing those traumas.
Tune in to see Why You Talk About Emotions Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- Does this do unnecessary harm to focus on hurts?
- Is there a risk of getting “stuck” in the distress?
- Can we not enjoy being “comfortably numb”?
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Episode #252 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: This is Chris
Gazdik, the host of Through a Therapist’s Eyes, hanging out with the one and only Miss Victoria Pendergrass. Hi. We’re missing the Pope today, he is sick. So,
Neil Robinson: she has the whole couch alone. I do. This
Chris Gazdik: is Through a Therapist’s Eyes, where you get insights directly from a panel of therapists in personal time in your car or home, but not to delivery of therapy services in any way.
This is November the 16th, 2023. Lot going on in the world, more on that in a moment, I think. thE book is coming out Through a Therapist’s Eyes, Re Understanding Your Marriage or Becoming Your Best Self as a Spouse. Let’s see if the publishers want to change the title.
Neil Robinson: Oh really? Is that an option?
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Do they have, I don’t know
Victoria Pendergrass: much about the logistics
Neil Robinson: of writing lot of logistics.
Victoria Pendergrass: Is there like, do they have the power to veto? And [00:01:00] say, hey we want to change
Neil Robinson: the name of the book?
Chris Gazdik: Veto is an interesting word. I think the answer to that is no. I really still own the content. Do you have an ultimate say?
Yeah. Contracts in the author world are different from publisher to publisher. Of course a lot of people do self publishing. Right. So, no, I think. I think I actually have the veto, but their publisher name is on it, so that’s curious.
Victoria Pendergrass: They might be able to say, might we
Neil Robinson: suggest, that you change the title of your
Chris Gazdik: book.
And I’m humble enough to say, hey, whatever you think is
Neil Robinson: good, guys. Yeah, whatever will sell. No problem with
Chris Gazdik: that. We have an action for you. Please click the button. You’re listening now on Apple iTunes. You can type in a little response. Leave a review, it helps us. If you’re on Spotify, you can click the button.
If you’re on YouTube, you can click the bell and subscribe. These things help us out. Neil’s got a mic behind the scenes. You can give me a head nod. Did I do pretty
Neil Robinson: well there? [00:02:00] Getting closer, he said. You still
Victoria Pendergrass: said Apple iTunes
Neil Robinson: instead of Apple Podcasts. I did, didn’t I? You’re getting closer. You’ll get there.
Okay,
Chris Gazdik: what did I miss, big guy?
Neil Robinson: Let’s see. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Spotify subscribe if you’re watching on YouTube, you know, hit the bell for notifications if you want to, and if anything strikes out to you, just go ahead and share with people that you know that will, that can benefit from the show.
So that always helps us. And of course, give us a like on YouTube saying, hey, this is a great show. It moves us up on the algorithm.
Chris Gazdik: Reed Ferguson does the intro music, or did the intro music for him. A little shout out to Reed. He loves to do private events, so please contact him. He does a great job. Single gig with his guitar man.
He’s, he’s awesome. R E
Neil Robinson: I D T F E R G U S
Chris Gazdik: O N dot com We appreciate him helping us out with that. So this is the human emotional experience which we endeavor to figure out together. So does this do [00:03:00] unnecessary harm to focus on hurts? Why talk about emotions and past events? Does it actually do necessary harm?
I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t
Neil Robinson: think
Chris Gazdik: you said the title. I just did. Why talk about emotions? or events in our life. Does that actually do us harm? Sorry. I think I did. I could be wrong. Is there a risk of getting stuck in the distress? This is concerns that we have, that people have about this topic and can we not enjoy being comfortably numb or naive to issues and what not.
So think about those questions as we go through the show. But let’s do a little current event. Yeah. First. Yeah. A lot going on in the world. Boy, oh man. I mean, there really is, Victoria. It’s, it’s just, I, I, I’m stunned at the level of anti Seminism that is out in the world right now. It, it, it, it, it’s baffling to me.
[00:04:00] And I think there’s a lot of mental health in the middle of that. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, there’s…
Chris Gazdik: There’s all the protests that are going on, the, the, the incredible criticism that we have on the Jews, you know, like it’s actually talked about in such a broad term, you know, the country of Israel being criticized and, and, you know, the, the plight of the Palestinians, far be it for me to cite any. Ability to understand what either peoples are going through.
I’m, I’m, I’m naive and comfortably in the United States of America. Lest to have the life that, that I have and I
Neil Robinson: don’t.
Victoria Pendergrass: I even, yeah, I had a client today who was emotional in session. Talking about, you know, all the stuff that’s going on in the world. Absolutely.
Neil Robinson: Specifically the
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:00] things, you know. We have it in our offices.
We covered that part. But the part that I want to really highlight and, get at today is, is when we have peoples going against people, there’s a psychological process to demean the nature of who those people are. Yeah. And, you know, you get nicknames that come out, you get demeaning, so as to dehumanize, you know, the people that you’re in war with.
We did this in World War II, in the Korean War, there are ugly names and, and, and. You know, gestures and phrases that are developed. It’s, it’s really like a psychological defense. That, that goes, that goes on
Victoria Pendergrass: now. Well yeah, because your mind a lot of times is trying to justify. Yeah. Like why you’re doing this said thing.
Whether it be something at home in your own backyard. Or whether it be something at a larger scale.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And I, I, I’ll tell ya, I will. [00:06:00] Without using any demeaning words or names or whatnot because that’s not to dehumanize this group But you know the the real it seems harm is to the Palestinian people and to the nation of Israel is Hamas.
From everything I read, understand, or see, it is the genesis of, think about that word by the way, because this is biblical stuff, but I don’t mean it in that context, it’s the genesis of what’s going on right now in, in October the 7th, and, and I don’t know how that gets lost. Well yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: and I think plus a lot of times, when it comes to mental health, I think a lot of times here in the states, we have a lot of people that choose to be naive.
about it in order to possibly, whether they’re consciously doing it or not.
Neil Robinson: A lot of it is unconscious or subconscious. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: They’re [00:07:00] making this choice to not inform themselves of what’s going on because of the impact that it could have on their mental health. Again, whether or not someone realizes they’re doing it subconsciously or consciously.
And, you know, I mean, There’s I feel like there’s no right answer like yes, it’s it’s good to be informed about the things that are happening worldly and Not just here in the States But also you have the tendency like, you know, I tell my clients to you know, you still have to protect your own mental health And so it’s finding a balance, I think, between those two.
We
Neil Robinson: get back
Chris Gazdik: to the social media conversation. Right, yeah. And be very aware of where you’re getting your data. Because, you know, Hamas is putting a lot of stuff out that I highly suspect of. Yeah. It’s a new kind of warfare with information technology.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s just a lot. I mean, that goes back to, like, things on Facebook about don’t just read the title.
[00:08:00] You know, you actually have to… Yeah, read an article before you post it and fake news and all that kind of stuff. And so, I
Neil Robinson: mean…
Chris Gazdik: I’ll tell you this. I don’t know. My source, my source actually comes from the New York New York Times podcast, whether you like that source or not. It was an in depth story that I, I thought was pretty telling, where reporters evidently went to Hamas leadership.
You can do that. There are government offices, basically, just like a government official. You get Hamas leadership in Syria, and Quedar, and different places, and you say, Hey, can I get an appointment of a reporter with a Hamas leader there? And they did that, and they went around to different sections, and they talked about this whole ordeal with them, and, you know, getting that, like, What was this about, October 7th, in the first place?
You know, Victoria, from my understanding, they literally described an issue that they felt concerned about that the issue of the Palestinians was getting lost. The plight, the concerns, the world attention was, was gone. And so the [00:09:00] purposeful act was to get this on the radar again of the world. And boy, did that happen.
Mission successful, if that’s indeed what Hamas’s intent was. Not good. Not good for the Palestinians, for Middle East, not good for the world, certainly not
good for Israel. That’s a concern. So, be careful about the psychological realities of what’s going on and what we believe and what we see and what we’re feeling and what we do and our behavior.
Because we’re all part of the human race and boy, there’s a lot to go around that’s, that’s causing harm. So, alright, that’s how do we feel? Yeah, that’s a heavy
Victoria Pendergrass: topic, and I mean, I feel like we could probably spiral.
Neil Robinson: on it, so. Yeah. I don’t want
Chris Gazdik: to do that. Alright, let’s stop there and
Neil Robinson: get back to you.
I’ve got to protect my own mental health by
Chris Gazdik: not, by. But we’ve got to deal with it. So I don’t have any bash abashment [00:10:00] about bringing up tough issues and talking about them and making as best of sense out of them, because that is what we endeavor to do. And this is, by goodness, the, the human emotional
Victoria Pendergrass: experience.
Well, yeah, and I just thought of, it helps us as, like, therapists need to be informed. About things going on in the world for when our clients bring up things and they have and they have and they will you know and We try to do things within our scope of practice absolutely,
Neil Robinson: and so
Chris Gazdik: People are having dreams about this stuff.
People are having anxiety about this stuff. People are Really disturbed about
Neil Robinson: this stuff. From
Victoria Pendergrass: somewhere? Or is that outside
Neil Robinson: of
Chris Gazdik: this office? I don’t know. Do we just do something to your mental health? You alright? We do have a neighbor, shall not be mentioned, that does do things in my office all the time, I will say.
Anybody who’s done therapy with me, you know what I’m referring to, but let’s move on.
Neil Robinson: I’m rolling my eyes if you can’t see me.
Chris Gazdik: All right, listen, the [00:11:00] genesis of the show, let’s get to it. So, I was in therapy session you know, this week. And I was having a really good conversation with somebody and they were very aware and insightful about their tendencies.
To like, ah, look, I don’t want to talk about emotions. That’s not my tendency. This is out of my norm. This is out of my comfort zone. This is not my scope. I tend to just, you know, come home if I’m in a funk. I get out of it. I deal with it. I, you know, whatever. And I don’t understand. And he looked at me and he said, Chris, well, so really, why would we talk about emotions?
Why would we want to talk about the experiences that we had so long ago? And I just paused, and I’m like, you know, I got a lot to say on that topic. Where should I
Neil Robinson: start? I
Chris Gazdik: mean, yeah.
Neil Robinson: So, I
Chris Gazdik: would love to hear how many times John has been asked this question over his 30 years of practice. You’re, we’ll call it five years of practice, give or take.
[00:12:00] Less. So,
Neil Robinson: have you heard this yet?
Victoria Pendergrass: Maybe not directly those words of saying, why do I have to talk about this stuff? Okay. But I do see a lot of, when people feel like they’re at a good place, currently, why they sometimes question, why would I want to bring up something in the past if I’m happy right now?
You know? Yeah, oh yeah. Why would I want to work through something that… or emotions that I was feeling 10 years ago or when I was a child when I’m happy and content right now. So that’s
Chris Gazdik: kind of what I get. So we got a whole show on it. We’ll take a deep dive on it. Yeah.
Neil Robinson: What do you tell them?
I just did John’s laugh. I think it’s part
Victoria Pendergrass: of healing and being able to fortify or solidify or whateverfy like the fact [00:13:00] that you don’t regress in the future.
Chris Gazdik: Listen, I know that you’re listening and I know that you’ve probably wondered about this question yourself. Why do we need to do this? This is uncomfortable.
This is hard. This is scary. I don’t really want to do this. That’s what you’re probably thinking. And that is a normal thought, a normal question. We really have a lot of answers for that. We’re going to take a deep dive on that. And I really very rarely want to actually directly convince… People of something, but I want to convince you that it is super important not just in therapy But with your friends and with your family with your people with your kin with your community with your church Like it is really important to talk about emotions It’s just it’s really important for you to do that and to talk about the significant events in your life And we’re gonna have a good conversation.
I think today, so I’m glad you’re tuning in to really Understand the answer to a really important [00:14:00] Question, right? So let’s first, we’ve done some of this before, Victoria, right? Understanding emotions, right? Understanding, you know, what they really mean. What past events are to us today. With an emphasis on like, this is what we’re experiencing today.
Right. This is what our emotions are about today. Our emotions are telling us, literally, about the experiences that we’ve had in the past. Right. Our emotions are telling us about what it is that we take from that. Right. We’re not talking about it and making sense out of it, but we’re missing so much, right?
So, what says you? I mean, understanding how events and how emotions shape us. Like, we really want to be here and now in therapy. We talk about stuff that’s affecting you today, right? Do emotions affect us today? Do events in our
life affect us today? I mean, from the cuff, what say you? Well, yeah, of course the answer is yes.
Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: a hundred percent yes, but
Yes, the things that we [00:15:00] experience in our past and the emotions we’re feeling or have felt They’re gonna shape who we are today because like, I don’t know
Neil Robinson: Hey, think about it. If you
Chris Gazdik: experience something significant in your life, right, when you’re 12 Right. Your emotional system marks that.
Victoria Pendergrass: It does. Yeah, because it has to adjust and it has to You adjust.
Navigate through it. You protect. And that kind of implants or imprints and then You learn. You, yeah, you grow on from there. Go on, grow on, whatever. And
Neil Robinson: you keep
Chris Gazdik: that with you. And think about it. If you learn lessons that are destructive. Right. If you learn that you have to protect yourself in a way where you don’t If you learn some lessons about the way people are, and they’re not, there are false lessons that we learn.
There are false things that we experience. And so, by false, I [00:16:00] mean, you would probably learn at some significant events in through your teenage years, that people are not to be trusted. Just take that for example. Right? Yeah.
Neil Robinson: Now, definitely have clients like that. You have a couple? Yeah. You know, and so it’s baffling to me why people would think, ah, that was so long ago.
I’m not gonna worry about that now. It’s
Chris Gazdik: like, no, wait, like, we really got to get clear on this topic. Well, and it’s also
Victoria Pendergrass: interesting, I think, how sometimes people Look at smaller events or what they think feel are small events in their history or in their past That end up sometimes those smaller events end up having the biggest impact on Like oh, my parents just didn’t come to my award ceremony Might be a small thing in comparison, but then that potentially instilled some type of feelings about parenting, or your parents, or whatever, [00:17:00] whatever the case may be, and then now, twenty years later, you still are suffering, or dealing with this, whatever feeling, from that one small event.
Chris Gazdik: Or, because you did what you needed to do to deal with the feelings and the emotions of this, then you recover, or you heal, or you grow, or you learn. Better life lessons and whatnot by talking about your emotions, by talking about that event. I just did a little journey in my brain and debated what…
Neil Robinson: I could tell you were thinking.
I, I, I
Chris Gazdik: am. I was saying that and thinking at the same time. Do I want to do that, Chris? Do I do that? Do I not do that? But you know what? I’m going to do it because it’s real. And it wasn’t my decision and choice and so, you know, I hope I don’t upset him. But, you know, I had a really example. It wasn’t a small event, but you know, my dad made the decision not to come to
Neil Robinson: our wedding.
Okay, yeah, pretty big thing. [00:18:00] Yeah, pretty big event.
Chris Gazdik: And you know, that was like, okay, well that sucked, you know, like, what do you do with that? Yeah, I didn’t know that. Yeah, so as a young man and a newlywed person and, you know, developing into becoming a parent and, you know, those years following, I really had to do a lot of exploration about that.
I had to really kind of do some talking about that. Yeah. Some praying about that, some thinking about that. Like, I did some work on that, you know, and Oh, it just seems so. Right? Instead of just, can you imagine if I just stuffed that down, internalized that, and treated it like it never happened? And just moved on.
Do you think my psychological system would be
Victoria Pendergrass: even it’s also affected like you said even if you do deal with it and process through it It still leaves an impact Can leave an impact on? Who you are today or how you operate today [00:19:00]
Chris Gazdik: with the caveat that you could really Make good progress with that.
Right. I mean, you know, there are events in my life and things that I’ve kind of gone through that have have taught me a lot of wonderful life realities that were painful to go through, you know, and but that’s that’s in essence one of the reasons why I think we probably have emotional pain or feel that emotional pain because we can really Propel from that and that’s where maturity comes.
That’s where You know, a strong sense of self can develop and some real groundedness, you know, that which doesn’t kill me, you know, makes me stronger. You know, that’s a
Neil Robinson: phrase, but
Chris Gazdik: that’s a phrase for a reason. So yeah, we’ve
Neil Robinson: already gotten into it. I think, I mean, I think
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s why it is important that you break it up in, in therapy with your therapist and say
Neil Robinson: like, I’m glad
Chris Gazdik: I said it that way, but I’m going to say with your
Neil Robinson: friends.
And yeah, with
Victoria Pendergrass: friends, family,
Neil Robinson: it needs to be discussed and, and, and touched on and talked
Chris Gazdik: about. For the [00:20:00] reasons that we’re going to be talking about, but we’re getting a lot out of ourselves. Let’s move back a little bit and say like, yeah, you know, these definitely shape your experiences and emotions.
They shape your story. So let’s talk about the story for a little bit. Like, I swear I could be a constructivist therapist. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that. Yeah. You know, that’s a, that’s a mentality that you really look at. In a therapy world of what is your story, and you examine your story, you look at what that story means to you.
You look at your perceptions in that story, you examine it further, you look at it again, and you begin to understand, wait a minute, I can shift that narrative. Not to lie to myself,
Neil Robinson: not to change facts, because facts are
Chris Gazdik: facts. Right. But what you take from those facts, what you experience with those facts, what that event means to you, definitely, magically almost it seems.
Has a, has a major shift if you experienced that Victoria, where you, you, you hear the same story in therapy a few times and maybe a year later that’s a [00:21:00] completely different story. It’s beautiful. Yeah. To watch. And a good example of that that occurs to me is, I don’t think you know much about AA and recovery programs and stuff, right?
Neil Robinson: Just a bit of all. So there’s speaker
Chris Gazdik: meetings. Okay. That’s a part of what you do in recovery in AA, is you give a speaker meeting. Real quick, that’s just a meeting that is held for the specific reason where the speaker is sharing their story. Right. And they go through their drinking career, drugging career, life when it started.
Right, all the stuff. Before that, during that, after that, now, and the, it’s not just a war story to compare notes. It is a very powerful recollection and revelation and revealing to a group of people that are there for you to listen and receive it. Right. You would think that in a speaker meeting The beneficiaries are those who hear, those who are listening.
[00:22:00] I’m not alone. I can understand through what you went through. I can avoid mistakes. You know who benefits the most in a speaker meeting? Yeah, the
Neil Robinson: speaker. By far. Yeah. Because you’re, you’re, you’re going through
Chris Gazdik: your own stuff, and as you do a third and a fourth speaker meeting, which is common, the transformation is transformational.
Victoria Pendergrass: So you’re saying that for someone’s first speaker meeting… Yeah. The difference between that and maybe their third or fourth, the story, it’s gonna be massively, it’s gonna be the same story with the same facts. Right. But their viewpoint, how they tell the story, those types of things. Focus points, the focus points, maybe some of the emotions that they were feeling with it.
Right? Those are all gonna change.
Neil Robinson: Very, very
Chris Gazdik: different. Yeah. And it’s beautiful to watch. It just, it really is beautiful to watch that. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, yeah, it’s taking a story and it’s looking at it from the third, third. Point of view like you’re [00:23:00] hovering over ahead of it and you’re just getting a
Neil Robinson: different viewpoint of
Chris Gazdik: it Okay, we got I got a lot that is hopefully gonna convince people.
Yeah, okay We did a whole episode on 173 and 174 and we’ve talked about implicit and explicit bias. Mm hmm, you know Multiple times. Yeah, I wasn’t on those. Yeah, well, they went back a little bit. We’re already at 252. Isn’t that crazy? Yeah you gotta listen to this episode to take a deep dive. I’m just throwing another factor out here today.
Literally, like I said, don’t do this very often, to convince you out there that it is important to talk about your emotions, that it is important to revisit your experiences. Implicit biases, particularly, explicit not so much you, you, you, you express your bias, but the implicit, the internal, the subconscious, the reality that you have inside you dictates That’s a strong word.
I’m going to say that it [00:24:00] dictates how it is that you experience what you’re observing. How it is that you view your surrounding. How it is that you see that particular event that you’re thinking about. And if you have an implicit bias that is with any kind of strength inside of you, whether you know it, and
most dangerously, and more often when you don’t know it, it is dramatically impacting how you see.
What’s going on? Yeah, world example right now is what we just did in our current event Yeah, there is a major amount of implicit bias on the people that are experiencing these experiences from what they have experienced powerful Reality and guys that’s a biblical one. That’s a generation That’s the Israeli Palestinian struggle has been going on for eons, right?
Yeah. Massive amounts of psychological implicit bias effect that’s going on in what it is that you’re [00:25:00] seeing and thinking about what’s happening. So we, you know, yeah, we need to revisit these events. Yes, we need to revisit the emotions that you, you had. So yeah. Comments or yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: It just makes me think about even on a smaller scale when you’re talking with your best friends about how you’re more likely to take their side of things because of your bias towards like And being your best friends and, or based on if you’ve experienced a similar like, and I know we’ve probably, you’ve probably done this in your past, but when, even when you have a client who’s literally been, is going through or has been through the, like the same thing you’re going through
Neil Robinson: or have gone through.
Yeah, we call that countertransference.
Victoria Pendergrass: And so, I mean, which is something you need to be aware of, but you know, it, it, we’re human. And so it makes us have some sort of bias towards.
Neil Robinson: Well, that’s
Chris Gazdik: in our training. We, we identify if there’s an issue that’s too close to us. Yeah. You know, too unresolved or too raw.[00:26:00]
And, and that’s, you need to refer. You gotta address that, yeah. Well, no, you refer. Right. Certainly, you want to address that inside yourself, if you can, whatever.
Neil Robinson: Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s what I mean by, like, address it within yourself and then
Neil Robinson: refer
Chris Gazdik: out. Very appropriate to refer, though, yeah. Yeah. Right. Real quick, we’ve talked about Adler.
I forget what that was what episode. But, Adlerian psychology is all about… You can go to our website and type in Adler, A D L E R. And we took a deep dive on that whole philosophy, which really emotes around look at your emotion, figure out what your emotion is telling you you need to do, pay attention, and figure out an action from it.
Yeah. It really gets tricky sometimes when emotions and perceptions are lying to us, which happens as well, but pure Adlerian psychotherapists would tell you Your emotions are there for a reason. We need to know what it is and what to do in life as a, as a relationship. So we took [00:27:00] a deep dive on that.
Yeah.
Neil Robinson: We need to figure out, we need to figure out what episode
Chris Gazdik: that was. Yeah, well, we could do that. Yeah, Neil yeah, okay, we will. Neil will look up what what number Adlerian, it wasn’t too long ago. It was like, you know, it was like 200 something. Okay, let’s go out of order a little bit and look at like why we need to make a connection between these behaviors and the patterns that we have because we’ve started to touch on that anyway.
Yeah. Look, you have patterns that you play out in your life. Whether you realize it or not. And the reality of those patterns are some of them are productive and some of your patterns are destructive. And yet. Bet you probably want to know the difference between which ones are which therefore Victoria that’s that’s why right?
We got a look at our emotions.
Victoria Pendergrass: Why do I keep dating the bad guy? Oh, why do I keep going for the?[00:28:00]
For the assholes, why do I keep you know, why do I keep why do I somehow attract A bunch of narcissist people, or why do I somehow, like, why am I, fill in the
Neil Robinson: blank,
Chris Gazdik: you know? We just have to market explicit now, Victoria. You’re fine, we’re, we’re podcasting. Sorry. That’s part of the beauty of the reality of it.
To make a strong point, because really, to your point, if you have an asshole that’s in your life, like, look, what’s happening that this, I’m drawn to this. Because in a more serious way, we know that domestic violence victims sometimes get out of that relationship. Mm
Neil Robinson: hmm. And oftentimes go Right back into another one, yep.
And
Chris Gazdik: that sometimes is over and over and over again. Yep. There are, there are, I promise you there are events in your life that drive that. There are emotions that you’re having that are driving that. The behavior [00:29:00] patterns, the life patterns that you see that you don’t like, it is tied to. Why do I yell at my kid louder than I think I should?
There’s events in your life that are a part of that. You know, listen, I don’t, Dr. Phil is is great. Oh yeah, that’s why. Right, he does a lot of good stuff. The producers, the producers got to him, I
Neil Robinson: think, with the show. I don’t know, it’s whatever. But
Chris Gazdik: he had a really cool activity that I think he piloted or created or whatever.
He highlighted an idea that you look at, I’m going to get it wrong so I’m not going to get it exactly right, but you look at the, the five biggest events in your life. You look at the five most important figures in your life and then you look at something else. I think maybe the, the, the five biggest behaviors, maybe something, I forget.
But, and, and you, and you examine those things and you look at what comes out of that [00:30:00] exploration. It’s a wonderful activity to do. Like
Neil Robinson: if you notice any patterns. Well, when you notice what patterns you have, right? It’s not an
Victoria Pendergrass: if. And I think it’s important to say that. I think, I mean you kind of alluded to this earlier, is that there are, do you not hear that?
Chris Gazdik: I don’t know. Yeah, it was a voice. Is that my phone, or I don’t know. I don’t think it is. Might be playback. Okay,
Neil Robinson: sorry.
Victoria Pendergrass: I know I’m not crazy that I was hearing
Neil Robinson: something. A D D!
Chris Gazdik: No.
Neil Robinson: Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: hit the nail on the head there. But I think. That a lot of times when people say, oh, when you notice patterns in your life, I think people automatically assume negative patterns or like Bad patterns and I think it’s important to point out that we can have healthy patterns.
Yeah, you can have it like you can’t have [00:31:00] healthy
Neil Robinson: Successful, legitimate patterns. Well, that’s the beauty of it, right? I think I said, you know, you definitely develop patterns.
Chris Gazdik: And some of them are productive. Right. And some of them are destructive. So I’m glad you’re highlighting that, though. And teaching us to really think about, like, which are which?
Right? Because you do have patterns. And the beauty of exploring events in your life, the beauty of exploring the emotions that you had, have, are. Or, lead you to feeling empowered to decide and
Neil Robinson: actively choose which patterns you keep and which
Chris Gazdik: patterns you lose. I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to do that myself.
Neil Robinson: Oh
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah, well and I also want to be able to help clients be able to. How
Neil Robinson: do you do that if you don’t
Chris Gazdik: look at events? I have no idea how you do
Neil Robinson: that
Victoria Pendergrass: without that. Like, okay, with Dr. Phil’s exercise there. There’s no way you can find those patterns unless you look in the past of your life and you say, like, [00:32:00] Well, this event happened, and this event happened, and these are the people that are important to me, and, you
Neil Robinson: know?
Well, and,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. What word did you just say? I lost, I think I lost my thought. Because you, you, I forget what you just said. It was important to you. You want, yeah, I lost it. That’s okay. I
Neil Robinson: have no idea.
Chris Gazdik: What kind of patterns are you saying that we have? Think about this. You have patterns that you have with fear.
Fears that you have become pattern oriented. They’re learned. You have patterns in life with people that you trust or how you trust, how you develop. Keywords, trust
Victoria Pendergrass: issues.
Chris Gazdik: Hashtag, right? Attachment, focus, how you attach, you have patterns for sure. In the way that you engage relationships and form bonds, attachments.
What [00:33:00] do we have, trauma bond, is that a word? Hurts and their effect in dealing with people. Those hurts continue hurting until you heal the hurts. I mean, that’s just a reality. Work and commitments. You know, perhaps for example, you know, you felt betrayed by being, you know, rifted. Reduction in force, man, it happens in businesses nowadays.
Pretty regularly. I’ve had clients that have that strong sense of betrayal. Why would I care about committing myself to a company or a boss? Your past events create those patterns.
Neil Robinson: Right. Obviously,
Chris Gazdik: betrayal in marriage is a powerful, powerful hurt. You know, second marriages, you out there getting married again, understand.
Yeah, you’re going to
Neil Robinson: have effects from your first marriage and your second
Chris Gazdik: marriage. We understand that, right? Yeah. Trusting kids in parenting. Hey, you know, when you [00:34:00] see these events and these things that they’ve done, the countless
Neil Robinson: interactions and their behavior, do you not think that’s going to trust, or
Chris Gazdik: impact how you trust and work with them and, you know, your parenting relationship?
I, I
Neil Robinson: could go on. Oh yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: even how you were parenting affects how… I literally just had this
Neil Robinson: conversation today.
Chris Gazdik: Did you? In session? Go, go. What was it? No,
Neil Robinson: I
Victoria Pendergrass: mean, we just talked about how… A lot of times, we parent based off how we were parented, and you have the choice of breaking generational patterns, doing things differently than how you were parented.
Chris Gazdik: Say more about generational parents.
Neil Robinson: About
Chris Gazdik: breaking it? About issues with generational parenting, yeah. Well, I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: I just think that, you know, how parenting was done in the [00:35:00] 40s.
It’s obviously going to be different than how people parent now. And so I think that that just evolves and just because your parents parented you a certain way doesn’t mean that you have to parent your kids or your future kids the same way. You, the same as in life, how you learn from mistakes, you take how you were parented, you learn.
and grow from those things and then you change what needs to be changed and you apply that into your parenting of your own kids. Right. Because I mean the goal is to always get better, right? You want to be better than Your parents were with you. Even if you had good
Neil Robinson: parents. Absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: This is a healthy thing to improve on.
Not just, you know, like the structure. But I’m reminded of the meme we’ve pointed out a few times, right? With the old man standing in the shield with the middle aged man and the kid that he’s kneeling, you know, [00:36:00] supporting a game or something. I know I’m not doing it justice because we’ve talked about it on the show already.
But it’s a powerful meme. It’s a powerful reality that depicts what you just very Very well described so Let’s take a quick break for a couple of reasons one if you if you like the show in the content We want you to really help us. Click the subscribe, give us the review on Apple Podcasts. Said it right that time.
Give us the, the thumbs up on, on Spotify. You know, these things really make a difference in the, in the . Yeah. Interact,
Victoria Pendergrass: share it with someone.
Chris Gazdik: Comment, which we have a lot on YouTube live today. People are loving the show. Yeah, Carolyn, I love it. Thank you. She says I like this one. Thanks for doing it.
You’re more than welcome, Carolyn, because this is a really important issue. I mean, it’s a, it’s a powerful issue that we’re all dealing with. And we have a couple of other folks saying the same. Cass says, we are all the sum total of the good, [00:37:00] bad, neutral, improbable, sucky, unbelievable, awkward, irreverent, angry, emotions and feelings.
Whether we like it or not.
Neil Robinson: On point, girl. On
Chris Gazdik: point. Right? Also here in Little Break Spot, we have the sponsor First Horizon. We want to mention them and express gratitude for their support of the show. It’s a great sponsor. We need more of that out there from all of you who have companies and businesses contact us.
Because they have they’ve stepped up and, and they’re an awesome person to partner with. First Horizon Bank is a, is a, really they’re a good bank to, to bank with. Good feel when I walk into the office
Victoria Pendergrass: with them. I was going to say we spoke with Evan, right? Evan was here hanging out with us. And every time I drop, because we can literally throw a pebble for filming and hit.
The First Horizon that’s right near us. Yep. And I see his car in the parking lot every time I drive
Neil Robinson: by. Absolutely. Oh look, he’s there. Mr. Evan hung out. [00:38:00] Ready to provide
Victoria Pendergrass: that financial literacy.
Neil Robinson: That’s right. That’s what he talked about. First Horizon Bank. Go check him out.
Chris Gazdik: So let’s get back to our, our, our process here.
And, and highlight the role of validation and empathy. Okay, look. I’m coming clean. That’s one of your big things. It is. Well, yeah, absolutely. Listen, I’m coming clean. I am trying to convince you. People today. Victoria. Yeah. .
Neil Robinson: I had no prob. I rarely do that. He said to us, I rarely
Chris Gazdik: do that. I, I will roll with you however you wanna roll.
Yeah. And do my job to give you science. What I know what I understand. We will figure it out together. But I’m, I’m trying to convince people a little bit today because it’s that big of a deal. You need validation in your life. You need empathetic people. in your life. I know you know what those things are.
Why do we need those, man? Fire up the wand. So
Neil Robinson: that
Victoria Pendergrass: we can feel good about ourselves, so that we can have a [00:39:00] strong self confidence, so that we can approach life with some goodwill and self
Neil Robinson: worth.
Chris Gazdik: Look, I love doing this to people in my office. I’ll do this through a therapist’s eyes, right? To you, Victoria.
Yes. And demonstrating. Yes. The power of validation. Yes.
Neil Robinson: It’s crazy when you think of information and what your
Chris Gazdik: eyes see and what you experience and the doubt, the questions that you can develop inside your own head. Like the color of the walls in this office. Mm hmm. You know, what might you say the color is?
Because the reality of it is there might be gray.
Neil Robinson: It looks like agreeable gray. Agreeable
Chris Gazdik: gray.
Victoria Pendergrass: No, it might be a little bit too
Chris Gazdik: blue for green or gray, maybe blue. I’m gonna tell you over and over again that I went to the store and it is what’s the first word I had Joe pick it out. Soft gray maybe.
And it was, [00:40:00] no, there’s some blue in that. It was, it was some, it was some, right. I could tell you over and over and over again Yeah. That this is gray walls and eventually. Even as you’ve said, yeah, there’s some blue. Are you wondering? Yeah, you said soft gray, you said agreeable gray.
Neil Robinson: Yeah, now I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: wondering if my eyes are playing tricks on me.
Right? Am I just seeing this blue? Really blue mixed in with the gray. There is
Neil Robinson: natural doubt
Chris Gazdik: that you have in your life. About what you see, what you perceive, what you feel, what you know, what you think you know. What you think you know, you don’t know until you know. How do you really know that you know?
Neil Robinson: Validation.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I’ll give you a great example.
Neil Robinson: The
Chris Gazdik: walls are dolphin blue. Dolphin blue? That’s the title of the paint. Dolphin blue. Oh, I can
Neil Robinson: see that.
Victoria Pendergrass: So, yesterday I had a session, and Most therapists, if you’re listening to this, you’re going to know a lot of therapists [00:41:00] we deal with imposter syndrome. Oh, yes, it’s a thing.
Just like everybody else out there. And so I had this client yesterday. Yes, and It was my last person of the day. So if they’re listening to this, they’re gonna know I’m talking about them. But it was one of those sessions that really validated my Belief that I’m actually like good
Neil Robinson: at my job. Oh, cool.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah I mean just the things we were talking about and how she’s how this person was responding to them and the things that they were Saying like even just things like oh, that’s a really good point. I never thought of it that way. I’m like got one I like a freaking
Neil Robinson: got a
Victoria Pendergrass: moment over here, you know, it kind of reinforces that like, okay So I’m actually, I’m, I’m, I’m okay.
Like, I’m doing good at this job and I’m not like this person faking [00:42:00] it till I make it kind
Chris Gazdik: of thing, you know? Victoria, I really appreciate you being vulnerable in that moment to, to reveal what it is that you’re revealing. And I’ll validate that that is a very normal feeling that people feel. I mean, I question, you know, whatever years in I am now doing therapy.
You know, like, did I miss something? Should I have said something different? You know, am I, what, what, what, what did I not get there? You know, and. So, so, that, that validation, that, that confirmation that, you know, that you’re doing a good job, that you know what you’re talking about is really important. I’m getting ready to be a, a speaker with a, with a group on topics with professionals.
Oh, really? Yeah, I am. I’m excited about it. But it’s like, you know, wow, like, yo, I’m going to be in front of 50 people, you know, three days in a row, 50 to 100 people talking about these therapy topics and stuff. Like yeah, do I know enough? Right.
Neil Robinson: Do I actually know what I’m talking about? Can I do that?
Victoria Pendergrass: Heck, that’s
Neil Robinson: probably
Victoria Pendergrass: why I haven’t done any kind of speaking at this point in
Neil Robinson: my
Chris Gazdik: career. Well, I love doing that, and I [00:43:00] think that I can, and I’m confident and comfortable with it, but there’s an edge even when you are. So, do you go out there thinking that, Oh, no, I got this. I feel comfortable. I feel confident.
I’m comfortable in my skin. Great. You still have doubts. Yeah. Because you’re human. You’re human. And the validation that you get from another human is the answer. It’s a requirement. It’s a necessity. And if you’re not talking about it, you don’t get
Neil Robinson: it.
Victoria Pendergrass: I know my husband loves me, and wants to be with me.
Yep. But, I need some extra, like, I love
Neil Robinson: you’s and affection. You know, things like that too, to kind of validate. A couple
Chris Gazdik: times a year would
Neil Robinson: be nice. Yeah. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: even with things like friendships and stuff. Like, I need, you know, we all need validation to say like, Okay, I’m not… You know, I am a good friend or, you know, you do
Neil Robinson: like me as a person.
Chris Gazdik: Let’s move on to empathy. Okay. Similar to. Yes. Still need a much of. [00:44:00] What is it and why? And also, before I, before I forget Neal, if you’re, if you’re listening to the audio version of this, Neal puts out 247 was. Can you control your emotions? Oh, I was gonna talk about Adler. Can you control your emotions?
It’s episode 247, Adlerian Psychology. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: and I think before we get too far into empathy, do we want to point out the difference between empathy and sympathy? Sure. Empathy, you can correct me. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this. But, sympathy is more where you like feel bad for someone. Almost like pity and but empathy is when you can actually like put yourself in their shoes and try to understand That’s the powerful where where they’re coming from or what they’re experiencing or the emotions that they’re going through.
On
Neil Robinson: point. Did I do that right? On point. Ooh, look at
Chris Gazdik: me. And I’m glad that you did that because I wasn’t going to talk about sympathy in a way But I’m glad that you did because there’s a lot of people out there that don’t [00:45:00] want no sympathy I don’t want your pity. I don’t want your sympathy. I don’t want you to treat me any differently.
I don’t want you to see me as weak. I don’t want you to see me in bad light. Don’t give me that crap. Well,
Neil Robinson: okay. Yeah, sure.
Chris Gazdik: Who would want to do that? Empathy is very
Victoria Pendergrass: different. Empathy is the understanding. Like, looking at someone and saying, I understand what you’re feeling. I understand where you’re coming from.
I understand the experience that you’re having.
Neil Robinson: And there’s another
Chris Gazdik: piece of that too. that I noted, right? Acceptance. Oh,
Neil Robinson: yeah. Right?
Chris Gazdik: You not only, oh man, the power of being understood in combination with being accepted is a fundamental human need. Can I make that strong point? Oh yeah, for sure. It’s a fundamental human need.
You can look it up on Maslow’s lecture. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Means. Right. You can look it up in, in, wherever you want to go, you’re going to find that Human [00:46:00] beings cannot function well if we don’t have An acceptance and a validation and an empathy and being understood Well, how
Victoria Pendergrass: many times have you had clients come in that sit here and say again, literally what are my clients today?
I just like this person just doesn’t understand where I’m coming from. They just don’t understand what I’ve been through They just don’t understand like they’re looking for that empathy and I mean that’s part of what we provide as our as our job as therapist, but You know, it’s typically because they’re looking, they’re, they’re seeking it from other
Neil Robinson: people in their
Chris Gazdik: lives.
Matches with what our conversation is right now. We have a YouTube question. Do you believe in empaths or that there are empaths? Have you heard this term empaths before? I mean… Yeah,
Neil Robinson: and I’m not… I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t know if I’m 100 percent educated enough to
Neil Robinson: speak on it.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I thought you were going a different direction.
Nope.
Neil Robinson: I don’t want to dig myself into a hole, so I just don’t know if I know [00:47:00] enough.
Chris Gazdik: I thought you were kind of saying yeah,
Neil Robinson: I’m not fully on board with the concept.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I, again, I don’t know if I know enough to be able to give an opinion.
Chris Gazdik: I, I feel like I do.
Neil Robinson: Okay. Go for it. It’s a
Chris Gazdik: term… It’s one of these terms, we do all show on it first off.
Okay,
Neil Robinson: I don’t go down there.
Chris Gazdik: And we probably need to, because it’s a popular term that people use nowadays. And really the term is, is, is, has a lot to do with codependence. codependent. They’re, they’re dialing into, you know, what somebody else is doing. Definition of codependence in my book is… You are what the other person is, so if the other person’s well, you’re well.
If the other person’s not well, you’re not well. So you’re trying to make somebody else well, so that you’ll ultimately be well. That’s the way codependence goes. Well, an empath kind of, to me, is playing [00:48:00] off of that cycle, that
Neil Robinson: process. That space.
Chris Gazdik: So an empath is dialing in. Empathetically dialing in to what you are.
And I’m very sensitive to that. I’m very aware of that. Okay, well… It’s again, codependent kind of traits. Yeah. But people, I think, talk about it in such a way where it’s like, you know, I’m really just that. Just, insightfully aware of my surroundings and my people. I’m a good poker player because I think about what you have instead of what, just what I have.
And, and, and. Gotcha.
Neil Robinson: So it’s a. Sounds like a lot.
Chris Gazdik: It is a whole show. So I, I’m skeptical on that really being accurately understood. But people understood that generally it leaves me vulnerable, and I need to be careful about that, and I can get too sucked in with boundaries. It’s codependent. So if that’s what empath means to you, and generally that’s the way [00:49:00] people are referring to it, fine.
Neil Robinson: Great. Be
Chris Gazdik: careful about it. If that’s the way you understand it. It’s just a deeper issue than I think the way people generally see. So, but it’s a good question. Another topic for another day. Indeed. Indeed. So let’s touch on culture. We can’t forget about culture. You so beautifully talked about family culture.
It’s a big part of what your culture is. You know, your family culture has a huge impact. Your culture has a huge impact on how you do this. Some cultures just say, we don’t talk about feelings. We don’t talk about emotions. Yeah, we do not deal with past events. It’s like a big X. Right. You know, probably most cultures have elements of this, so I don’t want to pick on any one, but you know, the British with the stiff upper lip, you know, the American with our cowboy mentality, [00:50:00] the Mexican Hispanic with the machismo, uh, you know, the, I don’t know, the Korean and it goes, I think there’s a lot of elements that go into this with most cultures have an element, some more so than others, but your immediate family, right?
For instance I’m sorry. I’m using another alcohol dependence thing again, right? The family dynamics? Yeah, it is a life lesson that you learn as a child in chemically dependent families. Okay. Do not talk. That’s the rule. If you ever try to talk about feelings, you will learn very quickly you’re breaking the rule.
Yeah. You don’t feel, you don’t talk, you just move on. That’s what you have to do. You also get this in sexual abuse families. Yep. Massive lies and massive [00:51:00] deceit. Mm hmm. Massive hidden secrets. If you have sexual abuse in your family, A lot of people, most people, if not the goal being, all people will not know.
Right. Do not break that rule. That’s what you learn. Yeah. Hear me, it’s a crappy
Neil Robinson: lesson to learn. Yeah, it doesn’t sound very fun.
Chris Gazdik: But that’s what you learn. So culture makes a huge impact on
Neil Robinson: how you do
Victoria Pendergrass: this. Well, I mean, not just culture and like, I don’t know, I mean, like my, one of my best friends, her family is from the Congo.
Oh, and she, she moved here, oh, sorry if I get this wrong, not when she was nine. Okay. And she’s my age, so she’s 30. And she’s a citizen now, like she got her citizenship and stuff and all that. But, it is inter Is your friend you said? Yeah, one of my best friends. Oh, okay. Cool. And I’ve been to weddings at her church and with, [00:52:00] for family members and I’ve, you know, been to church with her and I’ve spent time around her family and it is interesting and, and you know, obviously like the way when she talks about her family too, but it’s sometimes interesting just even that, like the dynamics between family with like how I grew up versus how she grew up and how.
They view things how we view things and some things aren’t really that different but
Neil Robinson: some things
Chris Gazdik: are We got youtube activity. I got to say from behind the curtain. We have mr Neal, I think you typed that did you neil? I should have popped on the microphone man He types in I think there are so just so the world knows that was neil’s view not the through He says I think there are definitely people more attuned to sensing others emotions and vibes Well, you got the mic, man.
I’m curious. Pull, pull on there. What are you talking about, Neil? Why do you, why do you feel strongly
Neil Robinson: about that? Yes, give us your opinion. I think my wife and I both do that. My wife is very attuned to environments. When you walk [00:53:00] into rooms, the sense of what’s going on. I make fun of her because it’s like, did you see the way that lady looked at me or the way this person acted?
I’m like, no, I don’t really care. You know, me, myself, when I’m in a big room, I’m very oblivious. I don’t, cause I’m not focusing, but I’m sitting next to you. I’m very attuned to how your vibes are myself, but that’s one on one. My wife’s like, she walks into a room and it’s like, she tells. That person’s having a bad day, that person’s doing this, like, So I think there is some seriousness in how, how other people interact with and cue the silent things that they don’t talk about.
And it goes back to one thing that I was looking at. They talk about how narcissists usually are the opposite. They’re not attuned to that, because they
Chris Gazdik: just have that kind of look. Yeah, there is an opposite. So I do
Neil Robinson: think when you work with people, there are people that are more, even with my kids. My kids are both completely different.
One’s more like if we’re having a bad day. One kid notices it, the other one doesn’t. You know, it’s, it’s just quite, I really feel that there
Chris Gazdik: is something to that. [00:54:00] So I, I, I think you’re right. Neil, I, I get that. I have a little bit of pushback, but first of all, I can attest, that’s one of the things I really like about you.
It’s awesome to have developed
Neil Robinson: a relationship. Well, no, he’s
Chris Gazdik: very attentive and in tune. And that’s just, Neil, you’re very personable that way. And that’s, that’s part of what I really genuinely enjoy about you. But the thing that I would push back at is, is, that’s not really being an empath in the way that people talk about it.
Yeah. Yeah, not, not
Neil Robinson: the full blown… Yeah. Yeah, I mean, could you go very far in that? Could you look at it
Chris Gazdik: like… Yeah. My Lord. I think that, I think that refers to emotional intelligence. A little bit more. To use another sort of buzzword in the culture. You’re emotionally intelligent, we could say. Right? And that sometimes just comes naturally.
It sometimes comes from a bunch of life struggle. Some growth or, you know. I think there’s things that you can track. Again, with your life experiences. I think that… That shapes that in a [00:55:00] lot of ways.
Victoria Pendergrass: You know what this makes me think of? And you can totally tell me if this is a bad comparison. I agree, Neal.
Oh, but it makes me think of, you know how some people are more open to seeing ghosts? And being Oh boy, where are we going? And being connected with like the Paranormal, right? Like, for example, for me, I’ve never seen a ghost. Although, I’m not particularly scared of ghosts. But, me personally, like, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one or experienced any kind of, like, paranormal activity.
Pseudoscience. Or pseudoscience. Pseudoscience. So, I think, that’s what this kind of makes me think of. It’s just based on your life experiences. Like, okay, if I grew up in a family who saw ghosts all the time and who believed in the paranormal and who, like… did all this stuff, then yeah, like I might be more open to those
Neil Robinson: type of experiences.
We’re going totally off track. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m sorry. That’s just kind of like a
Neil Robinson: comparison. It made me think.
Chris Gazdik: It is a [00:56:00] comparison. I’m glad you did it. It’s fine. I want to hit it and then move off of it, but hitting it in this way. There is an in depth discussion about spirituality, the spirit world, and good and evil, and religious belief and what not.
So all of that world is, you know, you can believe being very real. And very, you know, comparable in what you’re open to with that. I don’t know. It always gives me Luigi’s because I’ve never been comfortable with and I don’t know that we’re supposed to be really engaged in that realm. If you believe in that realm.
Ghosts, however, arguably you could say just pseudoscience that they don’t appear, they don’t have that power or whatever. You know, that just takes you down
Neil Robinson: a
Victoria Pendergrass: different level. How culture can affect how like,
Neil Robinson: oh, yeah, like
Victoria Pendergrass: what your culture. Yeah, your culture can affect how you parent how you do things And yeah, but anyways,
Neil Robinson: we can
Chris Gazdik: move on.
People, there’s another YouTube comment Jeremy. I’m glad you, he says great [00:57:00] session. You know, people are digging this and I’m glad for that. Yay! Right? Because dude, like this is
Neil Robinson: an important topic. You know what this
Victoria Pendergrass: does? This validates my ability to like I can’t carry myself on this podcast without having John here.
Oh! See? Like, for this moment less than, I’m like, what we’re talking about.
Neil Robinson: This is a good experience for
Chris Gazdik: you. A good event that she will look back on. Okay, that’s awesome,
Neil Robinson: Victoria.
Chris Gazdik: That’s cute. I love that. I love that. John’s awesome though. I do miss John.
Neil Robinson: John, please come
Chris Gazdik: back. I forgot to tell you in the beginning of the show, like, you’re gonna have to like find songs to sing.
Like, we haven’t done any song interludes.
Victoria Pendergrass: If I start singing, we will lose every single person that is watching this right now. They
Neil Robinson: will go away.
Chris Gazdik: Then don’t do that. Okay boy, I have a lot more that I want to get to and we’re, we’re, we’re gonna, we’re not gonna get to it all, but that’s okay. These themes do come up in our show.[00:58:00]
Yeah. Think about some general goals that people really have and when we talk about things like growth and we, we talk about things like your journey. Yeah. We talk about, you know, your story. I mean, again, I’m gonna argue, I don’t know how you accomplish these things without looking at your experiences in life, without talking about.
With other humans, your emotions. Yeah. We’re trying to get, you know, reduction in the stress that we feel. You do that through talking. It’s an expression. That’s why people love music. That’s why we have art expression in, in all cultures, I would say. I don’t know of a, a societal culture in the history of man that they haven’t had a form of quote unquote, right, the arts.
So [00:59:00] that’s because you’re expressing these things. It, it reduces the tension that you feel. It reduces the stress that you feel. You’re trying to get to be a better communicator. How many people come in therapy saying, I want communication skills? Communication
Neil Robinson: sucks. I mean, how do you
Chris Gazdik: do that? Yeah. If, if you’re not willing to talk about the way that you feel.
You cannot communicate better. You have to practice that. Well, case
Neil Robinson: in point,
Victoria Pendergrass: if I’m working on communication, well, we’re going to bring up other events that have happened in your life where you felt like your communication wasn’t all there. And then we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to evaluate it.
We’re going to see how. What we could have done.
Chris Gazdik: Learn from it. Yeah. It’s amazing to me, right? Like, improving relationships. I mean, you want your relationships in your life, whether you have one or ten, Right. to be better. How do you do that with somebody if you’re not exercising vulnerability and [01:00:00] revelation?
You know, revealing yourself to a person. Like you’ve, like, I think we’ve both done, you’ve done excellent with that today. Like, how do you know, how do you get closer to somebody if you don’t reveal? You have to talk about the events in, in your life. It’s, it’s like an oxymoron. That’s why I, I’m beside myself a little bit when I, yeah.
When I get this question and, and I get it often in therapy, Victoria. Yeah. This is not new.
Neil Robinson: Oh yeah. No,
Chris Gazdik: that’s why immediately I was like, oh my God, we’re gonna do a show on this this week. Like immediately. I don’t know why we have it, you know, to to date. You want to feel emotionally safe. Okay. Do you develop
Neil Robinson: safety really through hiding?
Chris Gazdik: Hiding out or minimizing or internalizing emotions, I’m going to argue, doesn’t really create safety. If there’s a, if there’s a boogeyman in your house, a burglar, and you, and you hide. I guess that improves your sense of being safe, that’s why we, you know, [01:01:00] do it. Yeah. Fight, fight, or freeze. Right? That’s a whole other piece.
But when you’re engaged with people, and you call out, and you say, Hey, who’s there? Stop. Hey, this is your neighbor. Oh, okay. Now you’ve resolved the issue, and you feel safe. That’s probably a stupid example. But, but,
Neil Robinson: you get the idea, right?
Chris Gazdik: Like, how do you feel emotionally safe if you’re not talking about what you feel to get validated and empathetic?
I mean, these are things that people, people want. I hear all the time, I’m getting all choked up about this, I’m getting worked up. You want personal growth. Right.
Neil Robinson: How do
Chris Gazdik: you do that again? Without examining your patterns. It’s, it’s, it’s your ancient history. I love that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, it may be… Maybe we’re a little bit biased because we’re therapists.
And so therefore, we know the importance of this. I almost wonder what [01:02:00] your average Joe person would say. You know how we’re like, it’s obvious that you have to talk about your past to, you know. Oh, I can tell you
Neil Robinson: what they say to me. What? Both privately in
Chris Gazdik: personal life and in professional life. It’s kind of like, again.
Okay, perfect. I’m glad you did that because that takes us back to the questions, right? That’s why I developed the questions. Yeah. So we can answer these questions now, hopefully. This is what they say, Victoria. Doesn’t, isn’t it unnecessary? Ow. Doesn’t it actually do harm? If we focus on the things that hurt us?
Don’t we get stuck? Isn’t that actually a source of stuckness? Stuckness. If we, if we just focus on the past? Isn’t it better just to be comfortably numb? I don’t want to think about these things. I feel them and they make me feel… I feel worse when I talk about the things that happen to me. It’s like…
Those are some of the things that I hear regularly and repeatedly. And I hope we’re blowing a big [01:03:00] fat hole in those myths. In
Neil Robinson: that way of thinking? Yeah. Because those
Chris Gazdik: exactly are myths. You know, I didn’t start my clock. I think we’re up on time. Like, hard, aren’t we? Alright. Yeah, we, we, we are. We, we gotta wrap up.
So, I’m not gonna do this justice, but this is why we do the month end review shows. When we don’t get to get to something, I can promise you when we do a review of the show, we’ll talk about in more detail the, the emotional barriers that people have to this. Okay, yeah, I think that’s gonna be important.
It really is. Go with that. Why?
Neil Robinson: Well, I mean…
Victoria Pendergrass: There’s lots of things that one might feel without getting into it now, but there’s lots of things you might feel with bringing up your past experiences and that you might feel are not necessarily great feelings to have. And so that I think can kind of ward off this feeling of needing to like talk about this stuff because you don’t want to feel the feelings.[01:04:00]
Neil Robinson: There’s
Chris Gazdik: a lot
Neil Robinson: that’s, that’s there. But you need
Victoria Pendergrass: to feel the feelings. Feel the
Chris Gazdik: feelings. You know, before we, we wrap up and, and get out with a quick list of these type of barriers, and we’ll take a little bit more time when we do the review show great YouTube interaction with you guys out there.
It’s awesome to interact with you. Yeah, keep it up. We like it. Yeah, I, I appreciate that, and it adds so much to what we, what we do. I mean Jeremy’s talking about needing to communicate better. You know, it’s one of the things that he you’re identifying. Jeremy, you’re exactly right. I mean… I’ll make the point again, you know, with you I don’t know how you do this without doing it.
You know? How do you get
Neil Robinson: better if you
Chris Gazdik: don’t do it? And there’s so many people out there that are just trapped. Yeah. Feeling like, I need to be the tough guy. It doesn’t do any good to talk about that. I don’t want to feel the feeling so, like you were just talking about, Victoria. I hope we’ve been convincing.
Gotta feel a feeling. I hope we’ve been convincing today. Yeah, I hope so. There are [01:05:00] several of these barriers that come out though. Honorable mention to the fear. We didn’t mention shame yet today. We didn’t mention embarrassment. You know, avoidance of things we kind of did. Numbing, we kind of did. I was implied that.
You barely mentioned fight, fight, or freeze. You know, chronic anxieties that come from rumination. That was just my quick breakdown. Thought list of like,
these are real barriers to gaining the benefits in your life from reconciling with the experiences that you’ve had and the emotions that you had and have.
Right? Oh man, how do we how do we get out of here? I don’t know. To be continued, we’ll talk about more.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I just think my, my takeaway is to just, you got to talk about things in your past to have a future and to be able to get through [01:06:00] that. And so you gotta feel your feelings, feel all the feels.
To have a healthy future. Yes, to have a healthy future.
Chris Gazdik: I love that. That’s
Victoria Pendergrass: a great phrase. Well, and I mean, and that’s, that’s what that’s what we’re here for. We are here to help you do said things. And to be able to talk about that stuff and be able to work through those things in your past so that that way, like you said, you
Neil Robinson: can have a healthy future.
What an honor and a
Chris Gazdik: privilege it is to do that. Yeah, I love it. I can’t tell you how much of an honor and privilege it is. Listen, so I, I, I do hope that you’ve, you’ve heard an answer to some of the questions that I know that you have. You wonder, why would I want to do this to myself? You know, my friend tells me that it’s like poking your finger in an eye over and over again, coming to therapy.
You’re, you’re naturally fearful and uncomfortable. Like, I get it. I, I, I hear that. I, I receive that. I’ll, I’ll agree with you. The, the payoffs are great. And, and, and as you experience, This, as you [01:07:00] experiment with this, as you challenge yourself to take just another little step with another person, just a little bit more, that’s all I would suggest you take into doing because I know that you’re going to get the benefits in your life and in your relationships and in your heart for it.
So it’s, it’s well worth the challenge that it is, and it is a challenge. There are these barriers that you will have doing it, but I know you can do it, so keep trying, keep doing it, eat well, stay well. And we’ll talk
Neil Robinson: to you soon. See you next week.