In Episode 298, we tackle one of the greatest challenges in life: finding the moral courage to stand up for what’s right, even when fear and insecurity try to hold us back. Why do we hesitate to speak up? How do anxiety, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome keep us from acting with integrity? And most importantly—how can we break free? Through powerful insights, real-world examples, and practical strategies, we uncover how to overcome fear, build confidence, and take bold steps toward a life of authenticity and strength. If you’ve ever struggled to speak your truth or take action despite discomfort, this episode will give you the tools to push past fear and stand strong.
Tune in to see Moral Courage Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
Episode #298 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Through a Therapist’s Eyes, what are we? February the 6th already. And we have taken a little bit of a hiatus, getting some stuff together that we wanted to do. Rest our brains a little bit and we are firing it up back in 2025 with you Knowing that this is insights from their panel of therapists that you get in your home and or your car In personal time, but knowing it’s not delivery of therapy services in any way, right victoria
Victoria Pendergrass: That would be correct and I get it right.
You got it
Chris Gazdik: there for a while She had to correct me with that for a while We’re going to be talking about moral courage today It is one of the only things that we kind of have to do Actually redo content on most of all of our shows are content for the first time. And so this is one that we actually redo.
We have mr. John Pope hanging out with us. How are you, sir?
John-Nelson Pope: I’m doing quite well. Did you miss us? I sure did miss you all.
Chris Gazdik: Isn’t it a fun thing? It’s nice. It’s one of the [00:01:00] funnest things I do in in the week. It
John-Nelson Pope: is. I actually got my beard trimmed because I was gonna be on TV. Or I always say it’s not TV, it’s YouTube.
Chris Gazdik: It is YouTube. It is YouTube TV though. I have a beard on the contrary. I love it. I agree. I grew a beard in the in the wild. I convinced
Victoria Pendergrass: him y’all to you were a part of it. I’m not gonna lie to let it grow. I’m not gonna lie. It
Chris Gazdik: was like Victoria gave me an affirmation. Alright, maybe we’ll do it again this year.
So, I think this is the third one. Second or third time it did the full beard.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Occasionally I’ll put the older episodes on the TV up there and I’m like, whoa, that’s how I know it’s an older episode because Chris will have like a full beard.
Chris Gazdik: And the voice you hear is Miss Victoria Pendergrass.
That’s
Victoria Pendergrass: right. That’s me.
Chris Gazdik: We are all back. Victoria, the glorious. Can I do it? Can I do it?
Victoria Pendergrass: No.
Chris Gazdik: You are the
John-Nelson Pope: only one.
Chris Gazdik: Oh man, he’s added to it. She is
John-Nelson Pope: the best above all the rest. This
Victoria Pendergrass: [00:02:00] is,
Chris Gazdik: this is the way we do it.
Victoria Pendergrass: John is an extremely good Ego booster.
Chris Gazdik: This is the way we get greeting in the morning, Victoria, from John.
And I’m not allowed to do it, so it’s his thing. No, because it’s John’s thing. I’ve told you before. You gotta find a different thing. I wanna be a poet.
Victoria Pendergrass: Then be a poet!
Chris Gazdik: I You So, I’m going to subterfuge that one as well.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, cause you’re not very
Chris Gazdik: good subscribe on YouTube. Click the subscribe button that helps us to get found.
Tell all your friends. We do have two of the newest subscribers in the time that we had off. Brian Huff, welcome aboard. Give him a little applause. Hey, Brian. And Michael Sherman. Yay, Michael. Give him a little applause there as well. We got two new highlighters. So, really, we love to interact with you on YouTube.
It’s a cool way to, to. Interact, contact it through therapist eyes. com five stars, John.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. And
Chris Gazdik: don’t make him mad. Yes.
John-Nelson Pope: Do a five stars. It’s it’ll send us to the top [00:03:00] and actually leave a review. That would be good. I take this personally. I do. I do. You really, you really get on this.
Victoria Pendergrass: Reviews don’t have to be long and lengthy.
They can be like, I enjoyed it. Yeah. Great. It makes a big difference guys. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You do make what this show is to become, because this is the human emotional experience, which we endeavor to figure out. Out together. The three questions we want you to ponder today. How do your anxieties or your insecurities hold you back from speaking or acting with integrity?
That’s about what moral courage is. Have you ever avoided? I mean, come on, you know, you have, because basically this is an easy question to answer. Have you ever avoided during the right thing out of fear? And what was the outcome? Because we’ve all had those situations. And then what small steps in? What kind of life can I take to build my confidence in standing up for, you know, values or a situation or, you know, events and things that you, you see around.
How, how long have you guys have been around for a while? We’ve done [00:04:00] Moral Courage on the show, you know, two, three times.
Victoria Pendergrass: I was about to say, like, have I been on one? I don’t remember doing a Moral Courage episode. Do you
Chris Gazdik: not?
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, I know that we have done it, but I don’t know if I was specifically On the episode.
Like it might’ve been one that I had to duck out on or like had prior engagements.
John-Nelson Pope: Every time we do an episode, it takes more courage.
Put yourself right out there.
Chris Gazdik: Funny that you should say, but it really does. It
Victoria Pendergrass: does. It actually really does.
Chris Gazdik: For instance. We did shows on menopause and I, y’all know, like I was tripping on those episodes. I was literally like not comfortable bringing up and talking so forwardly about it. And we even did
Victoria Pendergrass: two episodes.
We did two parter.
Chris Gazdik: And absolutely, but now it’s actually being talked about more. Yeah. But the fact of the matter is when nobody’s talking about that, with such an emotionally loading, laden topic.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s scary to bring it up because we’re being shot across the world. [00:05:00] That’s right. You know. That’s right.
And I do, I do want to give. We’re, we’re men. Least you forget, John. We are men. Shooting around the world talking about menopause. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And quickly, I do want to give you props, Chris, because having sat in your position before when it was just John and I, it’s a lot. I mean, I’m sure you’re used to it, because we’re almost at 300 episodes, and so you’ve been doing it a while, and you’ve, you know, led, like, talks and conferences and other things.
But for someone who hasn’t done that much of those types of things quite yet in her career,
Chris Gazdik: I
Victoria Pendergrass: mean, I made it through. I did a decent job, but I do want to give you props for the moral courage that it takes for you to sit here and lead us every Thursday. I appreciate that. You
Chris Gazdik: beat me to the punch, Victoria, because I really wanted to go back to that as well.
What she’s talking about is I was on a traveling trip. When and when the last episode that we did, so I wasn’t able to be here, which was kind of weird and cool because this isn’t about me. It’s about the panel. It’s about us. Really? We figured out together and yeah, I love you guys. You were texting. Oh yeah.
I was [00:06:00] learning. I was learning. Yeah. You guys entertained me while I was driving to Nashville, Tennessee is where I was going. Yep. Yep, so you did a fantastic job Victoria. Really you did and John you as well I really appreciated that so check that out the episode without Chris. Why do we diagnose so? 297 the one is it was the last one that we did.
Yeah, that’s right. I’m banging. I got it all point
Victoria Pendergrass: So,
Chris Gazdik: all right, what do you think about moral courage
Victoria Pendergrass: What about it?
Chris Gazdik: What do you think about it? Open ended question. That’s what we do in therapy all the time, Victoria. I think
Victoria Pendergrass: yes, we do To me it’s kind of like a broad term Like it’s the umbrella to a lot of things and then there’s a lot of things that are like sprinkled underneath the umbrella of moral [00:07:00] courage but I think what most people think of when they think of that is they Think of like anxiety, being brave.
The things that hold us back, but also the things that help us like propel us forward.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. It sometimes takes, I think, a lot of moral courage to say something that might be considered, and I’m, I’m talking in terms of speaking publicly and taking a stance and that it’s not popular to, to, to state it
and not going with the flow, but actually being it’s saying the emperor doesn’t have clothes, for example, and that can be about a social issue.
That sort of thing. Or it could be in a family, you know, where you have let’s say dealing, working with somebody that is dealing with a substance abuse and struggling with that or mental severe mental illness. And so you’ve got, and you might have to say something and do something
Chris Gazdik: right. You know, I [00:08:00] think.
I think one of the things that Primarily the reason why I like to redo this as one of the only things that we redo content in is, is a lot of what you’re talking about there, John, you know, driving home the point that this is something that’s really important for us to do and something that’s really hard for us to do.
John-Nelson Pope: And I don’t know if it gets easier. I think it’s. It’s, it’s something that, that one has to go through, has an existential crisis each time you do it.
Chris Gazdik: Really and truly. Yeah. I mean, once you get courageous enough to speak up about something, it doesn’t mean it’s easier the next time around. In fact, there’s different topics that kind of move around with us.
So thus the title, the full title, Moral Courage, Overcoming Anxiety and Insecurity to Stand Strong. This is a hard, hard thing to get into. And if you think differently, by the end of the show, very rarely do I want to like convince people of something, but that is something that I actually want to convince you of.
[00:09:00] Because we understand how hard it is, and we understand how important it is, that we’re going to put more effort and energy in doing what it is the hard task is to do. Because it’s the right thing to do. But it is not, not, not easy. To, to do at all.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, for sure not.
Chris Gazdik: So, Victoria, the definition. The ability to act ethically despite fear, pressure, or potential consequences.
Ya like it, not like it. I don’t like it.
Victoria Pendergrass: The ability to act
Chris Gazdik: You don’t like it. I don’t, I don’t like the word in there that we have. I left it alone. I left it in there, you know, morals, ethics, you know, what is right, what is wrong. It’s not totally, I mean, there’s a lot of gray area there. So can we have moral courage if we have, you know, discussions about what’s ethical?
This isn’t, like, what’s right and what’s wrong.
Victoria Pendergrass: Correct. Right. It’s
Chris Gazdik: not what’s ethical or unethical, necessarily. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, do you, do you think [00:10:00] people, do you think people look at, like, the two words separately? As, like, separate, like, the definition of, like, morality and morals, and then, like, the definition of courage, and then try to, like, combine that?
And then get this, like, skewed Definition of like, I don’t know.
Chris Gazdik: Go ahead.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I’m thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who is John is the resident intellect.
Chris Gazdik: The resident name dropper.
John-Nelson Pope: German theologian. During World War Two or before World War Two and, and he was teaching at a seminary in New York. I think it was Union Theological Seminary.
And when World War Two broke out, he returned back to Germany and was part of the resisting church. Okay. Resisting church, resisting church to Hitler because he had actually signed the, [00:11:00] the declaration that said earlier that Hitler was, this Nazism was evil. And so he went to the point and that’s why I was saying about the gray areas, he eventually got to the point where he said the only way that he would be able that Germany would be rid of Adolf Hitler and not destroy Germany and to stop the Holocaust was to assassinate Hitler and he got, yeah, and he got caught.
And he was hanged just shortly before the liberation of of the concentration camp that he was in and
Chris Gazdik: So center in a little bit more on the gray area or the gray areas is that
John-Nelson Pope: traditionally in, in Christian theology. And I’m, I can only speak as to that is just war or some this idea is that we’re supposed to be peace peacemakers.
And this was ultimately went against his [00:12:00] values as a pacifist. And eventually he had to, he, he made that decision. And. I don’t, and it was a situational situation. It was a situational ethics. So
Chris Gazdik: the movie Hacksaw Ridge, you ever see that? Yeah. And it’s, yeah, exactly the same thing. Andrew
John-Nelson Pope: Garfield was in that movie and he, he played the medic who was was he a Mennonite or, or something like that?
He was a conscientious defector. Object, yeah. Objector, yeah. Not a defector. Defector,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. Conscientious. Objector. Yeah, but, but to the war, to hearing weapons.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And he, he didn’t, he rescued all these, uh, wounded soldiers. And so he served. And so he had to, how does he, so he had to make an ethical choice and had the moral courage to do what was right.
Chris Gazdik: See, the thing is, the reason why I want to get away from that a little bit, Victoria, to pick out on the moral part of the word. Combo moral courage is because I think that it can really [00:13:00] take us into a different direction. Right. On these times. Well, that’s where I went. So obviously Right, obviously. Well, that’s kind of
Victoria Pendergrass: what, that’s kind of what I’m questioning.
You’re always
Chris Gazdik: right, John
Victoria Pendergrass: is, I was questioning if it makes people go, like,
Chris Gazdik: that’s what you were saying. Okay. I didn’t come through to me. And it does, and I think that’s a, that’s a problem because,
John-Nelson Pope: but are we more, are we marshmallows? No. At all. So in other words, I love a good
Chris Gazdik: marshmallow. I love a marshmallows, but.
Are we moral
John-Nelson Pope: marshmallows or uncourageous?
Chris Gazdik: What do you mean by the marshmallow metaphor? You gotta go a little further.
John-Nelson Pope: In other words, are we squisheous? Are we, yeah. So, do we have and make a stand and do what is right and have to do that? Because that would predicate that if you have moral courage, and I’m sorry, I have a very traditional view of it is that you would make a stance and you can’t go any other way is so
Chris Gazdik: I think, I think the thing that I’d like to add is, is to the best of your ability, deciding what’s the right thing to do
John-Nelson Pope: is God is my witness.
So help [00:14:00] me God. Yeah. You
Chris Gazdik: know, and that’s what we’re after. We’re not after being right or getting into these debates and, and I’ll tell you, you know, going right off the get go off the gusto with this, you know, this is why people have a hard time having political discussions. Huh.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, yes.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Yeah. It’s terrifying.
I have, I have so almost across the spectrum now. People just will not, do not, Want to have conversations about politics and it’s unfortunate,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah, but that’s that is because they’re afraid They’re going to be shouted down or denigrated or right and you will be And so that’s the
courageous act. I I tried not to show where I am politically at all and People assume in your
Victoria Pendergrass: therapy or in your everyday life
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I know you have a problem about it, but I do it meaning I can’t just contain it.
Yeah I try not to show that with my, my clients. Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay? For [00:15:00] sure. Because I don’t want to alienate anybody, but, but if you ask me, if I do my duty to, to vote, I do, and I will get in a political discussion outside of the counseling. So then.
Chris Gazdik: And that’s good, John, because the, but that takes courage.
That’s, that takes courage to do that. Yeah. In this culture, what were you thinking?
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s not important to the podcast. No, you can
John-Nelson Pope: yell at
Victoria Pendergrass: me. No, I’m not gonna yell at you. I was just gonna ask you like, what do you do if someone directly ask you, like who you voted for for in therapy or what your political views are almost, almost a impromptu
Chris Gazdik: mentor moment.
But I am, because I
Victoria Pendergrass: do, I mean, it happens, it’s happened to me. I know what I do, but I’m just interested as someone who’s Okay. More well seasoned than I am. Like
John-Nelson Pope: you’re saying I’m old. Yeah. Basically. Okay. Yes. Well, I, I don’t faint or demure. I, I find immediately an area that some common ground and understanding and I kind of return it back to the person I say, I think it’s very important to vote.
And but I, [00:16:00] at the same time I think you I, I’ve made myself very much s
Chris Gazdik: I’m not a non clinical issue. You just sort of steer away.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I sure do. Yeah. And so I do a, it’s not that I’m trying to be deceptive. It’s just, I’m trying to, I’m trying to do what’s, I don’t want to cause my client to stumble.
If, if you know what I mean, that there’s a barrier, I don’t want to have any barriers. Right. So I’m, I’m with them. Can I answer?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, go for it.
Chris Gazdik: Because I think it’s a really important thing to be able to discern, is this like a fun topic for this person or something they’re bringing up or is this, you know, clinical issues because I have made the statement before, I’m very, very surprised.
Never before in my career have I seen anything like this consistently be a clinical issue. And what I mean by that is, you know, this is causing [00:17:00] massive anxieties. This is causing family estrangements. These things are causing in this political environment. And it isn’t necessarily just about Trump. It is about our political environment that is causing people to have great levels of distress on all sides of the spectrum.
And also, All throughout the world, so I think that when something is interpreted as a clinical issue and John, I’m sure that you’ve dealt with that in families and stuff, so I’m not saying anything different from you other than to add the idea that we have to have the moral courage to be able to jump into what’s a really tough issue sometimes.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Is that fair or match up with?
John-Nelson Pope: It matches up and it’s congruent with me.
Chris Gazdik: What do you do, Victoria? Me? Yeah, how do we do? I tell
Victoria Pendergrass: them and we move on. Like, for the most part, unless I think it would be like detrimental to this person’s mental health that I reveal my political views, especially if I know that my political views are going to be different.
Then said person, but usually it’s more of just like, I find [00:18:00] that they’re just curious. And so I just answer their curiosity because I’m also a human being that votes and you know,
John-Nelson Pope: I have, I have clients that actually are very distressed by the present change in government. And I do
Victoria Pendergrass: think that sometimes that I find that it is helpful for clients who I am on the same page with to know that like, they’re.
Worries and stuff aren’t
Chris Gazdik: can be a slippery slope. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: it can. It can be
Chris Gazdik: when you’re not addressing it as a clinical issue, right? That’s why I would really turn it back around and say, okay, well, yeah, I mean, I’ve got my thoughts and ideas and stuff, but what does this do for you? Yeah. You know, is this, is this
John-Nelson Pope: most of the time it has something to do with anxiety.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Anxiety. Nine times out of ten. Nine times out of ten. Yeah. Has all kinds of stuff to do with that. And I would add insecurities as being different. Which is thus a good transition, John, if that’s what you were intending to do. To talk about like, you know. I am sober. This is, this is [00:19:00] such a hard, big deal because of the anxiety and insecurities that people
Victoria Pendergrass: have.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You know, on a very fundamental level, we struggle to be able to make a stand and statement on anything because we feel like we’re going to go through various forms of, of anxiety. So let’s go to that. And then we’ll circle back to why it matters. But number three, right? The psychology behind anxiety and moral courage.
These are big areas. This is kind of like, yikes. Number
Victoria Pendergrass: one, fear of rejection,
Chris Gazdik: right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Which I literally see. Every day I experience myself.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m a total people pleaser and a fixer something I’m working through in my own therapy All right, like well that fear of rejection and just like worrying about Potential loss of relationships.
Like, if I say this thing, if I do this thing, will it cause other people to, one, judge me? [00:20:00] Or will it cause them to, like, completely cut off my relationship with them? And now, this person who is a big part of my life or whatnot is, like, no longer wants to be involved in my life because I’ve, like, Had the moral courage to stand up and say something or do something or blah, blah, blah, fill in the blank.
So yeah, that fear of rejection is a huge thing.
John-Nelson Pope: Have you lost friends because you, you had to Make a statement. Make a statement.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I, I mean, or it’s like our, it’s Creates an edge. It was never, it was never the same. Our relationship was never the same after. You know, we don’t hang out as often. We don’t, I don’t check in as often.
John-Nelson Pope: But that didn’t come from you, it came from them.
Victoria Pendergrass: It came from both. From both. Yeah and there have been some personal relationships in my life where it did come from me, where I put my foot down and said like, I don’t want to be, you know, Like it was, it was me responding to something that they said, [00:21:00] which is boundary setting.
So we move
Chris Gazdik: into boundary setting, which kind of can move from this, but moral courage is standing into a situation. And then when we’re in relationship with people, given any of these anxieties and insecurities, then you have other things kind of come in on it’s tough to
John-Nelson Pope: stand alone.
Chris Gazdik: It is tough to stand alone, John.
And anybody, you listening out there think that this is not. Causing you anxiety or this doesn’t apply to you. The fact of being in fear of being rejected is just a human psychological need to be a part of the, the pack, right? Greater holiday.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, we all want to be
Chris Gazdik: accepted.
Victoria Pendergrass: What was that study that was done that can’t remember the name of it, where they sat in a room and they were, it was a group of people and they were all asked the same question, but the, everybody purposely answered wrong and then that made you like self doubt your answer.
What study was that? Do you know what I’m talking about?
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, it was a while back. Yeah. I actually participated in a mock trial of that. [00:22:00] Oh really? And where I was the, I
Victoria Pendergrass: was the subject and like, Everybody, they were like, was Abraham Lincoln a president? And everybody was like, no, no, no, no, no. And then it gets to me.
And I was like, well, yeah. And it’s the point is to like like a lot of times you answer the wrong answer.
John-Nelson Pope: Torture. That’s a way of brainwashing, which is, that was Star Trek next generation. I’m gonna fight it. No, it’s a real thing. Yeah, it’s a real thing. Are, are there three lights or Four lights? But I, but I, so,
Victoria Pendergrass: but I think that that kind of goes to show how much, how willing we are.
It’s a powerful psychological reality one or how much we desperately like thrive to be a part of, to be along like the greater like group or the greater PO like community. And so we’re willing to, sometimes we’re. Unfortunately, willing to like put aside our own view,
John-Nelson Pope: going back to the Nazis again, there was a sense of [00:23:00] people participating and they would say, one is the good people of Germany during second world war at the concentration camps, worked outside and lived and played outside of that.
And they said, well, nothing’s going on there. And they would convince themselves and there was a lot of pressure to do that or if you’re a guard or even a Jewish capo, which is a person that was a Jewish person themselves. But they wanted not to die and so they did what the Nazis told them and so they helped kill their fellow Jews
Chris Gazdik: So you’re talking a little bit about a fear of failure a fear.
Yeah, I don’t want to fail at my task I’ve been given my task. I don’t want to be a outside of the norm I don’t want to die and it’s not
John-Nelson Pope: to reason why mine is to do or die.
Chris Gazdik: Yes Yes, and where does that come from?
John-Nelson Pope: That’s from Tennyson, but that’s From the charge of the Light Brigade, I believe.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, [00:24:00] we need to get all these quotes, man.
And get Tennyson involved in the the show notes and the We’re just gonna do a, we’re
Victoria Pendergrass: gonna do a shirt, and on the back of it, it’s just gonna have all these different quotes that Johnny gives. The name drops.
Chris Gazdik: Negative self talk, social anxiety, imposter syndrome. These are all levels of what Crushes a person when they’re standing into a situation and these are serious and strong and scary situations That you can probably have come across in your in your time before
Victoria Pendergrass: do you think we should define what imposter syndrome is?
Chris Gazdik: Go ahead
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. So imposter. What?
John-Nelson Pope: No, I’m just looking at you. I’m, I’m, I’m sure you’re intrigued to learn
Victoria Pendergrass: various studios. Look for me, John. Imposter syndrome is basically where you have this fear of being found out that like you’re a fraud. Like, for example, if it was me, like, believe me, like, even though I’m a therapist that I think that people are going to suddenly find out that I’m not actually as good of a therapist, as I say, I am, or is that other people say that I am?
So this [00:25:00] fear of being like found out and you’re being basically an imposter and you’re not like, that’s
John-Nelson Pope: rooted in low self esteem. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. It’s very much to do with self esteem. Self esteem. Good gosh, I can’t talk today. Yeah, I mean, if
Chris Gazdik: you, it, which is, which is part of what we’ll get to in talking about how do we build this stuff up?
How do we develop our ability? You know, you’re right, John. I mean, old, old school, we used to have assertiveness training, right? Right. You know, and then self esteem. Now we talk about, you know, self enhancement and, and And internal resiliency. These are all things that are built into your personality.
Develop
John-Nelson Pope: grit is the big business thing is that that’s, that’s now.
Chris Gazdik: That’s all about the same kind of stuff in developing the ability to stand in a tough situations. Yeah, let’s circle back. Why, why do we care? Because really, honestly. This, this does have a lot to do with integrity. It has, it has a lot to do with being able to, to deal with these anxieties, to [00:26:00] have the internal emotional resiliency, so that you can really get things addressed.
You end up really Growing in having thicker skin to being able to have resiliency and respect for yourself and encouraging ability to get out of like codependency and some of these other things where people get ensnared in.
John-Nelson Pope: I was, I was, I’m sorry you, it talked about examples of individuals who overcame fears to do what is right.
And I’m thinking of it’s Black History Month. Okay. And Rosa Parks.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah, there’s, there’s countless.
John-Nelson Pope: Martin Luther King.
Chris Gazdik: Scary. Yeah, how do you stand into a situation like that?
Victoria Pendergrass: How do you stand in front of tens of thousands of people hundreds of thousands of people? Right in the world and say like this is what we should be fighting for.
It’s pretty cool.
Chris Gazdik: Huh It’s it’s a lot of situations in sports where somebody goes out on, you know, the edge you know, our, our, our politicians, you know, I mean in, in a way, whether you agree with him or not, [00:27:00] Trump is throwing a lot of things out there. You know, he’s standing in, he’s, he’s got courage to bring up whatever he’s thinking, you know, I mean, these are, these are all very hard things to do, you know, I’ll tell you first episode Craig and I did back at episode one, we were talking about the cornerstone of mental health.
If I remember correctly, you know, self care. I’m kind of like freaked out in the beginning of it You know, we’re getting ready to go live and i’m like wait a minute This is literally going to be heard by whom I had no idea And still is listened to people, right? It’s and it’s out there like forever You know, you can never take it back Yeah And that took some getting used to.
I’m kind of good with it now, not exactly flat. It still kind of worries me if I say something silly or look silly or dumb. How’s the beard look, Victoria? Is it okay? It looks great. Thank you. You know, but you know what I’m saying? I mean, this is all what it is that we’re trying to build abilities, abilities with.[00:28:00]
And this is why we’re trying to do it. To overcome the fear and to basically do the best ability you have to do and say what’s right. Okay, are we getting into Convincing people how hard this is yet
Yeah, yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I think we’re getting there Sometimes I think and again, correct me if you think I’m wrong I think sometimes it’s one of those things that you don’t necessarily understand Understand how hard it is until you’re put in a position where you literally are like kind of forced You To be either like yeah dive into the deep sink or swim and you either have the moral courage to like You know your friend says something you don’t agree with or you stand, you know You stand your ground when you when you’re having these conversations or whatever it is or whether you’re you know doing a political rally In front of let me ask you let me ask you a question
Chris Gazdik: victoria.
Yeah. Okay answer quick and follow me on this.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh gosh Okay
Chris Gazdik: [00:29:00] Okay, what do you do when you’re sitting on the front porch, sitting and swinging, sitting and sipping, whatever you’re doing. Sweet tea, yeah. And sweet tea on the southern wraparound deck. I’m a swangy. So you’re sitting there on the front porch.
Yeah. Country sweet tea sitting and you notice across the road in your cul de sac, there is a door that comes slamming open.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. And
Chris Gazdik: out comes a girl, female don’t really know these people quite yet. Guy is yelling at her. She scurries over to, you know, a swinging you know, little rocker.
Baseball bat. Right? Yeah. And he’s yelling at her. And then he kicked his foot at the swinging chair she was on the ground. Couldn’t hear much other than, you know what, it’s always the same. You’re always da da da da da. You’re always drinking. I don’t understand. Da da da. And I’m like, what do you do?
Victoria Pendergrass: What do I do?
I call the cops and invite her over for safety and I, I would [00:30:00] intervene.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Is that what you’re
Victoria Pendergrass: asking? And what I would do? Like what I would do? Are you sure? Sure.
Chris Gazdik: But John,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, that’s what I okay. That’s what I would like to think.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, there’s a phrase, right? Yeah I would like to think that I would
Victoria Pendergrass: be like and I’ve had and I think I’ve told you this before where I’ve had a Situation where I had a friend who was dating someone and he was like screaming bloody murder at her over the phone And I grabbed the phone and like was like no I’m not gonna let you talk to her like this like I can literally hear you from across my house and I hung up on him
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And so like, yeah, I mean, in the moment, I would like to be like, okay, yeah, this, this, this, this ain’t happening.
John-Nelson Pope: I’m going to take it a step further. And that is you do call the police because you’ve seen you’ve seen the, the man, the violence, hit her and all of that. No, no, he hit the swing. He hit the swing.
I saw the
Chris Gazdik: attempt. Kicked frustratedly
John-Nelson Pope: at the swing. Okay. Okay. And the police come and then she denies it. She denies [00:31:00] what happened. And then they, you look like Mrs. Kravitz on be witched. Okay. Or a Karen or a Karen. Okay. Is that going to dissuade you? How does this work? I would like to think that
Victoria Pendergrass: it wouldn’t.
I would like to think that it wouldn’t, but honestly, for a lot of people out there, like, they would just quietly go back into their house and shut their door and close their blinds and act like, you know, they didn’t see anything happen. But you have to make a
John-Nelson Pope: moral choice, and that is, is hitting the swing sufficient?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And yeah, and this, so this was a, if you haven’t figured it out, this was a real situation that I had one day, you know, years ago, like, holy cow, what do we do?
John-Nelson Pope: What did you do? No,
Chris Gazdik: I ended up kind of talking to my neighbor. I yelled out loud, you know, Hey Greg, Hey Greg, come here, you know, come here, man.
You know, because he was outside. It was a different guy. He was, they were neighbors [00:32:00] and we talked it through and, and kind of what, what the deal was and, you know, they actually knew the guy where they work with him. And so I got a little more information and whatnot and, you know, it wasn’t, you know, we all kind of knew there was a breaking down and ultimately what ended up happening was they ended up getting a divorce.
Whatever months or years later, and it was, it was their business to kind of manage. But I actually had a conversation with the guy where, you know, we were selling Girl Scout, Boy Scout cookies or something and, or Boy Scout, whatever, and popcorn, actually, not cookies, popcorn. And, and so with this, and he, he made mention of this because he was actually the good guy in this scenario and his wife was really developing.
And we, have first hand knowledge of, you know, the alcohol use was getting profound. So, you know, there was a lot going on.
John-Nelson Pope: So in other words, you could have injected yourself and you could have gotten shot. Who
Chris Gazdik: knows? And then who knows? Who knows? But I, but I [00:33:00] could have been very wrong also. Yeah. So it’s a tricky balance, right?
He
Victoria Pendergrass: could have been the victim and she could have been the one. And ultimately he was.
Chris Gazdik: And
Victoria Pendergrass: then if you call the cops, I can see how then like. She plays into the victim role and whatever, whatever, and whatever, there’s so many possibilities.
Chris Gazdik: So the moral, hold on, hold on. So the moral courage is that you’re not going to just go and turn the blinds off and go inside.
You’re going to get more information. You’re going to step into a situation. You’re going to not be alone. You’re going to But Chris, mind
John-Nelson Pope: your own business. Mind your own damn business. Some people might say that.
Chris Gazdik: But can you stand into that? Yeah. And I’m going to say, well I’ve got concerns if concerns are met, then yeah, we’ll mind our own business, but there are
John-Nelson Pope: concerns.
What if somebody draws a weapon on you?
Chris Gazdik: I’m not playing. I’m just, you know, I have to protect myself then it’s over for you, hopefully. But you know yeah, that’s, [00:34:00] I mean, we
Victoria Pendergrass: could, we could do a whole episode on the what if. But I think a lot of it does come back into what I said earlier, is like a lot of people would like to think that they would step in.
That’s the key, Victoria. That they would, they would like to think, and I hear this all the time on the True Crime podcast I listen to when they talk about like people’s, shut up Neil initial responses to like when they find out that a loved one is like, been killed or something and they’re like, you know, well, this person, they weren’t emotional and they weren’t freaking out and you’re like, well, I would like to think that if I found out that my husband, something happened to my husband, I would be an emotional mess.
But like, I don’t know unless I’m in a situation. So we stumble upon It’s just moral court,
Chris Gazdik: moral courage
Victoria Pendergrass: is the same
Chris Gazdik: thing. So we stumble upon yet another really important factor here about the judgment of others and misjudging others on our part.
John-Nelson Pope: There was a, there was a, one of the, another true [00:35:00] crime thing.
It was where a woman had been savagely raped, had her neck cut, she survived, she was stabbed. 37 times. And she swore that this was the person that the suspect was the one who did it because he looked like the person and all of that. And she got to the point where she bought a weapon, a gun to, to go because he was let off and he was, she was going to go and shoot him.
And and kill him
Victoria Pendergrass: because she thought she thought
John-Nelson Pope: absolutely convinced and she had the moral courage not To act
Chris Gazdik: not to act not to act. Okay, so why is that take courage?
John-Nelson Pope: takes courage because she she said I’m not sure. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I wasn’t right about this person. The you can take away the the scars and all that.
Turns out there was a person [00:36:00] that looked just like the other person. Okay. Wow. Right. Yeah, it was a doppel ganger. I was going
Victoria Pendergrass: to say, well, then sometimes in a case like that, that means putting faith in things like the judicial system and trusting That will play its part and do its right thing and that like the people that are asked to be jury will you know Play the parts of what the judicial system is supposed to look like so in that case It’s putting faith in something like that.
But then sometimes it’s putting faith in other things that like, okay, you know Like we’re tss investigation. Yeah, we’re still gonna i’m gonna step out. I
John-Nelson Pope: was almost on a jury of a serial killer Well, that would be fun. Yeah I’m sure
Chris Gazdik: they kicked you off when they found out what you do for a living. Yeah.
Yeah, they did. They did.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, you got no shot. But the fact was, is that what if I had been on that jury jury to make a decision about whether he was. And so there was a lot of innocent, a lot [00:37:00] of pressure, unfortunately, there was a, unfortunately for the women that got killed, they were put in barrels but killed and stored at it on his property.
But there
Chris Gazdik: was, you know, we might have to make this one a, a, a, a, a explicit show. But what if he was a jerk?
John-Nelson Pope: What was the drug? That because there was a death penalty and you had a very strong feelings, not believe in death. I
Victoria Pendergrass: mean, moral courage, like it runs deep. It’s like deep, like I don’t like even talking about it.
I don’t think people realize like how many things that we do and how many choices we make ultimately are out of moral courage or lack thereof. And when we
Chris Gazdik: struggle.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: when we struggle, but
John-Nelson Pope: that’s the, that’s the thing is that I think Therapy wise we have a responsibility to help people find their moral courage
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely.
Yeah, for instance, one of the things [00:38:00] behind a therapist eyes that I’ve actually Had over the many years, you know, I haven’t had to make Okay, let me, let me set this up better. I’ve been in several instances where CPS, Child Protective Services, or you know, DSS is what we have in North Carolina, basically the Department of Social Services, basically in your state, whichever group goes and advocates and protects children.
I’ve had several instances where they’ve been called on my You know, knowledge base and whatever, but you know what usually happens when you’re in therapy with me? We talk about this we engage on this and I support you in calling to give the information that you have Now I haven’t been able to successfully have that happen a few times and i’ve just had to make the call same here, right?
But usually they will do this. I say look we could do this together We’re, we’re mandated reporters, of course, of course, but
John-Nelson Pope: better if it came from that
Chris Gazdik: means [00:39:00] John, as you know, for, for you listening out here, you know, if we have knowledge or even a suspicion of a child or actually elderly folks being abused, neglected, you know, emotionally, physically, sexually, more physically and sexually than emotionally.
But. We, we really are obligated. We have no choice, but like I said, in that circumstance Mr. and Mrs. Therapist out there listening, I love the track of getting the person to step into that and grow with that, and we do it together. And they’re giving the information that they have that’s first hand. And it’s, and I usually have success with that, John.
Huh.
Victoria Pendergrass: I, yeah, I don’t see any problem with like, In the Smackdown session, let’s call him right now. Oh, absolutely. Like, I will be here to support you. I’ve done that several times. And I can answer, help answer any questions that you don’t know how to answer.
Chris Gazdik: As a matter of fact, the most recent time that that happened is somebody that I’m still working with, and, I mean, she was just so appreciative.
You know, because there, she was desperately fearful about the effects [00:40:00] on her family member. Oh, that she was calling God for it? Yes And you know, but we had to we worked through that together We stepped into it
together and she was able to stand up to the situation. It was wonderful. It was wonderful By the way, the kids are well now good.
Yes, they are Absolutely. I
Victoria Pendergrass: think also just a side note a lot of people don’t realize that like they themselves any citizen can call and make a report Like it doesn’t have to be a professional. Oh, yeah that makes a dss. I think people don’t know that I guess I would might Maybe just to clarify for everybody out there that anyone can call GSS and make a report on someone who they believe is being physically or sexually abused by someone else.
Now you, it may not go very far if you don’t have a lot of details, like where the person lives, what their name is. What that type of thing Also,
Chris Gazdik: this may not be the first time that the ss has heard from somebody
Victoria Pendergrass: That’s not to say a lot of times if they already on that kid They already have a case file built up [00:41:00] against someone or about a specific kid Then you might not have to give a ton of information.
That’ll be like, oh wow Okay, this is the fifth report that we’ve gotten in the last week about this person Like then it’ll still be able to help because then hopefully from the other people who’ve reported though We’ll have gathered more information. But yeah, anybody can make a report and especially in north carolina You We have, like you said, we have DSS here, Department of Social Services.
Chris Gazdik: This is why we have laws, guys. If you’re feeling confident that you would do what you think is the right thing to do in a situation, mental health and substance abuse therapists, clergy, teachers, they have laws in place. Because we know That even professional people do not want to make that call.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, I hate making that call, but I’ve made it so many times.
Chris Gazdik: It sucks. And, and it’s, I bet, right? yeah. And it’s scary. And it’s intimidating. And it causes anxiety. [00:42:00] It causes your negative self talk to kick into gear. It causes your people pleasing to be in question. Like, these things really trigger and pop. As you said, Victoria, I hope that you are able to do what you feel you need to do in a situation.
Yeah, well I do think so. But that’s hard
Victoria Pendergrass: to know.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. When you’re standing in this situation. I very well can just freeze and go along with the crowd. Yeah. Right. Go along with the crowd.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, how easy would it be for me to just take my sweet tea and just go, go back on inside and, or just,
Chris Gazdik: I’ll check with her later.
I’ll make sure she’s okay tomorrow, you know, or whatever.
Victoria Pendergrass: She might not have a tomorrow, so,
Chris Gazdik: or he might not, or
Victoria Pendergrass: he might not have a tomorrow.
Chris Gazdik: So one real quick thing to mention through a therapist’s eyes as we are, right? Can you imagine when we’re talking about, so the title here, overcoming anxiety and insecurity to stand strong.
What about when you have a clinical anxiety condition? [00:43:00] Next level.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right?
Victoria Pendergrass: There’s a little bit more struggle there. A little bit more feelings of lack of control.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Right. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You know, when you have OCD, or you have generalized anxiety, or you have social phobias, you have various things that really get your brain moving anyway.
Your amygdala is firing. We know in anxiety, you’re Thoughts are racing and you can’t relax very easily. And now you’re coming into a situation where John, you have to kind of exercise this ability and this internal resiliency that is taken hit after hit after hit. How do we manage that?
John-Nelson Pope: Right. Yeah. No, I’m thinking, I’m trying to think because I, I, as someone who’s struggled, I’m introverted.
By nature and even though he sings all the way down, well,
Chris Gazdik: love that [00:44:00]
John-Nelson Pope: intimacy. Yeah. It’s different. I guess it’s different, but, but I, I can, I can have that anxiety. And to be able to, to take that leap and to step outside of myself and to step out of the, the storm, like somebody described it as a, as a great, like the, in the mummy, the, the movie, the big sandstorm, big cloud, big cloud, that’s what they described it as.
And and so he had to step outside of that. And, you know, you,
Chris Gazdik: you, you,
John-Nelson Pope: or step into it, step into it
Chris Gazdik: like the Buffalo
John-Nelson Pope: Buffalo. Yeah. Can I
Chris Gazdik: give you a metaphor?
John-Nelson Pope: Yes.
Chris Gazdik: That I think really applies here. A friend of mine gave this to me. Shout out to Jake. Yeah. It’s an awesome metaphor where when you’re in a storm and you’re on the prairie, usually people struggle to have moral courage and they will run away from the storm.
This is literally what the [00:45:00] animals will do. Big storm clouds coming, big sand dust thing like you see, John, and you know it’s coming, you know it’s going to hit as far as you can see wide east to west, and you’re going to try to get out of dodge and so you go opposite direction. Well, obviously what happens to you, right?
You’re going 10 miles an hour that way. The storm’s coming 15 miles an hour the same way, it will catch up to you, you’re not going to outrun it, and then you’re in it a lot longer and it has a lot more pain because you’re not standing in. You’re exhausted
Victoria Pendergrass: from running.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. The buffalo, literally, I need to look this up to see if it’s true.
It’s a good story. The buffalo will go right to the storm clouds. They will not run in opposite direction. Okay. They have figured out because when you run to the storm, obviously the storm is a whole lot less longer. And if you keep walking through it. Riptide. Go through it. The
John-Nelson Pope: riptide. Riptide is another example.
You don’t fight it, you just go with it. And let it take you out into the ocean. Yeah. And then you can cross back when it’s Peters out, then you [00:46:00] can just go back to shore, literally
Chris Gazdik: swim to the right or left and you
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t waste all your energy. Yeah. But recently I’ve heard as far as kids go, that When it comes to dealing with things like anxiety and whatnot, when it comes to kids is like exposure therapy is like the best option as far as perfect.
Chris Gazdik: You’re, you’re transitioning us into a primary question.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. What do
Chris Gazdik: we do to grow this ability? I mean, we want to be able to stand in a new situation. So what do we do to grow this ability? And you’ve got
Victoria Pendergrass: us, especially when it comes to kids exposure therapy which basically just means, like, if you’re dealing with anxiety then I expo I give you direct things that make you anxious and we work through it as you’re experiencing the anxiety.
Chris Gazdik: I’m curious how you connect that to growing the ability to have resiliency and moral courage and such.
Victoria Pendergrass: Because I think if you can teach kids how to do that, then it gives them more [00:47:00] courage to, like Just confidence? Confidence to step up to things that they maybe normally wouldn’t have or that they normally would shy away from.
Oh, so if I beat
Chris Gazdik: this thing, I also have the resiliency to beat this other. Okay, so they have more depth of experience. And so the resilience.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and plus, honestly, we, you know, that most, most kids and adolescents are just naturally resilient to begin with. I mean, I’ve never seen my kids fall so many times and, On the floor and just get right back up I think nothing happened and i’m like dude if that was me i’d still be laying on the floor
Chris Gazdik: I want to throw down a huge reality of this little segment on how do we grow this ability?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: I don’t want people to think they have to grow this ability alone
Victoria Pendergrass: Or overnight or
Chris Gazdik: overnight? Yeah
Victoria Pendergrass: No
Chris Gazdik: Here’s the thing We, we figure this out together. You know, I already gave this indicator. I was going to see if people were listening and then, you know, you listening to shows like dial into the YouTube and see if you can come up with it because I hinted [00:48:00] before.
And I did that somewhat on purpose, right? You know, when I had this weird situation in my neighborhood, you know, do you think I dealt with it alone? The first thing I did, and in another situation, very similar. We had another neighbor that was having a, a dog play in the neighborhood and it was a freaking Rottweiler.
And they were trying to say that it wasn’t a Rottweiler. All of us parents were kind of together. Actually, it wasn’t a Rottweiler. What’s the pit bull pit was fine. I love pits. They’re sweet animals, but. I don’t need the pitbull jumping
from left to right, from left to right, as my son lays on his back and the dog is jumping left to right over top of him.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right.
Chris Gazdik: Looking back on it, it was like, holy crap, man. Like, that’s not cool to lie to the neighborhood. So we had to get all the neighbors together and talk about this. And we dealt with it TOGETHER.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Strength in numbers. Yeah. When you see something, you need more information, see something, say something, but say something to people, and figure it out.
Like, you don’t have to be alone. [00:49:00] Because most
Victoria Pendergrass: likely when you start talking to other people, you’re gonna find that there are probably other people who align with you.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: And so then you don’t necessarily have to face the storm by yourself. You can validate, you can get more information. Because
Chris Gazdik: actually, in the situation that I didn’t intervene in, later on I found that I didn’t need to, and pretty quickly, by talking to my other neighbors, I found out.
Okay, I don’t need to intervene here. We’re you know, we all know now a little more right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah knowledge is power,
Chris Gazdik: right? Get curious Curious equals knowledge Knowledge equals power. We just added to it Victoria because I’ve said recently curiousness Equals knowledge. And you said, of course, it leads to power, so.
Get curious, ask, get knowledge, figure out what the best step to take is. And it doesn’
Victoria Pendergrass: But also, if you need to do it by yourself, that’s okay too.
Chris Gazdik: It is. It is.
Victoria Pendergrass: Until you find other people who will join up with you. But sometimes it’s like, there’s this video of like, someone, someone’s like [00:50:00] playing music or something, and on, and people are in a park, and people are just hanging out, and all it takes is like one person to start dancing.
And then like,
Chris Gazdik: oh yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: every, by the end of it, like everybody’s like running over to like, join this, like for impromptu, like dance party. Yeah, but it was unplanned and most people were just sitting there like, all it does is take one person sometimes to stand up and be that person that’s like, hey, no, this is wrong.
This is not, you know, I don’t want to say not right. You know where I learned
Chris Gazdik: that in a, in a, in a, in a silly sort of way?
Victoria Pendergrass: What?
Chris Gazdik: In the band. Yeah. You know, we were trumpets. That’s, that’s what my instrument was. And you started out to cheer and you had to get into a place emotionally where, you know, you started that, that, that, that, and before you get to the end of that, all the rest of the band members kind of come in and enjoy, right.
And then, then we start doing different, different melodies with it and whatever. But. It was always somebody that needed to start and oftentimes it was a very [00:51:00] few people that would do that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah
Chris Gazdik: shocker that I was Good well,
John-Nelson Pope: I was just thinking and this is just And I know that’s, that’s good. I, I would encourage us to be able to do that as a community and as a, as
a, it’s so that we’re living in a village, a community of, of people to build strength.
But what if. There is no one to stand by you. What if you’re, you’re so inured to the violence and in the community? Because I read ahead, I’m sorry, the social justice is to see somebody being beaten up on a, on a subway station and nobody steps in. And just and then somebody does do that and then that other person gets pushed into a subway.
I mean, that’s a what if, but it’s happened. Totally
Chris Gazdik: a what if, but it’s real.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, it is real.
Chris Gazdik: You know, these things happen.
John-Nelson Pope: And so, [00:52:00] give, give you an example. Okay. I, I was riding my bike about three years ago from my parents in Florida and it was really, really cold. And one of the few times it’s, it’s been cold in Florida, in Florida, but it was there was homeless person.
And I I asked the woman who was homeless and asked her if, if she needed shelter or something like that. And then she just blew up and there were people walking by and all of that all bundled up like in their winter coats. And And I felt that she needed, she was in danger of, I needed to ask and do that, but it was rejected.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: And I think you have to be prepared to do that. I, I, to be rejected, to be rejected. Yeah. And
Victoria Pendergrass: then you do it
John-Nelson Pope: anyway, anyway, because it was the right thing to [00:53:00] do.
Chris Gazdik: And there’s a lot of little tricks, you know, trying to frame up your mind differently to think positively to, to, I really think the biggest thing is not doing it alone, but You know, managing the situation with self care so that, you know, you’re pondering this and you’re working with this, but you’re
stepping away and distracting yourself so that you can relax, then step back into the situation.
And usually when you do that, it’s clear what you need to do. You know, this doesn’t have to be snap in the moment. So that’s
John-Nelson Pope: reframe. Part of it is reframing.
Chris Gazdik: It’s reframing. It’s, it’s getting, you know, Self care used it’s you know, being mindful about the situation. It’s not being alone There are really specific things that we’re trying to do to to increase your ability with this To speak up and to be genuine
Victoria Pendergrass: obviously, you know Going to therapy
Chris Gazdik: Ask getting account alert.
Yeah Some
Victoria Pendergrass: sort of like professional help. Like we provide,
Chris Gazdik: you know, like I said, we used to do assertive training You know like learning how to [00:54:00] assert yourself You know, and I got a bunch of
John-Nelson Pope: exercises for that. You still do. You got all the
Chris Gazdik: worksheets. Yeah, it’s just I think this is a A journey of small steps and small improvements with the way that you think, the way that you perceive.
Go with that John.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I, I think to, to, to, you know, it says practicing small acts of courage is to be able to, to be intentional about it. And if you have some fear is that you, that you have. At least a minor positive change and step in the right direction and that reinforces itself. It’s so it’s iron sharpens iron.
So basically you keep at it, you keep doing it and you become stronger and then you start networking and like you did with your community. With you, it wasn’t just you alone doing it, you were able to, to, to take a small act and, and build bonds with your community to, to, to [00:55:00] do that. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I have the sign in my office, strive for progress, not perfection.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a, not just a line, it’s, it’s an important, Process. You know, you’re not going to be on top of your game. You’re not going to find this to be easy to do when you find yourself in a real situation. Do you
John-Nelson Pope: ever find yourself having to say, why did I say that? And so, and it was, oh, there’s second doubt, second guess and all that.
Chris Gazdik: Right. We didn’t even talk about that yet. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leap ahead. But there’s a sense that sometimes you’re going to fail. And you’re not, and then you’re going to beat the crap out of yourself for not doing it. Well, the wrong thing to do is to beat the crap out of yourself.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. It’s that you have some self compassion, self empathy. Oh man,
Chris Gazdik: you know what happens when you start doing that, John, is this gets worse and worse and worse, more and more and more difficult to speak up. And you know who that makes me think about? Victims of domestic violence. Yep, [00:56:00] right you get so Subterfuged into yourself feeling alone and isolated and that builds on itself kind of as well.
I mean the opposite direction Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: it takes the average person seven tries to leave their abusive partner But yeah, actually like are usually able and sometimes it takes longer than that. Sometimes it takes
John-Nelson Pope: Right. Yeah. Do you remember in the 90s there was she was a social worker and she was kind of a, of a, of a, from a prominent family and she had a child and her husband was very abusive and very successful and he actually literally disfigured her face by breaking her bones and all of that.
Oh dear gosh. No, I don’t remember this case. Yeah. Well the child died. Yeah. And and she was brought for charges. Because as an basically for abusing the child is not standing up for not standing up, but she was so beaten down, man.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You’ve
Victoria Pendergrass: [00:57:00] talked about this case before. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: That’s hard to
John-Nelson Pope: right.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Hold her accountable.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And so there’s a point where a person, if, if that, if that If, if that train gets out of the too far out of the station, it’s hard to, to reverse the course and to get back on track
Chris Gazdik: and to talk about where are we needing to do this. We’re needing to do this in parenting.
We’re needing to do this in. You know, the community and social justice, as you said, relationships that you have in your family. Like, are you really going to step into your step to father? You know, that’s a hard thing to do. You know, all sorts of things in the workplace. Yeah. Okay. Or let’s say you’re, you’re a
John-Nelson Pope: 12 year old little girl and you’re being sexually, or a little boy and sexually molested by your stepfather, your mother doesn’t believe you.
Chris Gazdik: We’ve seen this in trauma cases all the [00:58:00] time. So we want to build up, we want to grow, we want to improve our abilities with this. And, and, and, and honestly, I guess, you know, I want to wrap us up a little bit with the idea of like, you know, how. You know, we’re dealing with anxieties and insecurities and if you notice somebody that has these different anxieties and insecurities, like Victoria, I hope you would help encourage me, you know, to sing in public more.
Or, you know, to feel more comfortable in your own skin. One thing I tell
Victoria Pendergrass: my clients to do all the time is, I tell them to like, go do things by themselves. Yeah. Like, go to the, your local restaurant, go to Chick fil A, Eat inside at a table by yourself. Go to the movies by yourself. Obviously, we want to stay safe, especially as a female.
I get that we want to do, make safe choices and do safe things. But, like, try to do things by yourself. Now, which
John-Nelson Pope: clients would these be, necessarily?
Victoria Pendergrass: A lot of people. People dealing with self confidence. People who, yeah, [00:59:00] people who have anxiety. People who I feel like they have to be people pleasers like it can go for all sorts of things just all
Chris Gazdik: sorts of insecurities Yeah, yeah run to the storm like the buffalo.
Yeah run to the storm. Actually, that’s what yeah
Victoria Pendergrass: Your food doesn’t taste different just because you’re eating with other people Yeah, like food tastes the same whether you’re by yourself or with other people Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: and that’s an activity. So again, you know, let’s, let’s center us in as an exit here to think about like, there are so many situations that you will find yourself in throughout your course of your life.
And I want you to give yourself some grace because. These are hard, hard things to step into, but you grow that ability with some ideas and things that we’ve talked about by internal resiliency. And the rewards are amazing. When you do step in and stand into a situation that you’re successfully able to evoke a change or at least get somebody to think about something or have a positive connection [01:00:00] and conversation with somebody, that’s, that’s powerful.
That’s powerful. It’s that flexibility. Flexibility, patience, confidence, you know, then you can move to things like integrity and, and moral ethical stance. Anything to add? I think that’s I think that’s where we’re going to take us out.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, I was just thinking, would it be helpful for us to like add the DSS number or like the numbers for each state?
Like to our website,
Chris Gazdik: we mean DSS. Oh, oh, social services. Sure. Yeah, we could. Yeah, we can. I mean, I don’t know. Is there a national
John-Nelson Pope: all the states? We’ll get it. I don’t believe. I know there is for suicide.
Chris Gazdik: There’s a national suicide hotline. We’ll look into it and find something that is a little bit more broad than every 50 links.
But but that’s a good idea. If we can find a national thing, or at least for North Carolina, we
Victoria Pendergrass: might, you know, since that’s our base, then
Chris Gazdik: I love that. And I love you that you’re back, Victoria, John. I’m glad to be back. We are back. All right. Glad
Victoria Pendergrass: you’re back too, Chris [01:01:00] and Neil.
Chris Gazdik: All right. So we’re going to fire it up next week.
I need to get used to saying what we’re doing next. Is it Love and Logic? It is. I think it is as well. Part of the trifecta. I’m going to cover the trifecta areas, moving up to episode 300.
Victoria Pendergrass: And as your new social media person, go follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
Chris Gazdik: And
Victoria Pendergrass: LinkedIn and soon to be tick tock.
Oh God.
Chris Gazdik: Listen, it’s good to be back guys. Take care. We’ll see you soon. Next week. Bye
y’all.