In Episode 303 of Through a Therapist’s Eyes, we dive deep into the hidden dangers of numbing out and living in survival mode. We explore how avoidance behaviors—whether through substances, work, social media, or food—can disconnect us from our emotions and impact our mental health. Our discussion unpacks the psychological and physiological effects of prolonged numbing, including its ties to trauma, dissociation, and stress hormone dysregulation. We also highlight key warning signs that numbing has become harmful and offer practical, healthy alternatives to reconnect with emotions in a safe way. From grounding techniques to resilience-building strategies, this episode is all about shifting from surviving to thriving.
Tune in to see Numbing Out Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
Links referenced during the show:
Survival Mode: Understanding What It Means for You
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/mentalhealthtips
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
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Episode #303 Trascription
stereotypes and hopefully entertaining you a little bit.
Yeah. So, but you gotta hit the subscribe button. You gotta get somebody to subscribe for us. John, how many stars
John-Nelson Pope: always five stars has to be has to be and make sure you you do that on the Apple podcast and any other Podcast servers that you use.
Chris Gazdik: You don’t want this young man coming for you.
John-Nelson Pope: No
Victoria Pendergrass: Buy our merch
Chris Gazdik: We have a pillow.
I’m gonna tell you what.
Victoria Pendergrass: I was gonna say, I might steal this and put this in my office or buy my own one. No, don’t do that, don’t do that.
Chris Gazdik: Now you see, I’m
John-Nelson Pope: looking at the Illuminati. That’s the thing, it’s the eye on top of the pyramid. Oh, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: No, no. Yeah, that would be, that would be that way if you have a hat.
I’ll tell you what, that puzzle’s killing me. Yeah, matter of fact, you’re going to be hanging out maybe soon next to my house with the [00:02:00] puzzle. I might need your help, man. I’m telling you what, it’s brutal. It’s getting to a brutal spot. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Alright, what else do we say? This is the human emotional experience which we do endeavor to figure out together.
Numbing out. Numbing out. What did you guys think when you When you got this, I’m going to say
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s, I just make myself laugh all the time. It sounds like a boomer. Who’s trying to be cool.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, wow. What does numbing now
Victoria Pendergrass: say numbing out? Oh,
Chris Gazdik: is that not a cool term anymore? You’re a Gen X or first of all, let’s be clear.
I am not a boomer,
Victoria Pendergrass: which is why I said it. So you
Chris Gazdik: could
John-Nelson Pope: say hello, boomer.
Chris Gazdik: Wait a minute, is this, Victoria, are you saying, is this not a, is this not a current term? I don’t know. Did I fail?
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t know. We don’t say numbing out
Chris Gazdik: in young clinician world? No,
Victoria Pendergrass: no right now. They’re crashing out
Chris Gazdik: crashing out. Yeah, it’s the same thing as numbing out.[00:03:00]
Victoria Pendergrass: No, it’s actually
Chris Gazdik: What it okay? No Neil says no Something just happened here guys. I don’t know what the heck’s going on John You
John-Nelson Pope: know, I, I don’t.
Chris Gazdik: I don’t know. No, seriously, I’m asking a serious question, Victoria. You’re, you’re a clinician.
Victoria Pendergrass: I, I know what you’re implying. However, I don’t think I have ever used the term numbing out in any of my therapy sessions.
Really? What do you
Chris Gazdik: say? Withdrawal, shutting down. Yeah. What is the way that we refer to this then? Seriously, I need to know. Shutting
Victoria Pendergrass: down. Withdrawing. I mean, okay, we might say numbing. We used to call it. Or a numb feet, like I feel numb. Someone the other day said that they felt like they were drowning.
But, I don’t know if I’ve ever specifically used. Tune in, tune out. Yeah. Drop out. Dissociating. I don’t know.
John-Nelson Pope: Derealization. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: derailing.
Chris Gazdik: Interesting. Okay. These are all synonyms, all of these [00:04:00] for the listening audience. These are synonyms, meaning, and,
John-Nelson Pope: and, and, and a couple of them are, are terms of art are, are jargon from counseling.
Well, absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: Right. They’re, they’re definitely therapy words and vernacular therapy words. I
Victoria Pendergrass: know. I just love it because it is so true.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, okay, I thank you Victoria. I had shortcuts. Yeah, I had no idea that is that is absolutely fascinating Do you think people do not understand? What I mean when we say I
Victoria Pendergrass: think people couldn’t
Chris Gazdik: infer it
Victoria Pendergrass: infer.
Yeah, figure
Chris Gazdik: it out
Victoria Pendergrass: You’re making it impossible,
John-Nelson Pope: but what somebody says Yes. That they feel numb, I take that quite literally in the sense that they’re psychologically and emotionally Absolutely. Just numb. Like
Victoria Pendergrass: when your legs go numb when you sit on the toilet too long.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. Well, I was thinking if you sit on your legs too long, you can get up.
Or that. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Hey, that’s a wonderful place for [00:05:00] electronic devices. By the way, the three questions we’re asking you to think about or coming along with us here is, in what ways do you tend to numb your emotions rather than face them? Okay? What word would we put there, Victoria, instead of numb?
Victoria Pendergrass: Numb is fine there.
Chris Gazdik: Numb is fine there?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yes. I’m talking about the phrase numbing out.
Chris Gazdik: Those two words together. Secondly, how do you differentiate between healthy coping and emotional avoidance? I guess that’s the same synonym as numb. And then thirdly, what small steps can you take to reconnect with your emotions in a safe way?
These are really important emotional skill sets to think about. You know, those three questions I think are really important for you to really think about yourself as we go through talking about. For instance, defining numbing out or other phrases and I’m sure survivor mode is another old term frankly, do you even know what I mean by that, [00:06:00] Victoria?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Cause we’ve talked about it on the show before. There’s a
John-Nelson Pope: great song. I will survive. Oh yeah. From the night.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. But there’s, but that’s totally different than survivor mode. I feel like. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Now I know it’s different. Yeah. Okay. And of course there’s the eye of the tiger by survivor.
Chris Gazdik: Yes.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Another musical reference.
Chris Gazdik: Is that a Through a Therapist’s Eye of the Tiger? Is that what we’re going for? Oh, right. That was
John-Nelson Pope: a Rocky movie. That was Rocky 3, I think.
Chris Gazdik: That was all of them. Anyway. What do we mean by this? Whether we’re talking about this associating, whether we’re talking about avoidance or withdrawing or shutting down, I’m using the term numbing out.
What does this really constitute? You just said, Victoria, you had somebody just the other day. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: so they felt like they were, they used the word specifically, they felt like they were drowning. Chris is getting attacked by a fake tree behind him or something. I don’t know what’s happening. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, so basically how I would define it is when [00:07:00] you’re basically, you’re doing like the bare minimum to get from day to day and that’s about it.
John-Nelson Pope: Like you’re
Victoria Pendergrass: doing what you need to do to like survive the next hour. And, or the next 24 hours, and like, we’re just not necessarily addressing issues or anything like that, we’re in survival mode.
Okay,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m gonna challenge you a little bit on that, I’m sorry. No, I love it. Okay, no, no. Drowning is not a good analogy because that means you can’t breathe and you are actually feel like you’re going to die. I think numbing out might mean isolating, might be hibernating, just withdrawing, going into your little cave and wintering
Victoria Pendergrass: over.
I want to, I want to disagree with you with that. I would agree with that. But yeah, maybe drowning isn’t necessarily the best.
I’m sorry.
Chris Gazdik: No, no. You’re fine. There’s a phrase that [00:08:00] people use that I, I, I love to dispel. As a matter of fact, it’s one of my first book, four points of my first book, you know, stop and reflect on your emotions. That, I’m actually, I think I’m going to talk about that more today, later on. But I, The phrase that drives me nuts, guys, is when people say, Oh, yeah, I don’t have emotions, you know?
I think Neil has said that before, you know? And we laugh, and it’s a fun phrase. It’s almost, though, fun and funny because, you know, and Neil, you can just give me a head nod. You know that’s a joke, right? You know that’s not true, right? He smiles, throws his head back, like, of course. So it’s sardonic. It’s definitely sardonic.
What’s the definition of sardonic?
John-Nelson Pope: Sardonic is Yeah, cause you got me there with that one. Okay, well, it’s just using wit that would be, Sarcasm. Sarcasm there’s another word that I used as a word of coin is sardistic. Okay. And so
Chris Gazdik: And you’re not making these up.
John-Nelson Pope: No, well, I’m making Sardistica, but [00:09:00] basically Sardonic is, is a way of retorting and you are, you are using a little bit of irony when When you say, well, we’re don’t have emotions, don’t have emotions.
I’m just cold emotions
Chris Gazdik: because here’s the deal. Every moment of every day that anybody who’s in therapy knows with me, I don’t like those words and I very rarely use them. Oh, every,
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t feel pain.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Yeah, you do. It’s, it’s, it’s unrealistic thinking about your system. Every moment of every single day, again, people that are in therapy with me, or, you know, me, I don’t like always forever.
No one, everyone, always all those words there. They’re usually. About 97 percent of the time unrealistic, but every moment of every day you are experiencing because we are an emotional entity as much as we are a physical and biological thought.
John-Nelson Pope: You mean we’re not just catatonic? We’re not
Chris Gazdik: just catatonic, John.
Even when [00:10:00] we’re asleep, we’re dreaming and the emotional system is absolutely at play. Why do you think you wake up when you’re stressed? Your system’s Always actually engaged now that becomes very confusing with this topic numbing out because you literally feel like I don’t think people are lying to me, Victoria, when they say, I really don’t know what I’m feeling and I don’t think I’m feeling anything.
Victoria Pendergrass: So, yeah, I would agree that. I think that people in that moment believe that what they’re saying is true, right? Or like, okay, so one thing. Yes. Okay. If you can’t necessarily. identify the feeling, then yeah, you might not be able to know what you’re feeling. But then the other side of it of like, well, I don’t think I’m feeling anything.
I think that that’s what it feels like. Mm-hmm. But then that’s not really what’s happening. Like they are feeling something. They just either can’t pinpoint it and identify it, or they’re not really sure how to label it. Like they don’t know. [00:11:00] They’re like, okay, well, they can describe it, but then they don’t know like, the word to put with it.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Yeah, it’s an, well, it’s also like an an underground river basically. Yeah. It’s, so, it’s, it’s going. It’s happening. It’s there. You just underground underground and it’s going to come out somewhere. It
Chris Gazdik: does find a way out Yeah, it always finds a way out and and usually this is why you know One of the big things I advocate is stop and reflect on emotions Real quick, I guess because that’s a point that we need to put in now And I think I’m gonna talk about it early later on.
Like I said, I Think you know Not objective about it, but I think it’s pretty cool what I did with writing the volume one re understanding your emotions, becoming your best self. Cause I looked at all of the chapters and I pulled all of those chapters down into like commonalities. And I, I came up with four, four themes, four.
Different areas that are, that are really [00:12:00] important. And if I’m correct in getting them, right, it’s valuing yourself. It’s focus points, it’s action points. And this fourth one is stopping and reflecting on emotions, because if you don’t purposely do that, you’ll believe, as you described Victoria, you don’t have them or that you know, that’s where this whole numb thing comes from.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s almost like CBT in some ways is what you’re doing, because those categories, right? What do you
Chris Gazdik: mean
John-Nelson Pope: go, go further? Well, no, I, I, I’m just here hearing that those, what you were doing is A, B, C, D, or E. Yeah. And so, okay, the four, the
Chris Gazdik: four categories. Four categories. Well, I’m heavily influenced by CBT, but I, yeah, I didn’t do that on purpose.
Nothing. No, I know You didn’t do it on purpose. That was just amazing to me, the way it came out. Yeah. Yeah. See,
John-Nelson Pope: that’s brilliant.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it was. That’s another
John-Nelson Pope: way of understanding that. Mm-hmm . So
Chris Gazdik: yeah, absolutely. So okay. I’m afraid I’ve been talking a lot and I want to turn it over to you guys But when [00:13:00] we saw when we talk about survival mode John, do you know where that comes from with Claudia black and The family dynamics with alcoholism and whatnot
John-Nelson Pope: No,
Chris Gazdik: no, I’m
John-Nelson Pope: no help me with it.
Chris Gazdik: Do you remember we’ve talked about that Victoria? We talked about survivor mode
Victoria Pendergrass: Maybe this is
Chris Gazdik: going to re I’m, I’m sure that’s going to come back to guys that
Victoria Pendergrass: we have, but
Chris Gazdik: okay, well, here’s where I learned survivor mode from a lady named Claudia black and we have a little bit of a theme.
John-Nelson Pope: I’ve heard of survivor mode.
Chris Gazdik: This. Well, how do you experience the survivor mode in specifically? Well, let’s say if you,
John-Nelson Pope: okay, if you’re dealing and you’re in a family or a situation and you’re a family member and you have someone that is in the throes of addiction and is not in recovery. And so basically what happens is you have emotional numbing, you or a sense of avoidance going on in your life.
Because you don’t want to have to deal with just the [00:14:00] emotional toll of living with somebody that has this. And so you check out and so survivor mode is I’ve got to preserve myself. I got to preserve the Children. I’ve got a over and over and over again, and it just becomes inculcated ingrained in you.
And so you can’t even allow yourself to have. Deep emotions or feelings or feel them or feel them. Let them come to the end. It’s the other, it’s the underground river again, right? And it’s going really fast and it’s raging rapids under pressure. And so, but some way they, it’s going to have to Gus gush up like an artesian well in Florida, good example back in the 1920s, people started moving in and to Florida and and they would.
Put a a well down and it would just gush, the water would just gush up and all of that because the water had come down through the [00:15:00] center of the state from the north. Oh wow. Yeah. And so you had this, this pressure more and more people come in and of course they tap more and more and the water pressure goes down.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: But back in those days you had that. It eventually has to come out, they still have it in Florida and they have these crystal springs. Those are wonderful springs, they’re healthy. And and so they come out and people that’s where the manatees come to keep warm. And that’s, yeah, that’s really, really cool stuff.
So I didn’t mean to go off on that, but it was just, it helps us to, it’s an analogy. It
Chris Gazdik: helps us very much to understand the underwater. River that we have going on if we don’t allow it to come to the surface, which is one of the primary skills that I think we can talk about here and implemented where, you know, I’m slow on the uptake and sometimes and really only recently in my career.
So, you know, a few five years ago, I started to think about things differently when I hear the metaphors. People will come to [00:16:00] therapy. They want to get at the root of the problem, or they want to, you know, they want to dig deep. They want to go deep into the ground, get it. That means something. It does. And I don’t have any problem with that.
Let me, let me make no mistake, but this whole river, what we need to do is simply stop putting that pressure. We are exerting pressure. And so if we find the easier way, not that I’m looking for an easier way in therapy, but I like to redo those metaphors and suggest if you stop spending so much energy to suppress, compress, compartmentalize your emotional life and you allow whatever it is to come to the surface, the important stuff will come because otherwise, what do we do if we’re digging in the wrong space?
We may miss the thing altogether that’s important. So it’s like that beach ball when you’re in a pool when a kid, right? Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: The game is to hold it underwater as long as you can and people mess with you.
John-Nelson Pope: Huh.
Chris Gazdik: Very hard to hold that sucker.
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: Underwater. So if you just stop that It comes to the surface, [00:17:00] John, and you see what’s there at the surface.
That’s the antidote
John-Nelson Pope: to numbing out. So you have to, to, to drill a well in the right place and let it come out or it comes out in a natural spring.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I’m saying, you know, to, to, to deal with the metaphor, it’s not even drilling, it’s, it’s simply, you know, not. Throwing dirt on the ground, not, you know, making dams, not, you know, putting pressure, you know, we, we try to keep it from coming up through the ground in Florida, nobody’s drilling any well.
So, so it’s a matter of just stop doing all of the things that we do to keep the underwater underground river underground. We, you have to create great, it takes great effort to keep it under underground. We suppress things, we compartmentalize them, there’s a lot going on. So, yeah, I mean, it’s just exciting to think about that.
I, I, I, I used this as a concept because we have a little bit of a substance abuse theme this month, if you haven’t told by now. You know, these are family dynamics that happen with, with just avoiding emotion [00:18:00] and suppressing things. But, but this also happens in, where else guys? You know sexual abuse families for sure.
You know, chaotic, dramatic, domestic violence, you know, where
Victoria Pendergrass: Any kind of toxic environment.
Chris Gazdik: Mm hmm, where there’s
Victoria Pendergrass: like work environment toxic work environments. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. I’ll talk about that
Victoria Pendergrass: We
John-Nelson Pope: don’t have, I’m just, John, we
Victoria Pendergrass: do not.
John-Nelson Pope: Dang. We’re just, we’re, we’re ribbing. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: no, I mean, there’s, I even had a new person today that mentioned that she has some past like work stuff that we haven’t, are going to have to dig into.
And so like, yeah, work is deaf.
John-Nelson Pope: So you’re going to be digging up bones.
Victoria Pendergrass: Work is. It’s definitely a, can be a breeding ground. I think
John-Nelson Pope: we, well, that for a lot of people and who hasn’t had a toxic work environment? I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: not here, but not
Victoria Pendergrass: here. This has been very good.
John-Nelson Pope: This [00:19:00] is a family. So
Chris Gazdik: Carolyn Baker says, Hey Carolyn.
Great explanation. Quite eye opening. The survivor mode specifically comes from Claudia black. You guys remember the story we’ve talked about before of her in the living room. I know you remember this Victoria where she’s sitting on the couch with her boyfriend and at her parents house who owned the bar next door.
This doesn’t ring a bell.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes, it does.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Okay. Not yet. And, and, and the boyfriend and her and her sibling are watching TV and, you know, some big burly guy who slams open the door and I’ve heard this, you’ve heard this outside of me. No. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, he slams out. He’s like, I, I, where’s the bathroom at?
You know, it’s like, this is my living room. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: I have heard it.
Chris Gazdik: Right. You have. Yeah. And Claudia just points and. You know, directs the guy to go to the bathroom and, you know, he, he comes back out and he slams the door closed and he leaves the house, you know, and the boy, you know, she just proceeds to start watching TV.
Like this is normal. Meanwhile, the boyfriend’s tripping out. He’s freaking out. He’s a way, you know? [00:20:00]
John-Nelson Pope: And so I like
Chris Gazdik: to ask clients like who’s in
John-Nelson Pope: survivor mode. Hopefully you can tell pretty clearly that’s done in flat family. I actually, where I heard it first was in family systems. Yes. Oh, really? In systems theory.
Yeah. In systems. Okay. But it could have been Claudia Black, you know, I think it was her work that they were used
Chris Gazdik: because I heard her tell that exact story live. She, she, that’s what she lived because it was a real story. So the boyfriend’s been
John-Nelson Pope: around for some time. It has.
Chris Gazdik: It has. The boyfriend is, is, is, is stunned and.
You know, stuck and not able to move forward. So the advantage, the adaptive, hear this, the adaptive nature of numbing out allows you to be seemingly. Unaffected by turmoil, toxicity, stress, drama, at worst, you know, life threatening situations so that you could just move on. And that’s the advantage of numbing out, but there’s great disadvantages that we’re going to be talking about.[00:21:00]
John-Nelson Pope: Could your cortisol levels be high even though you numb out? In other words Oh, wow, love that. Yeah, because I’m just saying, by the way, I’m going to do the other thing because what we had talked about hormones, right? Stress. Oh yeah. Tell Victoria. That’s
Chris Gazdik: awesome. I tried. I got so excited. I tried to tell her.
He
Victoria Pendergrass: told me that y’all created a new theory or something.
Chris Gazdik: You have to listen to episode 302 John and I created together a full new theory about addiction That was wild.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: give me the cliff notes. Well, I Good. I’m
John-Nelson Pope: not real good at it. I mean, this is but essentially is this It’s that that addiction is, is, is that some people are predisposed to it, not just because of genetics, but also because it changes one’s let’s say the more you drink, for example, and you become addicted, it raises your estrogen in both women and men.
And that has some effects that could [00:22:00] be certainly in men. Very detrimental and and it causes and it also rises, raises cortisol levels. And so it kind of reinforces the addictive process, addiction process. Or, and
Chris Gazdik: like literally when there’s. things that we don’t understand in the field, that’s my kind of go to now.
And I think that we’ve landed interestingly on access to personality disorders and whatnot. And last time we added, of course, we know menopause affects greatly, you know, midlife women with, with hormones and men as well. Slower, much, much 50, 55, 60, and then addiction being another one. Like, potentially the endocrine system with hormones is busting us up.
John-Nelson Pope: And that’s when a lot of women and I won’t say this, but if they’re going to become alcoholics do that during menopause, perimenopause. It’s a thing, man. Right, it’s a thing. It’s crazy. And that doesn’t excuse men from becoming [00:23:00] alcoholics, obviously, as well, but it does affect men very negatively as well.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, which drives me crazy because I don’t know that you can become an alcoholic. I mean, I don’t understand what you’re saying. We’ve talked about that before, we won’t degenerate into that, but Yeah, yeah. Are you at birth or not is the big debate, yeah. You and I usually agree. Well, yeah, I think you do. I mean, you are at birth.
Yeah, or you’re not. Or you’re not. So how do you create that in life? It’s a big mystery to me. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: I think there’s
Chris Gazdik: the hormones.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, the hormone
Chris Gazdik: maybe
John-Nelson Pope: yeah,
Chris Gazdik: you know, all right, we need to move on What what are the effects the psychological effects the physiological? Effects, how does this really impact lives when you have people sitting in front of you that are so shut down?
Victoria that are so struggling with avoidance, you know, like what does that do with prolonged impact? I mean everyone in experience is a really dramatic event in your life You’re probably going to have a period of what we used to call kind of [00:24:00] shock, right? When I broke my arm, man, I was in shock. I couldn’t, you know, if you ever had this, this experience of like, I, I don’t know if that just happened.
It’s almost like surreal. You disassociate car wrecks, you know, suddenly the world is still from obviously going through a car wreck. I’ll never forget that as a kid when my car did 360 back downhill. And I just sat there like in silence with the radio still playing. Like, did that really happen? Were
John-Nelson Pope: you 13 years old and you hotwired your.
Chris Gazdik: No, man, I was a legal driver, John. I was legal that you’re thinking of my kid.
For real love you. A that’s all I’m going to say. I got two kids with a, in the first name. So, so that is numbing out, but what about what we’re talking about is prolonged time with his months. After months or even years guys, what does that really do to people?
Victoria Pendergrass: Breaks them [00:25:00] down Makes it so they don’t have like coping skills to Get them out of it
Chris Gazdik: Okay,
Victoria Pendergrass: right
Chris Gazdik: go further with that.
Yeah. No, absolutely.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean like if you’re so stuck in survival mode, then like You’re not really going to be focused like I don’t know. To me, it goes back to like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Like if you’re not having those like basic needs being met, then you can’t like go further or address other things or work on other things.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, you’re on point. I’m just letting you go. You’re already so
Victoria Pendergrass: quiet, I’m like am I wrong? You’re not at the top of
John-Nelson Pope: the pyramid.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, well, and so it’s then, it just seems like Everything just seems so overwhelming that you feel like, okay, I’m just in survival mode, like I’m not even going to attempt to, like, work on these other things that are coming my way.
Is
Chris Gazdik: it possible that full blown [00:26:00] clinical anxiety presentations, which usually are genetic in nature, can be non genetic in nature and look like that from this? Yeah. Yeah. That’s what you’re describing, right? Yeah. Right, John? Go a little further, John. What are you thinking?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I was, I was thinking of a good movie.
It was Joe vs. the Volcano with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. And a guy that was Don’t know it. He was a, well, he was a, He was a worker drone basically in a schlub and had no, no feature or anything of this sort. And he was a drudge basically. And he gets this opportunity to, it’s a parable, rent it, get it.
Okay. And so going as far as anxiety is concerned I think much of it is genetic. I think it’s epigenetic as well. I think that for, for people that have PTSD, there is a a sense that that is li [00:27:00] that is not necessarily comes from a genetic aspect of anxiety, but it, it is a, an overlay into them and it becomes ingrained in them.
And so you would have the PTSD symptoms and you would have the numbing that occurs and the D D realization depersonalization that comes with that. I’m going.
Chris Gazdik: No, you’re absolutely rolling with it. I mean, honestly, what’s kind of amazing to me, you know, I talk about in therapy, a tale of two tapes. It’s an overview of mental health.
I said many times, you know, like a formulaic kind of thing. I think about how much of percentages what you’re having a problem with biological genetic exercise and nutrition, but the other side being Right? Like social and emotional realities, life experiences, life relationships, primary stress of the day, daily grunt, like those, those things combined together.
And it is, it is utterly amazing to me that something like chronic numbing out and what you guys are talking about can literally [00:28:00] create or certainly way worse in clinical manifestations. of full blown depression or anxiety. And it’s really a choice that you’re kind of making that can be very different.
Right? Here’s the, here’s the thing I think about. So I, I, I, you know, I write things down when I create different therapy moments. And it just happened yesterday, or actually today yesterday, yeah, maybe, yeah, no, maybe today. I can’t remember. Today or yesterday. Think about this. This was a real life therapy moment.
It’ll be a chapter in a book probably at some point. This says something like, how did I put it? You can’t, you can’t accept other people unconditionally, or you can’t accept other people as they are, unless you accept yourself just as you are. Okay. Right?
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: And I think there’s a lot of truth to that.
Basically, you can’t be kind to other people if you’re not kind to yourself. You can’t [00:29:00] Unconditionally love somebody if you don’t love yourself, right? Right. John. John just glowed. What happened? They do? What happened, John?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, it just occurs to me that let’s say a mother or a father But I was very highly critical about the, the child’s weight, for example, or this is not a per the, this child’s not doing as well in school.
And the, the, basically that parent. Maybe unintentionally is projecting their own feelings of inadequacy onto their, their kiddo and causing that person to be anxious. So when I
Chris Gazdik: said that you lit up though, because you’re realizing or knew, or he got excited about the fact that that little kid, because of those reasons is in that state,
John-Nelson Pope: right?
Chris Gazdik: They don’t accept themselves. So they can’t accept others.
John-Nelson Pope: Exactly. Because then they pass that on. Right. So you, you can pass the good stuff on, [00:30:00] but you can pass the good stuff on to change it. You can change it. Pass
Chris Gazdik: a different.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. That’s
Chris Gazdik: what we’re getting at.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s right. And that is a key to I’m going to go kind of deep on this logo therapy, which is existential therapy, which is you it’s being able to reach out and take that leap of faith to, to try to, to be kind.
And good to others, even if you don’t necessarily feel it about yourself, you go and do it because it can make a difference in a person’s life. And that other person will reflect back to you and you’ll go, wow, wow. I feel good.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. What was that?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: right.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I think that this is quit. Essentially, the biggest factor was one of the big things that our entire field like this numbing out does not had dealing with emotions.
This withdrawing and shutting down is so huge it and it’s [00:31:00] not. You know, it’s not just men that do this, this is absolutely women. You know, in the Pursuit Withdrawal stuff that we talk about, it’s not just people that withdraw and shut down. Abandonment people do this too. We just throw a bunch of flack out in the air and not talk about what’s real.
We’re disguising or hiding. Like, we numb this shit out that we can’t handle. And the more that we do that, the chronic nature that we do that, that is what limits us from being able to be kind or accept others. You can’t be kind
John-Nelson Pope: and accepting to yourself.
Chris Gazdik: You have to do that first. Right. Unless you’re fake it till you make it.
Like you just described John, but you have to be able to do that first. And people wonder why, you know, why do I feel so dead? Ronnie
John-Nelson Pope: Edler says fake it till you make it too. But here’s the question. And that is. If you look at other people’s problems and what you perceive as them not having, not meeting perfection to your standards, you’re not [00:32:00] looking at your own and you’re not able to be gracious to yourself and say, I can’t, I I, I have to let go and that unforgiveness, I have to let go of that for myself.
Yeah. Yeah. What I’ve done to myself or what my parents did to me or whatever.
Chris Gazdik: So now you’re talking about getting into a place of trying to let go and have grace for yourself. Yeah. Maybe I’m not. I think there’s a lot there. No. You said there was a question though. What did you say? Or you had a question and then went on to.
No,
John-Nelson Pope: no. I just. Where you at, Victoria? What you thinking? I’m 71.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, John. That’s not an excuse.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. You’re good. We love you, brother.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. I took my vitamin D.
Victoria Pendergrass: Good. Oh. Buddy. Okay, we’re sorry now. We’re
John-Nelson Pope: taking prevalent Prevagen. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: What do you think in Victoria? Where are you at? I’m just checking in with you. Oh,
Victoria Pendergrass: no. I’m actually just sit back [00:33:00] for today. I’m listening to y’all.
And I mean, not to say I don’t have experience in it. It’s just that I like hearing y’all talk about it. I mean, I do think that a lot of times when it comes to women, it might, like you said, kind of show up differently than in men. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I don’t know. I think sometimes the one thing that popped into my head is like, you know, when you become like a first time mom and like,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, scary.
And
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah, those first couple and not to discount doubts too, but like that first couple days and weeks is like, ah, like you’re just like, I, I would probably describe what I went through in survival mode. Like I just. I, but I do get that how sometimes we do this thing where it’s like, I get what you’re saying about, I don’t know, all over the place, about like taking care of yourself before.
Or you have to like be good with yourself before other people and a lot of times like when we become [00:34:00] moms or when you know like that Philosophy kind of gets thrown out the door for a long time.
Chris Gazdik: It does
Victoria Pendergrass: roughly 18 years and And then yeah, and so then you’re like, you know, you become empty nesters and you know we’ve talked before about how like sometimes empty nester and nesting leads to like divorce and things because people just like aren’t
Chris Gazdik: They haven’t maintained.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, and they’re just not the same. You know, it’s been all, all their energy has been put forth to this kid or kids, you know, for the past 18 or so years. And now it’s like, what the heck am I doing? What’s
Chris Gazdik: interesting, Victoria, if I could just jump in, is because in your life cycle and your status that you’ve shared about already, so I’m not breaking the news.
I mean, obviously, you know, how old is the little guy? He’ll be three in like two weeks. Right, and remember, my mind The survivor mode or the, the survivor mode is what happens during the lost decade, which is your oldest kid being four to 14. You remember that you’re like coming into, [00:35:00] I’m listening to you and I’m like, yeah, because you’re just coming into this.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. You are going to have to like keep me accountable to make sure it’s not a lost decade. For absolutely,
John-Nelson Pope: absolutely. And my own therapist and I have clients that have are so busy that taking their kiddos. Back and forth to travel teams, sports and things like that. They miss their seasons of their kids’ lives.
Yeah. And they’re missing a very important season of their own lives. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s true. It’s true. You know, I, I, yeah, I think, but I,
Victoria Pendergrass: but it’s that, I think it’s just the thing that we think. Like, I can see some people giving you pushback on that statement because they’re like, well, you know, I will have to take care of my kid first before I take care of myself.
And I tell people all, and I’ve probably said it here, all the time that if you can’t adequately take care of yourself, then you can’t adequately take care of your husband, and then you can’t adequately together take [00:36:00] care of your child. Which is not saying that you are responsible for taking care of your husband.
We just mean like being there for like their emotional support, all those things. If you’re not, Meaning, yeah. You’re only running
John-Nelson Pope: on two cylinders. Yeah. You’re not running on all four or all eight or six. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like
Chris Gazdik: it’s the theme today, when you’re not really managing your emotions, when you’re numbing out and withdrawing, then it has a real impact in your life.
You cannot be available for others. You’re detached.
John-Nelson Pope: You’re burned out percent.
Chris Gazdik: You’re burnt out. How many people. You just are in such great pain with this. Victoria, I want to push back a little bit when you say women and men. I mean, it is a great example of becoming a mom, but I would submit to you any time, again, one of these permanency words, I don’t know why that’s happening today, because this is so common.
You’re just
Victoria Pendergrass: talking about big transitions. Any
Chris Gazdik: time you’re going through big transitions, big life events, you know, dramatic [00:37:00] things in your life, this happens naturally. It’s a natural reality you kind of check out
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. If you
Chris Gazdik: call it emotional shock, if you want. Yeah, you can call
Victoria Pendergrass: it different things.
Right?
Chris Gazdik: But it’s a natural, like, process. This thing that happens in addiction families or in, you know, domestic violence families is it happens so often and it gets ingrained.
John-Nelson Pope: The old term for PTSD is shell shock.
Chris Gazdik: That is an old, right?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And it’s the shock is you’re numb. I was in an explosion. And Like a real one?
Yeah. Oh boy. I got, I got blown up. Oh man. So, yeah. Okay. So.
Victoria Pendergrass: Glad to see you got put back together. I
Chris Gazdik: know man.
John-Nelson Pope: Well. Sort of anyway. I didn’t know. I was, I was blown away. Like,
Victoria Pendergrass: literally.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, no damage outwardly to my, to my limbs, but and internal organs, but I was shocked into them. And I was and literally.
Blown like a [00:38:00] ragdoll. Okay. I was absolutely numb
Chris Gazdik: in your
John-Nelson Pope: military service in my military service. I was on a training exercise, friendly fire. They had a big old explosion and I got hit and the explosion was so big. It moved me and it could have moved my organs and all of that in my head. And, and so I got a little head injury, but I’m saying that is because absolutely numb.
I didn’t feel anything for about four or five hours and
Victoria Pendergrass: then it all came rushing in.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. I hurt like hell, but I was black and blue covered. Yeah. So what I’m saying to you is that’s, that was a physiological shock for me, psychologically. It happens the same way. People are shell shocked. They go days and days and days of constant being having a live fire over them.
They’d never have a physical injury, [00:39:00] but they had the percussion and all of that and it wears on them. They don’t get any sleep or anything of this sort. You’re growing up in an addictive household and it day after day after day after day after day, you are numb,
Chris Gazdik: right? Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Your emotional system naturally does that to protect you just like your natural system did that to protect you with physical pain, right?
John-Nelson Pope: That didn’t feel anything. Yeah, did not.
Chris Gazdik: You’re literally blown up. Black and blue all over your body. Although you said no outwardly effects. Well, I mean, I had no outwardly effects. Yeah, I look like I
John-Nelson Pope: was wearing camouflage. I turned green, basically. Green and blue. Man, that is wild.
Chris Gazdik: But, you know, when I broke my arm, I remember looking at my arm in a U shape, thinking, That should probably really hurt.
That’s
John-Nelson Pope: not
Victoria Pendergrass: what it’s
Chris Gazdik: supposed to be like right now.
John-Nelson Pope: My eye was cherry red. You know, I blew, you [00:40:00] know, that sort of thing.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, but it’s a beautiful thing. If you think about it, the way our bodies do that, emotionally and physically. Like, if it’s too much, you just don’t have to do it. But you have to
John-Nelson Pope: eventually come back and you have to feel The pain.
Literally. Yeah. Literally. Because otherwise you’re, you’re going to keep doing stuff that will not help you. You will not be able to process. So
Chris Gazdik: that’s a teaching moment.
John-Nelson Pope: Mm hmm.
Chris Gazdik: Eventually, you will have to come back to that and feel the pain. Go further with that.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, and I think that part too. It sucks.
It’s scary. The, the, the thing that I thought for me, I had some deficits cognitive deficits for about two or three months and after that, after that, you know, you know, and and coming back, it was difficult. I [00:41:00] couldn’t have, I didn’t have concentration I, and then I start the idea that physical pain or those deficits also psychologically, I got depressed a little bit, I became overly anxious.
Right. Right. I developed. PTSD, I would wake up in in the middle of the night and I would be pulling dirt off my head. Right. From
Chris Gazdik: that incident. From that incident
John-Nelson Pope: that wasn’t there. I got up and I protected my wife, didn’t remember anything and she had to calm me down. Yeah. And that was painful to be able to talk about it.
But the more I talked about it, the more I processed it, the more I was able to, to, I didn’t feel the pain as much. I was able to put the memories from my limbic system and put it inside my long term memory.
Chris Gazdik: Say this again. You talked about it and what happened? I
John-Nelson Pope: processed it. And it went into [00:42:00] the way you describe it, it goes into your, to your frontal lobes, the exact, which deals with the executive process, thought process, abstract thinking, because in the past, when I started having and re experiencing everything, it was the it’d go back into the limbic system.
Well, once I started processing it and talking to a therapist and friends, friends, yeah. Church, my wife, who I love or loved. Anyway, I’d still over and it goes into my long term memories. Yeah, and then it’s out there. Yeah, but it doesn’t hurt
Chris Gazdik: So I’m excited to follow up with that because somebody close to me recently.
I really had a conversation with them about Their service and their experience brother. I love that you did it and I’m giving you props I’m not gonna say the name or how I know him but He, he, he’s close to me. And I’ve had a few Marines that are close to me. Mm-hmm . I’ve sat on the show before. So [00:43:00] it was one of them.
And the challenge is, is that he, there was an experience where it was in a physical altercation mm-hmm . And it started. Playing those tapes in his head boy, that clicking worked well and it did, didn’t it? And, and as that started to play, he was having these reactions again.
John-Nelson Pope: He was reliving it.
Chris Gazdik: He talked about it, John.
He learned the lesson from not too long ago. Exactly. Let’s give a round of clicks, right? You know that he did that because, because you get it power over
John-Nelson Pope: it. You gain agency over it, right? It
Chris Gazdik: doesn’t control you and you don’t have to do what your body does naturally which is shutting down with Drawing and numbing out as Victoria loves the term.
You love numbing, right? You do not. She does not love numbing out. This is a girl [00:44:00] I never said it. I never Hold on a minute.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, though. I never said I didn’t like it. I just said that I’ve never used it.
Chris Gazdik: Exactly. This is a girl that does not numb out very much. And I say that lovingly to her. She’s the opposite.
Yeah. Which is also a problem for her. This just springs out.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, Stimulants for that. But there, when the period of time where I was not taking stimulants and I just pushed a baby out of my body, yeah, we might have been in survival mode for quite a bit of time.
Chris Gazdik: How do we know when this is getting to be dangerous when you’re in this pattern?
What happens with people that do stay stuck in this? We’ve actually given some alternatives already to get out of this. That we’ve talked about it. But what happens, how do we know when this becomes even more dangerous?
Victoria Pendergrass: Maybe when you’re not just endangering your life, but also endangering, like, obviously it’s important if you’re endangering your life, okay?
[00:45:00] But, when you’re also endangering others lives, like potentially children who cannot Protect themselves like they’re not, you know,
Chris Gazdik: what do you think happens? Victoria was somebody who is the perpetrator of domestic violence.
Victoria Pendergrass: The perpetrator?
Chris Gazdik: The perpetrator. I would arguably suggest that they have been numbing out their entire lives.
Victoria Pendergrass: So then yeah, in that point of view, you risk doing something that you can’t undo. Right. Something that obviously you might regret. Right. Like, yeah, or harming someone else. Harming yourself.
Chris Gazdik: Suicide is a real Freaking thing and military personnel, particularly john, we were talking before the lives mics came on first responders live this way
John-Nelson Pope: all the time.
24 7
Chris Gazdik: and it’s dangerous. There’s suicide.
John-Nelson Pope: The level of [00:46:00] substance abuse amongst first responders is just
Chris Gazdik: profound,
John-Nelson Pope: astronomical
Chris Gazdik: Yes, lots and lots and lots of drinking
John-Nelson Pope: and we honor them. They are our protectors. We for society, we need to do better by them and help them, but they, but they can often become themselves.
Unfortunately, they have to watch it, that they don’t become perpetrators themselves. It’s a slippery slope. Yeah. It really is. Or it can be a slippery slope. That’s the danger. I mean, that’s
Victoria Pendergrass: like when, I mean, it may not be to the same extent, but like, I don’t know if this is just me as a millennial. You know, but like a lot of times when okay millennial.
All right, just shoot it Come on, go when people have had like a hard day at work or like a rough time and they go they’re like Oh my gosh, I just I just want to drink until I don’t feel anything anymore You know like
John-Nelson Pope: till they were numb.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah [00:47:00] until like And so, yeah, I can see how And then,
Chris Gazdik: here’s the thing, really, we’re in danger now.
This is, this is, this is getting danger ground, right? Because then you begin to have the belief that, yeah, I really don’t have emotions. This actually doesn’t bother me anymore. I’ve, I don’t know, I just saw somebody beheaded on a, on a traffic accident, and I’m okay, I’m having chicken wings with my buddy, watching football three hours later.
You begin to believe that. And, I, I, I gotta tell ya, I can’t tell you how many police officers and I love the men and women. I support the blue I’m honored to work with police officers first responders and military personnel It’s one of the biggest honors I have but I have heard so many times in my check ins with these folks How you doing this week?
What’s been going on? I was like, i’m fine Nothing’s i’m good. But are you?
John-Nelson Pope: No
Nurses used to work with nurses a lot in the military as well. And they [00:48:00] would say nothing of talking about, well, her uterus fell out and we had to stuff it back in. And, you know, just do that quite a.
Chris Gazdik: That’s awful. See again, we’re in danger land here. Yes, danger. This is years and years, a long time of numbing out and the fact of the matter is police officers get divorced.
John-Nelson Pope: At a high rate.
Chris Gazdik: At a very high rate. Therapists for that matter.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: have a get a lot of hits. We get
John-Nelson Pope: the vicarious
Chris Gazdik: right? If you’re a therapist out there and you’re not dealing with all that you’re taking in, you know, we used to call it burnout. That’s what the fact is. Now we call it compassion fatigue.
Hell, we’ve probably got some other I don’t know. But It’s the same thing. It means the same thing. It does. It means the same thing. It means we’re not dealing with our emotions. And I remember one of the big four of my book project was really like, stop. And you have to stop and reflect on
John-Nelson Pope: what it is that you’re experiencing.
Self care. Very [00:49:00] important for a therapist or for a first responder. And that is that they take the time to be able to decompress and recreate. And do it in a way that is not necessarily tied to alcohol or any other substances.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I think therapy also, sorry, therapists other downfall is that we try to be our own therapist.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And so then that, like I had a new person today and they, they literally said. It’s not working me being my own therapist, and I was like, yeah, right, right, you know, I’m
Chris Gazdik: laughing at myself because honestly, it took me an exorbitant amount of time to get over that. It’s like, you know, I love Casey’s statement back from the day, you know, in case he’s like a good therapist, the best therapists have a therapist.
And it’s totally true. Like I hung on to that belief, John, like, Oh, I’m fine. I don’t need any of this. for, [00:50:00] for quite a while, quite a while.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. That was something we were first taught in when I took my mental health courses first in seminary and pastoral counseling is what we did. And they, they would say it’s everyone needs a therapist.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: you know, and
Chris Gazdik: I think we’re going to get to that point when we talk about futuristic thinking about mental health and substance abuse fields, you know, that we will have, you know, your family therapist, just like you have your family general practitioner, doctor, everyone kind of has touch tones with.
I think that will Be the case, you know, more and more as we, as we go. And so how do we get out of this? What do we do? We’ve, we’ve already mentioned some really good things, I think, but, you know, what do we, what do we do to kind of get out of this? What are the alternatives? I’m speaking the truth as much as I can about stop and reflect on emotions.
That’s, that’s kind of my, my big deal. But I mean, when we talk about, you know, self care, I call that the cornerstone of mental health. [00:51:00] Oh.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s what I call
Chris Gazdik: it. Because it all starts with like, do you detach from the stress around you, take care of yourself with something fun, and then move back in with fluidity so that you can engage the world, but take care of yourself.
That’s, you know, a funny way of putting self care. But yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Also, having a good support system. Like having people who We’ll help keep you accountable. We’ll help call you out on things like who you’re comfortable, like, you know, talking with people about, like, having a good community slash support system slash village, whatever you want to call it, can be extremely helpful.
Chris Gazdik: But Victoria, I don’t want to be vulnerable with other people. I’m gonna do it alone. I’ll be fine. Why would I need to do that? How many times have we heard that crap?
Victoria Pendergrass: Put your freaking pride aside. Okay?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I think in our culture too. And,
Victoria Pendergrass: like, that’s the thing is, [00:52:00] you know, as we do talk about, like, you know, in the future of like mental health, like, it’s not a bad thing.
I mean, I was literally working with a kid today on, like, getting over, not like that, but like, getting over not asking for help. Like,
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: It is okay, like, and so we’ve been, like, we’re working on this, it’s an ongoing process, but, like, we’re working on this whole, like, Like, barriers that keep this person from like, asking for help.
And you know what, Victoria, I would even
Chris Gazdik: water that down and make that safer by, by, by this. I’m just listening. I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: not telling, I don’t, this is not how I talk to this kid. Okay, obviously,
Chris Gazdik: obviously, but, but what I’m saying is I was listening to you and what not, and I think the point that I want to make there is just let somebody know.
That’s all. You don’t have to ask for anything. You don’t have to really even be quote unquote vulnerable. You can kind [00:53:00] of make it out to be like, you know, something that you’re fine with, but that you’re letting somebody know. Go to your neighbor. They might be shocked that you’re talking. But if you simply just let them know, that gives you another human being that knows this.
Like, it Honestly breaks my heart the many many times that people have come to me in a therapy session and Tell me about something and I ask that question Who else in this world?
Victoria Pendergrass: Knows
Chris Gazdik: what you just told me and and when they say, you know No, no one.
Victoria Pendergrass: Mm hmm
Chris Gazdik: It just breaks my heart.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, great example this morning when I came to you And sat on your couch and you were like, oh my gosh, what’s wrong?
And I was like and I told you what’s happening and I wasn’t looking for you to give me a fix like I just kind of was like I need to get this off my chest because I am about to scream in this office because i’m so frustrated and like No [00:54:00] one else is here yet. And you came in and I like bombarded you and right.
But like, I wasn’t, yeah. And I wasn’t, and you didn’t get, try to give me a fix. You were just like, I understand. And you know, as part of being a homeowner and blah, blah, blah, I like all these things. And I was like, yes, it just fricking. Sucks
Chris Gazdik: and and and you didn’t you didn’t appear weak. You didn’t appear vulnerable even really honestly, you were just kind of telling me and obviously irritated and frustrated and concerned about something but Yeah, you just got to let people know don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t be alone with what’s in your head Anymore
Victoria Pendergrass: the chances of you finding someone else Who’s also going through that same thing or has experienced that same thing really strong.
It’s very high And so then you might be able to find somebody who can actually like You know, legitimately empathize with you because they have been there, or they’re currently going through it themselves.
Chris Gazdik: You know what, usually, John, exactly, you [00:55:00] know, Victoria, you’re on point. I mean, people may not experience the exact thing you’re describing, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to people just throwing crap off my chest to tell somebody, and they, they do something miraculous.
If I say something to them, that gives them permission to share theirs with me. And guess what we are from that point forward usually? We’re
Victoria Pendergrass: friends!
Chris Gazdik: We’re friends, Victoria. It opens up shared pain points. We’re
Victoria Pendergrass: passing that line of trust.
Chris Gazdik: You’re engaging in a community and, and doing things together. And it feels shockingly safe.
It really does. Yeah. Because, because you’re getting They’re going to experience something like that Victoria. Yeah. Yeah. How do we thrive, you know, how do we move from this? These are some of the things we do to cope. These are some of the things we do How do we really thrive in in life with the support system that we have?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I’m wondering [00:56:00] how is that? Some of my best memories was in my youth group And Oh, I love that. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. Sharing. Yeah. And you share in that group. I just snorted. I’m with you. That’s awesome. No, no. We need to engage more. Just took me back. That’s all. But I’ve also have I have a couple of cancer survivors and they’re cancer thrivers.
Basically, and they have been in support groups and survivor groups and they actually show a great deal of maturity that something similar can to people that are well on the road to sobriety and in recovery.
Chris Gazdik: I love the way that you just did that because we have a little bit of a family dynamics and recovery theme this month and and and the idea of not.
Doing it alone together. We can do what we cannot do alone is what you find in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, which was what works best for most in [00:57:00] recovery. And I’ll tell you some of the, the, the, the, the best experiences I’ve had where I felt fulfilled and supported and encouraged are in wait for it.
Groups. Groups. Neil knows the group that we’re in with our mastermind group, like that has been so powerful and important to me for the last seven years.
Victoria Pendergrass: That’s a long time. It’s a
Chris Gazdik: powerful thing when you make those kind of connections. What kind of group is a
John-Nelson Pope: mastermind group?
Chris Gazdik: A mastermind is just a group of men learning about life, business.
Right. But you
John-Nelson Pope: learned a lot about. Mental health. You’ve learned a lot about your, yourself, your spouses. You’ve learned about shared experience, shared experiences. It is the condition of being a human being. Right. And what a marvelous thing,
Chris Gazdik: isn’t it? There’s something happens. With the synergistic interaction between people, even with [00:58:00] tremendously hurtful pain points that are shared, you know, Ben Higgins comes to my mind when he was on our show and his work with alone in plain sight at shout out, Ben, I hope you’re still listening.
We need to have you back on. We need to connect because I live sold many of his books because it is absolutely on point when he talks about, you know, the shared pain points and the shared stories and she, you know, going back. forth and mixing it up in a way that just creates wonderful, beautiful synergy as a healing.
Mechanism. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: People go to religious retreats sometimes and they think of the contemplative retreats. That’s another area where people can experience great healing. And so I like to share points of pain and people are able to then heal and start sharing great points of joy.
Chris Gazdik: Right, absolutely. All right.
It is moving into time for Victoria. You are having your first [00:59:00] shrink wrap up segment. This is where we each host gives key takeaways on how to break free from The numbing behaviors and regaining emotional connection and understanding kind of what’s going on with you and and so the Neil gets to judge like who did a good job with your presentation with the point that you made and and what happened and what we’re supposed to
Victoria Pendergrass: keep it to like two sentences,
Chris Gazdik: two or three, four sentences, you know, some people like john and I are verbose.
But here goes the shrink wrap up. You ready? First, yeah. Okay. Me second this time. Yeah, because
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t want y’all to steal what I’m going to say. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, that’s why John won last week. I did. I cheated. You didn’t cheat. You just, you just got to go first and Neil chose you. Go ahead, Victoria.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. So, for me, it is that to not be afraid to reach out and talk to other people to share your experiences because the likelihood of you finding someone who has similar experiences [01:00:00] and It’s great.
And to form that community from there.
Chris Gazdik: I want to say that the payoff is that phrase that I created that will be a writing point for a chapter in the future. Most people want to be kind to others. Most people want to accept other people. We don’t want to be judgmental. We don’t want to be critical. We don’t want to rip somebody up.
We don’t want to tear somebody down. But the fact of the matter is you got to turn that around and you have to do that for yourself. First, and being able to not numb and allow your emotions to be real for you and dealing with them allows you to be for and present and loving to others. He’s so articulate.
Victoria Pendergrass: I think that was like 10 sentences. Okay, here
John-Nelson Pope: we go. One more. Alright. That is. Oh wait, Neil
Victoria Pendergrass: does it too? I thought he judged.
John-Nelson Pope: I did. Alright. If you feel like avoiding something and it’s weighing on you, instead of running away or avoiding it or numbing out, you run towards it and you embrace it.
Victoria Pendergrass: Love that.[01:01:00]
I’m never going to win, am I?
Neil Robinson: You have some very stiff competition, Victoria, so it’s going to be really, really hard. I need to get better
Victoria Pendergrass: at how I phrase things.
Neil Robinson: I would say Wow. This one’s actually tough. Cause you guys actually, this wasn’t, this wasn’t Chris’s cop out. Like you said what I said. This was actually
Victoria Pendergrass: hard last time.
That’s what
Neil Robinson: he did. He, he said, you took my endocrine thing. It’s not fair. So
Victoria Pendergrass: well life isn’t fair, Chris.
Neil Robinson: I think, honestly, I think. Between the three different conversations, I’m trying to remember everything Chris said because he was very long and his like five sentences were like 20 I think in this case, I think Victoria’s very short and sweet But I think Chris actually hit a lot of the different pieces.
So I’ll give Chris this will be yours this week But I think everyone was very important. So if you don’t catch anything last You know, three minutes of the show,
Chris Gazdik: competition
John-Nelson Pope: with
Chris Gazdik: everybody. That’s we’re going to dance out of here and tell you, listen, I hope you’re [01:02:00] enjoying the content. We love working with you and talking with you.
This is a very serious and real topic about numbing out and avoiding emotions and it’s a very common thing. I will repeat, if you’re struggling with this, I suspect you are, I really hope that you’ve heard some of the things that can get you through because it can get dangerous, but even if it’s just starting, you can now pay attention to it and we hope that you have things that you can do alternatively so it doesn’t really drive into your world.
You’re not stuck in survivor mode and you don’t, don’t get anywhere near some of the devastating realities that we talked about because I know that you can do. yourself Wonderful favors powerful thing to cope and handle your emotions Guys, we’ll see you next week. Take care See you
then