Join the panel as they unravel the secrets of connection and loneliness in “Do You Know How to Connect? The Bachelor Follow-Up”. Delving into the depths of human interaction, they explore the fine line between isolation and community. Drawing from Ben Higgins’ insights in “Alone in Plain Sight,” they reveal strategies for reconnecting with oneself and others, challenging listeners to embrace shared experiences and shift from fixers to empathetic sharers. This episode is an insightful discussion on forging genuine connections and avoiding the pitfalls of isolation.
Tune in to see if You Know How to Connect Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
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Episode #266 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes. I am Chris Gazdik, hanging out with Mr. John Pope. He’s back with us. Hadn’t seen you in a little bit.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. I’m glad to be here. How
Chris Gazdik: you doing?
John-Nelson Pope: Doing fine. Outstanding.
Chris Gazdik: All right. Good. Seemed, seemed a little bit of a pause. I know you’ve been a little wore out.
Well, we’ve had
John-Nelson Pope: some illness in our family. Yeah, you’ve been a little wore out. So, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Miss Victoria, how are you doing? Good, how are you? Miss Victoria Pendergrass. You know what, guys? I like this actually being live with you again. We haven’t You know, we missed show cause some illnesses and things going on.
Then we were virtual scheduling issues. This is nice really to sit with you guys. I like, I like
Victoria Pendergrass: do it in person.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s much better. It’s much different. I feel like we can
Victoria Pendergrass: feed off each other’s energy. I was really thinking we might
Chris Gazdik: get into some of the virtual. We probably are going to need to, but this is,
John-Nelson Pope: but we don’t have an energy vampire.
Chris Gazdik: We do not have an energy vampire, which [00:01:00] is what? Oh, it’s to suck the energy. Sucks out all the energy. Yeah. That happened online.
Victoria Pendergrass: No,
John-Nelson Pope: no, I think
Victoria Pendergrass: he was just making a blanket statement.
John-Nelson Pope: I was making, yes.
Chris Gazdik: I’ll move on through our introduction. It’s
John-Nelson Pope: what we do in the shadows is is it the energy of empire?
Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, we’ve got a lot of shadow stuff. Anyway. This is where you get insights from a panel of therapists that we just introduced in your car or at home, but this is not the delivery of therapy services in any way. It’s March the 21st, which is. The opening of the Madness of March. So I hope you all are enjoying the show out there.
Filled out your brackets. Filled out your brackets by hearing the show. You’ve probably had your brackets busted, but that’s
John-Nelson Pope: part of the fun. I had to pay for the privilege of filling out.
Chris Gazdik: John, that’s the way it works, bud. Okay. It’s the way, it’s the way it works, brother. But you might win, too. Yeah, you could win.
John-Nelson Pope: See, I, I realize that, but I’m, I’m so tight that, that [00:02:00] I got upset with somebody. Yeah, I got, I got upset when somebody charged me for taking away my junk.
Chris Gazdik: Dude, it’s 10 bucks, bro. Yeah, I know. Okay. We’re going to be talking about how to connect. The title is do you know how to connect? And we’re following up on the show last week that we were awesomely enjoyed doing with Ben Higgins known best as the bachelor and we didn’t get to get to all the things that we wanted to get to.
So we’re going to do that today. It’s an awesome topic on really connecting something that we really need to, to know. On how to do and we’ve talked about on the show before but he had awesome thoughts We didn’t get to all of them. So we’re gonna do it with our with our panel the book is out. I got to show you neil You got your mic today because you’re gonna start us out I gotta ask he’s been bugging me to see the title like how the cover look man looks
Neil Robinson: great looks fantastic I like I like the new colors.
It’s gonna match well with the other ones and i’m excited to to see it in, in physical, you know, touching those books. It’ll be fine. It’s actually
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:00] not too far away. I should get books in my person actually soon, but publication date is still going to be in like November and whatnot, but I’m starting to get excited about it.
Be honest with you. I am. I’m starting to like, God, I got great feedback from Morgan James. I mean, the. It is very, very humbling. I mean, they, she just loves it. She’s just gushing over it. I mean, yeah. It’s just, I mean, she’s not faking it lying either. She’s very really, they’re really, that’s awesome.
Getting excited about it. So, so it’s like giving. Proud of you, Chris. Thank you.
John-Nelson Pope: Giving birth. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s
John-Nelson Pope: your baby.
Chris Gazdik: Not quite as painful. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Let’s not compare that to pushing a baby out of your body.
Chris Gazdik: This is the human emotional experience, which we do endeavor to figure out together. So let’s get rolling with it.
I wanted to start out with you, Neil, and Victoria, kind of just tuning our brains in, if you will, and kind of reviewing, you know, from what you saw, your perspectives in talking to Ben about his book, which I’ll say off the get go. I’m not holding it again. I actually want to hold it. I took it home.[00:04:00]
It’s not here. I took it home. Bummer. Let me see if I get it right. Alone in plain sight. And what was the subtitle? The whole idea was
John-Nelson Pope: Searching for connection when you’re seen but not known. Thank you. We must have that
Chris Gazdik: on the notes. Yes, you have it on the notes. All right. Fantastic.
Victoria Pendergrass: I was trying to say Searching for
Chris Gazdik: connection when you’re seen but not known.
And I feel like that is such A powerful subtitle is such a powerful topic because, you know, John, that’s our human existence, but especially now you coined the term in my mind that we’re living in the age of anxiety. And of course we have a pandemic of isolation. And, and, and this new young generation, which is millennials and younger have, have hardly seen anything, but, and that is so from a humanistic perspective, alarming in, in not knowing what life was like before this stuff and this stuff isn’t going away.
And I don’t think humans know how to [00:05:00] deal with it. And thank you, Mr. Higgins for, for your, your attention to the matter. Because yeah. It’s on point. So, I love the book, personally. I really love his book. Did you finish it? No, I haven’t. I’ve been busy. it. Yeah, I’ve been busy. I’m going to, though. Usually, I wouldn’t, Victoria.
Intro: Yeah. Because
Chris Gazdik: I have books from people that have been on the show, and I put them on the shelf, and I skim through it and read them. I’m reading the whole one. Yeah. I’m reading it all, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, so. Nila and Victoria, what’d you see? Tune us in and review it.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, we talked a lot about, like, the impact of social media and loneliness.
Yes. And how that can be a huge factor and like, you know, we like to appear like we’re not lonely through social media, but like, we can be feeling the total opposite. And like our actual everyday lives. I, we talked a little bit about like being a millennial and loneliness overall. I think it was [00:06:00] a good, really good conversation, even though I didn’t talk that much, but that was okay.
I didn’t mind listening.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. You had a little bit of technical problems. Yeah. We were, we were all the
Victoria Pendergrass: struggle bus. Okay. I don’t know
Neil Robinson: what was up, but no, I mean, I was pleasantly surprised as someone. You know, you have these stereotypes of what you think those people on those shows are going to be like, because I don’t know, I’m, I don’t see those shorts in a positive light.
Bachelor, bachelorette. I get a lot of hate. They get
Victoria Pendergrass: a lot of criticism. Yeah, they do.
Neil Robinson: But hearing his side and, and what he’s gone through and, and how much he’s grown, you talked many times about how much he spends in how much time he spends learning and understanding and trying to understand himself.
And you talked about that many times. So to see that. That determination from him and then, and then sharing that wisdom that he’s, he’s basically acquired was very, very interesting. I was very surprised by that. But I enjoy listening to him. You know, we’ve talked many times after the fact about some of [00:07:00] his statements.
He said about, you know, we’ve talked about broken people, that stuff, but I think it’s interesting. The important thing, not only is that the, The social media side, but also the idea that as someone who’s as popular as he was, had everyone like wanting him at that time, he never, he still felt alone during that whole thing.
And the genuineness that was lacking because it wasn’t about people wanting to be with him to be with him. It was to be with him to get something or to, you know, be a part of that limelight. It wasn’t really about having an illegitimate relationship with him. So I enjoyed it. He was a very, His insights and the stuff he came across.
He was, to me, he seemed very wise for his age. Cause he’s actually not as old as you think with what he was saying. So
Chris Gazdik: I was, I was really surprised too, genuinely. And I, and I hope that comes off as the way that I intended to be as a compliment. Neil. Yeah, I was, I was very surprised kind of in that way as well.
That’s what I was, as I was reading the book and I said during the show, like, you know, you know, [00:08:00] we’ll benefit a lot from it because really, from a psychological and mental health standpoint, I mean, it’s really, really on point. I mean, it serves really accurately from a very parallel perspective from what I know, believe and see about this topic.
So yeah, and we have, we have had Neil and I and some groups had multiple conversations about it and that’s actually come up in sessions, which happens when it’s something’s on my mind. And yeah. Yeah, that tends to
Victoria Pendergrass: be, I felt like I talked about loneliness more this past week than I normally do.
Well,
Chris Gazdik: I noticed it. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. I, and I popped the book, you know, I did to him and some of that gets help. So. Yeah, very, very cool. So let’s tune in a little bit to what we’re talking about again. Loneliness, right? What is it? Oh also by the way, I just responded live on youtube for the first time.
How about that? I’m getting better at some of the you know as we get oriented to our process like yeah Jack’s like congrats on the book. So i’m like, yay. Thanks jack. So that was that’s cool live Anyway, i’m i’m a simple brain. I’m so again.
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m so proud of [00:09:00] you. I get
Chris Gazdik: entertained and happy about simple things john You What are we talking about?
Loneliness. When one perceives a gap between one’s desires for social connection and an actual experiences of it, you know? That, I thought, was a cool way of thinking about, you know, the experience. A cool definition? Of, yeah, of what, what the word is. What the, cause, cause it’s not really, it’s hard to measure.
Right? It’s your own perception and feeling of something and I liked the way that definition come around when you think of what are we talking about when somebody’s lonely? Well, a perception gap. When you, when you want more than what you have actually experiencing connection. Like that’s what loneliness is.
You have a No,
John-Nelson Pope: no, I just had a client like that today dealing with that and he was very, very lonely and, and he didn’t know how to, [00:10:00] how to deal with that or how to work with that or how to change that loneliness. Well,
Chris Gazdik: I hope he listens to the show cause we need to, it’s going
John-Nelson Pope: to be our focus. Well, he’s a great guy.
Chris Gazdik: You know, and, and, and that’s what’s, you know, Neil, you were talking about, right? Like, you know, the, the, the being in a room full of people or in a position where everyone’s pining, just lining up, trying to get a word with you. Like, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve worked with athletes and, and, you know, arguably famous people in, in, in my therapy realm.
And it’s a perception when you want. The connection and you can have people with you around you and still feel very disconnected And I don’t think people really realize that like we look at Everyone on Facebook and the experiences. We won’t talk a lot about social media today. I don’t think, but you know, the, the keeping, we’ve talked about it on the show.
I mean, you know, keeping up with the Joneses and the mirror. I was at the quote, Neil, it was during our group [00:11:00] meeting. I think that we were talking about that quote. I don’t think it was in the show. When you look at social media, it’s like comparing your reel of bloopers to the other person’s reel of success.
Mm hmm. Yeah. Like, who said that? Do you remember, Neil, who said it? Oh, but I think
John-Nelson Pope: it’s brilliant.
Chris Gazdik: Was that around you or?
Neil Robinson: It was doing our call on Tuesday. It was, I think it was one of those. Yeah. As you comparing your real bloopers to their real of highlights.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Highlights. Thank you. Great. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: There’s a, there was an author back in the fifties, sociologist David Reisman, and he wrote a book about the lonely crowd and even 70 plus years ago.
That, that was a, he saw the beginnings of this, I think an epidemic, a pandemic. alienation. Right. And where people could be in a group of people and they’re just very isolated. [00:12:00] MOADs, I guess. And how long ago? 70 plus years ago. David Reisman. Really? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Say more about that, John. I’m intrigued. Well, it’s been 50 years since I read the
John-Nelson Pope: book.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, that’s fine. But I mean, Let me tell you why I’m intrigued. I’m intrigued because we really think of it, I think, with the intensity level of being new now. Or bigger now. And as with most human experiences, maybe not. It’s new
John-Nelson Pope: for, for you guys. I mean, it’s you very new for you, but new for you, new for everyone that goes through a generation, but you have different means of this.
I mean, different ways of going through social media, for example, and I would posit that perhaps the alienation is even worse now than it was. But [00:13:00] there’s always been alienation. There’s always been. I think the, the, the Greek word is I know me, I know me and a N O M I E. I know me. Okay. And so that’s, there’s that, that sense that and part of it has become more manifest.
In the post industrial 20, 20th century existence. And I think it’s just intensified with each generation.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. So there, so we have to, yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: we have to experience it. You, your generation is probably experienced it more intensely than my generation. Loneliness. Yeah. Yeah. Loneliness. But I think we’ve all experienced that.
And so you could be lonely in a crowd
Chris Gazdik: in whatever age you’re in middle ages, even, and whatever, I’m sure that it’s part of the,
John-Nelson Pope: if you were different, you were outside the [00:14:00] group,
Chris Gazdik: sounds like you agree though, that it’s been intensified.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s what was intriguing me a little bit.
Fit list, tuning into more of what we’re talking about. And then we want to get to the good stuff. How do you connect, right? Connection, a relationship in which a person thing or idea is linked or associated with something else. All right. Sayings, you know, seems. Reasonable where you have a relationship with a person thing or an idea, you know, you can be connected there’s an association there.
So I like to say that, you know, isolation is enemy number one for depression But because it is I mean, it’s just it’s a terrible combination when somebody is depressed One of the primary goals we have in any kind of therapy realm is to connect. You don’t want to stay alone in that scenario. So, you know, even just raising your hand in a group therapy session to make sure that the group knows, yeah, I’m feeling a little bit crummy, I’m down.
You know, that’s an individual goal, just to [00:15:00] connect out of your own head. But there’s a new sentence that I like. That I’ve created is that isolation is an enemy for community also. Now that seems like simple, but I never really thought about it that way. And when you think about communities and forming communities, like Ben was talking about being a, a, a community builder, well, isolation, you know, is opposite of that.
So be careful, like isolation is not good. It is not good. I
Victoria Pendergrass: mean, yeah, if you live in a neighborhood and on your cul de sac, they throw a block party at the end of every month, but every month you decide to like, stay inside your house and close your blinds and turn off all your lights and like the, yeah, like
Chris Gazdik: your mental health is going to take a hit.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and then other people are going to notice too. And if hopefully they’re good people, they’ll reach out and say like, Hey, what’s up? You’re okay. But you never know. They might not. And then that’s only going to like increase your isolation.
Chris Gazdik: And it’s really not their job. It’s not, no. I mean, hopefully some people will.
[00:16:00] Yeah. Particularly if you forged a connection with them before. But you can’t, you can’t wait for that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Are there, are you gonna be like, oh, that’s the weird guy that, that never comes to the block party, you know? Doesn’t wanna be
Chris Gazdik: around us.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You know? Okay. I wanted to normalize this when we’re thinking about what it is that we’re talking about.
Really and truly how common this is. I mean, now on short, it’s kinda like, well, of course, yeah, we just said, John, right? Everyone experiences this. It’s part of the universal human experience. But is it? Are you listening out there thinking, Okay, well, I make friends. I have people around me. I really don’t feel this way.
And Ben even talked about it. There are people that don’t feel this way and we can learn from them, he was talking about. I thought that was neat too. But even those people, I didn’t say anything talking to them, but Ben, I was really kind of curious, buddy. I was like, I don’t know of a lot of people that have said, I don’t feel this sense of loneliness.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. At least at some point in their
Victoria Pendergrass: life. I don’t know.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Right.
Chris Gazdik: And now, you know, I’ve probably been guilty of suggesting and still kind of feel like I [00:17:00] don’t feel lonely a lot in life when it relates to friends and people and contacts because I’m pretty talkative, I’m pretty engaging.
I like to, you know, connect and all of that, but I certainly feel lonely. Lonely, you know in
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, yeah, and I mean and certainly like in different aspects of your life Like and then in the show last week with Ben y’all gave examples of like when you were kids However, I gave it the first thing when you asked me the first like before the show to think about it Yeah, the first thing that popped into my mind is when I wasn’t until I was 20 28 and had given birth.
Like, and I’m sure that there were other times in my life before that where I felt lonely, but like that was the first thing that came to my head. And so I think it’s also like
Intro: different
Victoria Pendergrass: points in your life. So, I mean, Again, sticking with the pregnancy theme here, like if you’re in a group of friends, but you’re the only person that’s been pregnant and had a baby, then like you don’t, you might feel like you don’t have anybody that you can reach out to that knows like what you’re [00:18:00] going through.
And so then, yeah, you might be surrounded by friends who will help support you and help do your laundry and like wash your dishes and clean your house with you, whatever. But then you, When it comes to, like, motherhood and, you know, figuring out how to be a parent, how to be a mom, like, you might feel lonely in that sense.
You were
John-Nelson Pope: isolated.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Even though you have all these people around you, it’s because they can’t necessarily connect to, like, and relate to whatever it is that you’re going through, I can see how it, like, it can cause.
John-Nelson Pope: Loneliness. Yeah. My first call was to an isolated church, two isolated churches in West Virginia, rural West Virginia, in the mountains.
Best state in the union. You know that right? Yeah. Best state in the union. Ireland. Is Lewisburg Ronservoort area. Yeah. That, that sort of thing. Down in the hills. Down. Yeah. But it’s high plateau and it, man, it got cold in the winter, but I was my fiance just broke up [00:19:00] with me and I was there. When I
got ordained, I never felt, and I was, I was about your age when you, when you gave birth, it was the most empty time in my life.
It was a wilderness and I didn’t have any, any thing in common with the people in that area. Good people, but it was very
Chris Gazdik: distrusting of outsiders,
John-Nelson Pope: outsiders, and they never accepted me. Never accepted. They would
Chris Gazdik: not. If they didn’t know you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They’ll give the shirt off. They’re back Appalachian hillbillies from West Virginia.
And I can say that as a mountaineer myself, but no man if they don’t know you, you, it takes a while to, to, to warm up to you, which is interesting. Somebody was talking about the culture just today, right? Of Memphis,
Victoria Pendergrass: Tennessee. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s very similar to that. You know, Victoria, when you were talking about pregnancy, I want you to make this like.
Man, I was feeling it and, and, and, and boy, here’s a moment that I would [00:20:00] love to help you, the listener, right, to defeat immediately where you sit when you feel, and you will inevitably feel like someone else, other people have felt the way that you feel. I had a, I’m going to call it a God moment. Honestly, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve on, on the right side of the building, I’ve tried LFU junior high school on the second floor, the step before the landing, I was sitting right there is where it happened.
I remember it so, so distinctly that. You know, having a rough time of adjusting and feeling lonely and having different issues. Family was getting divorced. To me, it was a rough, rough time for, for me at that point in life. And I just remember having the thought that came to me almost just struck down like lightning bolt, if you will, saying, you know what?
The way that you feel now, and I looked at this girl, she happened to be a very popular girl. I don’t remember who, but I remember that was the case. That that person has felt exactly like I felt at some point in their life. That was told to me almost as [00:21:00] just boom, like a truth, an absolute foundational truth.
And so you listening, I want you to maybe take that and, and walk with that and just know that, that whenever you have a thought that I’m the only one in this situation. I’m the only one that feels like this. No one else could even begin to understand my pain. That loop changed a lie.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, it absolutely.
So it changed. You went on the upswing at that point because you had commonality with not just her,
Chris Gazdik: anyone, anyone like, John, it was a powerful moment. Obviously, I remember the exact moment, the exact space and the thought. I mean, it was, it absolutely was, was before and after a bit. Yeah, we really do have in the human emotional experience so many of those commonalities that unfortunately, you know, [00:22:00] people don’t catch.
Catch on to that that reality. So that’s what I was thinking when you were yeah talking Victoria about pregnancy and delivery Okay, so let’s let’s let’s get to a big conversation that I thought would be interesting on Isn’t it so that connections can be either good or bad though? Think about that. We yeah, we inherently infer that when we’re connected That we’re connected and that’s going to uplift us or that it’s going to be positive.
And one of the things that I’ve learned in therapy, I’m curious what your facial expressions are going to be about Victoria, because I’ve, I’ve learned in therapy and in my own life and personal experiences and whatnot, sometimes you can really be connected, but in a building back and forth sort of anxiety way, like, Victoria’s facial expressions are making me anxious.
We’re connected in this moment. And now that I said that, she probably feels a little bit weirder. Her [00:23:00] smile just got bigger. So we can build off that way, Victoria, can’t we? Like, I am curious what you’re thinking.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, no, I was just, I was thinking how earlier today we literally had a conversation about substance abuse and like that it would be a connection.
Like if I was, if I was around a bunch of Coke dealers, like making connections with people like that or whatever, like, yeah, that’s probably not the healthiest of connections. Right. And I mean, I will like how we talked about earlier today, how we don’t want to look at things as good or bad just as healthy or unhealthy.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, absolutely. And so, right.
Victoria Pendergrass: And so. Probably not the best connections to have,
John-Nelson Pope: I would, I would
Victoria Pendergrass: like,
John-Nelson Pope: I want to, I want to also say that was a good call Victoria, because if, if you knew, you could only guess at how many people have [00:24:00] come to counseling and said, you know, I, I was introduced to drugs by my boyfriend or my husband or my wife and they, they joined into that because they wanted to have that connection.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, with their spouse. With their spouse. With
John-Nelson Pope: their partner. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: so you were thinking, yeah, I’m just saying. Sorry, that was,
Victoria Pendergrass: we just had that thing lunchtime thing. So it was fresh on my mind. So that’s why. But what you made me think
Chris Gazdik: about, Victoria, is, is the symbiotic connection between like an alcoholic and the spouse, which is usually highly codependent.
Right. So that codependency just feeds in and it just Builds on each other, you know, with the addiction person, you know, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And it’s really destructive. Right? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: We’re not going to say it’s a bad connection, but I would say that it’s definitely probably leaning towards an unhealthy connection.
So yeah, I totally believe that there can be not all connections can [00:25:00] be healthy or quote unquote positive. I do think sometimes I mean, think of any kind of like toxic relationship of abuse. It’s like. Anything like that. You’re
Chris Gazdik: connected. You’re super connected. I mean, heck, there’s a re You feel like you can’t get
Victoria Pendergrass: out.
Yeah, you keep coming back because you feel like you can’t escape. Like, duh duh duh duh duh. Like, yeah, that’s not healthy.
Chris Gazdik: Go with that, John. You just used one of our buzzwords in therapy.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, enmeshment. In other words, you, you, you get this dependency, a codependency where the person says, well, I need to rescue the, the, the partner or the spouse, or there’s a sense of of, that the spouse is very negative and, or the partner’s very negative.
And the person that is having that, I think of it as abuse says, well, I must deserve this. And so they get further [00:26:00] involved in it. They’ll try to leave. And the next thing you know is they’ll go back, they’ll go to a shelter for, let’s say domestic abuse or something. And then two weeks later, three weeks later, they’re back together again.
And with the same person and, but I love him or I love her and that’s a miss that’s a mesh mint and mesh mint.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, it’s, it’s almost creepy to, to, to look at. Don’t you just like a slimy feeling about it? I remember being in church one day and it’s an example that I use of like possible enmeshment. I mean, I don’t know these people from other than what I observed, but it was like this mom that was sitting there in front of us to the right and she was sitting next to her teenage son and through the whole service, you know, she’s just like rubbing his back.
You could tell he’s just like, he’s
Victoria Pendergrass: like squirming.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. She just keeps I was, I was, John, I was just wanting to jump out of my seat, jumped out of [00:27:00] my seat. You just want to be like, excuse me ma’am, can you stop rolling your back? I just had this image,
John-Nelson Pope: the image of a spider web, a spider in a spider web, and you just try to pull it, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It was so uncomfortable to watch, because enmeshment and being connected in those unhealthy ways really can be. Yeah, yeah, I wasn’t quite
Victoria Pendergrass: sure where you were going when you said church.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was an example of that. Okay real quick, we have a YouTube comment, and I think it’s pretty cool.
We’ll get it back, and then we’ll transition to how do we connect to ourselves. Do you think that shy people, socially inexperienced people, or anyone who avoids social encounters make loneliness a handicap? I think instead of make loneliness handicapped, I think that I would say they become handicapped by loneliness.
Opposite almost, right?
John-Nelson Pope: I, I agree with you on that. In fact, I was talking to, to my client just a few an, an hour ago and that’s one of his issues. Yeah. Yeah. And he, he has this, he’s shy, he’s, [00:28:00] he’s retiring, he’s reserved, but it, it, he feels unable to connect, period. But it, the more self isolated he is, the more Unconnected he is and he misses that and it becomes immobilizing for him to move out.
Yeah, and try to make a connection
Chris Gazdik: can be handicapping rather than being handicapped by the loneliness. It’s, I mean, maybe it’s a little play on words, but
John-Nelson Pope: no, I think that’s an important discussion. Distinction. Do you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because, if you’re become handicapped, it is like forever, but becoming handicapped or handicapping to you means that you have some agency and you can reverse it.
In other words, less. Handicapping.
Chris Gazdik: You’re just handicapped.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It does it to you. Okay. Yeah. I like that. Right. So let’s get into what we need to get into in connecting. Like we, we really need to learn [00:29:00] how to connect. And I really loved the way in Alone in Plain Sight, Ben’s book focuses on first of Every part, part 1, 2, 3, and four start out with no longer alone.
And I loved that because of the process. The end result is that you really are no longer alone, right? So it starts out no longer alone. Reconnecting to myself, no longer alone, reconnecting to others. No longer alone connecting romantically.
And then lastly, no longer alone connecting to God. And he clarifies, John, like you do as well, you know, like we all do a power greater than yourselves.
And so I love the idea that connecting to yourself is the first thing that needs to happen. Love thy neighbor
John-Nelson Pope: as thyself.
Chris Gazdik: What happens if you don’t?
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, the, the imagery that I always use in. therapy is when you’re on a plane, you got [00:30:00] to put your own mask on first before you help other people or do anything else.
Like you got to take, you got to anything, loneliness, mental health. I feel like it all, like it’s all your set.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a prerequisite. It’s a prerequisite. It’s almost like you’re unable to connect to people if you’re not connecting with yourself. It’s so crucial, primary and important. That’s why it’s cornerstone of mental health is self care is my, my line.
You know, it’s, it’s so starts at home and I think people might get that, but I don’t think people really execute that. Yeah. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: how many times in, in therapy do we talk to people about self care? And they, they’re like, I know, I know, you know, but they don’t actually go and do it. You know, they don’t actually put their mask on first before helping others.
John-Nelson Pope: Having taught counselors in training, none of them [00:31:00] do self care. Oh, they say, no, no, they say it, right. But they don’t preach about it. And they’ll want to help fix people, but they are candidates for burnout.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely.
John-Nelson Pope: Wow. Nothing left. I
Chris Gazdik: hear your energy, too. Yeah. Because you’ve talked to a lot of young clinicians, haven’t you?
I sure have. You’ve taught them. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, it’s interesting. I mean, it’s why. As therapists, you know, at least in my schooling, it was always encouraged that therapists have their own therapist.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, was it really? Yeah, we did too, but they,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, yeah, it doesn’t mean the actor actually back
Chris Gazdik: in my day, I never once heard that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Wish
Chris Gazdik: I had. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Personally, I was actually told that I needed to at one point. And actually, I mean, it was for the better. Cause I was told that
John-Nelson Pope: at seminary too. Yeah. You need therapy. I need therapy. That was true.
Chris Gazdik: You meant that as a criticism. I already know.
Victoria Pendergrass: Even today, I actually, I saw a kid today.
The [00:32:00] only person I saw today, by the way you had a horrible day. But the, what are the kid I saw today? I actually checked in with the mom first and I inquired about her own therapy. I was like, are you in therapy for yourself? And we had a conversation about it. Cause I’m like, like. You got to be able to fix, connect with that, your own self before, especially when you, yeah, especially if you’re a parent, like before you can adequately like take care of your kids.
If you can’t adequately like take care of yourself,
John-Nelson Pope: right? Oh, they get, Oh yeah, I’ve, I’ve suggested therapy. Well, he needs therapy, but I don’t. I’ve I’ve had that. Those are usually
Victoria Pendergrass: the people that actually need it.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, very, very much. Oh, I’ve said that as a young man. I thought that as a young man. Well, I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t need therapy.
You do. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: I thought that years ago.
John-Nelson Pope: When we get to victim and victor I want [00:33:00] to get some clarification on that. Okay, we’ll do that so I don’t we don’t have to do that now, but I would I just Because I think that’s kind of a good segue into what you were what we’ve been talking about.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Well, let’s let’s do let’s do Well, let’s, let’s take a moment for our sponsor first. Make sure we do that. I’m aware before we lose. Cause it will, yeah, we’ll go in different directions. So you know what I did to Victoria? I think I’m going to do it to her again and see if she makes improvement. I like popped her last week, John.
I’m like, Hey, we have a sponsor. Victoria, do you know who she, who it is? And go.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Okay. Our sponsor is first horizon bake based out of Memphis, Tennessee. With I can’t remember how many locations, but they are there. Also, I don’t know why I’m yelling. They’re there to provide Services they’re there to provide financial services including financial literacy understanding your own finances planning Being [00:34:00] prepared for the future being prepared for the now the present Yeah, so hit them up They’re, they’re pretty, I mean, they’re local.
There’s, there’s banks all over the area. I listen,
Chris Gazdik: we appreciate first horizon being a sponsor of the show. They’re a hometown bank with us. So first horizon, thank you once again. So let’s get back to our content there. So yeah, let’s just open it up before we go to the victors and victor, John. In victim and victor mindset just what do you think as a therapist?
I mean do I have several bend things? I want to go down through them somewhat quickly and get to some of the other areas of connecting to others but How do you I mean? John I guess you were dealing with this in therapy today With your guy so What are your goals with him? How do you, which treatment plan, Victoria, we talked about that.
Let’s leave that up. [00:35:00] We’re not going to leave that up, but yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’ll tell
Chris Gazdik: you after John. What are you doing? What is your goal? Well, how, how do we get, how do we suggest movement? What, what are some of the highlights? What are some of the keys to connecting with self?
John-Nelson Pope: So. Part of it is for him is that he is very depressed and he doesn’t want to remain in a marriage that he considers on his part loveless and he doesn’t have feelings.
He doesn’t, he’s so depressed. He doesn’t have deep feelings. And so part of that is to explore that area also to make sure if whether he’s healthy or not because he’s middle aged. Right. Okay. And if, if there’s any medical issues and so he’s addressing that, but the, the goal would be for him to make a decision that’s not necessarily a decision that I would agree with because of my background.
Right. Okay. But he has to make a [00:36:00] decision for himself and he feels responsible for everything. And yet he feels the weight of the world on his shoulders and he feels weighed down and he feels that he’s judged by his spouse very much.
Chris Gazdik: You know, one of the things I’m thinking as I’m hearing that as strategy number one might be one of the things we just talked about helping.
Him and others. Again, you listening. Well, I really hope I’ll hit it again. Cause I think it’s super important. You need to know that the way that you feel is not isolated to where you’re the only one that has ever felt the way that you feel. But
John-Nelson Pope: his tendency is to self isolate. And so he will make that choice as opposed to saying, how do I connect and make community?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Feels safer. It feels less risky to isolate. And I have a lot of people that as well, you know, in, in which we launch into, you know, friendship development and, you know, thinking about how can [00:37:00] you make contacts and create, you know, relationships. And, you know, I think that becomes really an important goal.
John-Nelson Pope: Definitely. So the goal is to have him connect, but his. Desire is to, or not desire, but his, his fallback is to self isolate and sort of live in that loneliness and isolation.
Chris Gazdik: And one of the things I find, John, that I think is important that I realized as
traditional substance abuse therapist in me, that sort of moves into like looking at the resistance part.
Like what, what is this person resisting? Connection for, and how do we undercut that resistance so as to free up the natural otherwise to connect.
John-Nelson Pope: And you’re going to find that sometimes you lose clients that way. [00:38:00]
Chris Gazdik: Well, I’m willing to take that risk, but what do you mean? Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: no. What I mean is, is that that may be too raw for them or they’ve got too much of a encapsulation.
And their, their fallback will be to, to not come back, not come back or blame.
Chris Gazdik: I’m delicate, John. I don’t push too hard, but I agree. Some
Victoria Pendergrass: people aren’t when they come to therapy, why am I yelling?
Chris Gazdik: I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t know. Some people, when they come to therapy, because
Chris Gazdik: something’s angering you, we’re, we’re still, we’re still waiting.
Nobody you’re going to make the guess that Victoria is remedicated. We’re, we’re we’re still a no. Still. We’re still playing that game. I told her today, I forgot to remind you, but
Victoria Pendergrass: Dang it, I forgot.
Chris Gazdik: Oh no, now I messed you up. I’m sorry.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s okay.
Chris Gazdik: All right. Oh, no, I was gonna say when people
Victoria Pendergrass: come to therapy I think sometimes there’s a good way to know if they’re not fully ready for therapy because when you do push back and
you do challenge them a Little bit they shut down and don’t or they don’t come back and I think that’s cuz sometimes [00:39:00] people aren’t Necessarily.
Well,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. I like there’s that risk. I, I, right. I, you know, I think we have to gauge that that’s part of the, the, the art of what it is that, that we do. There’s a science to what we do, and there’s an art to what we do. I also wanna point out, we’re not giving you a hard time. You know that, right? That’s good.
No, the listening audience needs to know. I literally
Victoria Pendergrass: had a whole episode where I openly talked about it, so it’s okay. , right? I just wanna
Chris Gazdik: point that out. If somebody’s catching the show and be like,
Victoria Pendergrass: why are they seeing so mean to Victoria? It’s,
Chris Gazdik: you’re not being mean to me’s. Yeah. There you go.
Victoria Pendergrass: They’re keeping me accountable.
John-Nelson Pope: Now you said we, it was you. It was me. But you brought up John’s
Victoria Pendergrass: like I’m not doing,
Chris Gazdik: but you brought up the other thing on her. I’m not you. Okay. I
John-Nelson Pope: did, but that was in YouTube . We are still
Chris Gazdik: on YouTube anyway. Okay. Focusing back in, focusing back in. John, go with the victim versus victor. What do you, you want me to read what Ben said?
Because I thought what he said was great. Yeah, I do. And then you’ll, you’ll hit it. Okay. So this is one of the things that he, he points out in, in his book Alone in Plain Sight. Victims hold on to pain. They look around for someone to [00:40:00] blame and crave the sympathy and pity of others. But when we choose the mindset of a victor, we choose to move forward in life no matter what the future may hold.
Our stories move from being cries for pity and being a way to connect with others whom life has also hurt. Victors do all they can to help themselves while they also accept help from those who care about them, and even seeking out that help that they, you know, when they need it. The victor mindset comes down to having a positive outlook and opening your life up to other people, both to help them and to help and to receive help from them.
I thought it was a cool and that, that, you know, I pulled pieces that he was describing his thoughts about the, the victim mindset and the, the victor mindset. I’m curious where you’re going, John. Cause I, I actually have some, a little cautionary tale thought process kind of as well. And usually we’re in lockstep.
So what, what, what are you thinking?
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. In other words in doing [00:41:00] sometimes, and you’ll see this sometimes in marital count counseling couples counseling. And there’ll be someone that has been hurt very badly by the other spouse in terms of, of infidelity. And there’s a. You know, that person is a victim.
I mean, that they were victimized in that sense, but there was but then instead of saying, okay, how do we deal with this and process the pain? What they do is they withdraw and they. Develop more of those barriers or a scar, so to speak. And you can’t and there’s that self isolation again. There’s a, there’s a, and I’m going to go to a view of from the middle ages of what hell was like,
Intro: hell,
John-Nelson Pope: hell is different layers.
different layers of hell, and the worst part of hell is the [00:42:00] isolation and being locked into ice. And there’s a, there’s an imagery of Dante in Dante’s Inferno, great Italian Renaissance and the pre Renaissance. Poet and writer, the idea is that satan is encased in ice and he’s devouring people. A boy.
Yeah. But that’s what happens to people. They are so hurt and victimized that they can’t feeling victimized. They can’t feel any way of connecting with another person and they’re stuck. Yeah. I don’t know. Just just a thought.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a lot there. There’s a lot there. And it’s just honest. Yeah. And it’s, it’s, I guess as I was listening to you and thinking about the trapping, the ensnarement, the ensnarement with a lot of pain that goes
John-Nelson Pope: into your pain focuses you so much to the, that it blinds you.[00:43:00]
And keeps you from seeing when people do care and when people do, do reach out and you refuse that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, yeah, it’s yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m,
Chris Gazdik: I’m pausing in thought cause I, I’m not gonna go this way, but it reminds me, honestly, to a certain extent of Darth Vader, that’s a part of what you know, Star Wars. I know, Victoria.
No, no. No, I’m all for it!
John-Nelson Pope: That’s a retelling of Heaven and Hell.
Chris Gazdik: It is, isn’t it? Yeah, Star Wars. How do you mean? What, what, what? Well, yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: the, the, the Jedi represent the forces of light. Yeah. And Darth Vader, who was turned from forces of light. Through loneliness. Through loneliness and isolation and jealousy,
Chris Gazdik: he was, he was convinced that he actually killed the mother of his, his children.
And that’s how Palpatine
John-Nelson Pope: did that. Right. Okay. Right. But it’s, it’s a story. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: I felt silly doing that, but
John-Nelson Pope: [00:44:00] no, no, no. See, these are stories, they’re stories that are told over and over and over again, but we have to be, we have to be reintroduced to them. And that’s why Star Wars was so important, because it reintroduced us to that it’s stories of isolation and pain.
And anger and revenge and that to get us out of that, what is community? It’s
Chris Gazdik: a nasty cycle.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a nasty, nasty cycle. Yeah. And I, you know, I, I guess here’s a random comment or a random thought. I mean, we have a lot going on on YouTube, you know, our YouTube live. I love that. You know, that’s, it’s a community.
You know, we have we’ve developed a little bit of a platform and a little bit of a through a therapist eyes community So if you haven’t your job is to jump in check us out on youtube Throw the comments and things because we can interact the whole nature of this show the human emotional experience which we endeavor to figure out together.
I [00:45:00] mean It’s scary to put a comment out on To an internet site and most people don’t or wonder, what should I say? Or I’m going to be thought of as stupid. I mean, there’s lots of ways, John, that we get kicked into this horrible, isolated state with terrible pain, afraid to reach out, even in that simple, simple way.
So I, I love the activity today on, on YouTube live and, and, and any community that really begins to develop. I mean, what a cool thing we’re building with through a therapist size and that’s not. That’s all of you listening.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s community. It’s community. Yeah, it is a community.
Chris Gazdik: So what did you think on another level, connecting to self in the way that Ben talked about our dreams exist for us.
We don’t exist for them. And he says, unfortunately, I’ve seen this opposite happening, you know, to his generation. I thought that was, that was curious that our dreams exist for us. That we [00:46:00] don’t exist for them, and that the generation nowadays is really getting caught into this trap of feeling like you have to live up to the dream, or the, the expectations that others have placed, or you know, what not, that the dreams are there for us.
What is even the
Victoria Pendergrass: dream? I
Chris Gazdik: think
Victoria Pendergrass: what expectations are I think that’s so like you get so lost in that like well you can what expectations are we actually like my own expectations like expectations other people said what society says and what does sorry and what does that even look like you know because like I might be trying to reach different expectations than like are you talking about you
Chris Gazdik: did fully follow the The logic or line of thinking with Yeah, I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: just
John-Nelson Pope: throwing that out there.
I’m wondering, too, is that you might get bullied by TikTok, in a way, because by the influencers and so you have to conform yourself and you say, I don’t really feel this way, and you feel [00:47:00] conflicted, but I want to be accepted and so, I’m gonna try I’m gonna, and it used to be challenges of like drinking a gallon of milk or whatever, but now it’s a lot s
Chris Gazdik: to this s spoonful of cinnamon.
Listen to this. I just heard someone talking about this in this, in this venue and in that way. To Ben’s point, our dreams exist for us. We don’t exist for them. And John, you’re talking about how this happens. Yeah. Well think about. Online stories things that you might be interested in and when When a group of people, even a great minority group of people, want to perpetrate a new thought, or perpetrate out their belief, there’s a really cool way to do it.
You get bots. How many bots do you think you can get? Create an interest in a particular statement when John and I want to perpetrate a propaganda or disinformation information online [00:48:00] that we think everybody should like skateboards. You know, we can create these bots and, and these accounts that like look like how many people are interested in skateboards.
So the national conversation is skateboards, right? How many bots do you think are created?
Victoria Pendergrass: Favor. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Take a guess.
Victoria Pendergrass: I have no idea. Millions.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. There’s what, like 300 million people in a big city or something. I don’t know how many million people are in the United States. Millions. I
John-Nelson Pope: couldn’t be honest with you.
There was, there was a what was it? Brendan Frazier. You know, he kind of fell off the radar and he was in a mood and recently in a movie. He used to do other mummies and things like that. Encino man and all that wonderful guy, Georgia, the jungle. Yeah, he had this great physique. Then he got kind of sloppy heavy and and it was the movie called the whale.
Okay. I [00:49:00] saw that everywhere on the internet and I wasn’t looking it up and I’m wondering, do they think I’m fat or something, you know?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: but here’s a story of a man that was self centered and lonely and isolated. Right. Okay. So ultimately it turned into a good story, but that was the yeah, that But that’s what bots do.
They guide you and lead you and subtly change your mind.
Chris Gazdik: It’s cunning and classic. It’s absolutely brilliant. If I want to make you think about skateboards, upon which I would bet anybody listening to this show prior to listening to this show and up to this point have not thought about skateboards, I could just send you a thousand messages in your little Facebook feed and you can’t get away from skateboards.
That’s
John-Nelson Pope: right.
Chris Gazdik: Like that’s how that’s how delicate our our our mindsets are like, please understand This is not [00:50:00] weakness on your part But this is understanding the dynamics of what goes on so that we literally the Victoria that I think that’s what he’s getting at Oh, yeah, like we’re creating a dream for you that you have to follow and right and it’s a trap You have you have to be Tony Hawk?
Yeah, it’s like,
Victoria Pendergrass: I may be totally off base here, but like, I add recently popped up on my Instagram fee of this like of this certain type of diaper bag. It’s literally like all the company sales are diaper bags and they’re great. But the diaper bag I liked is this like. 150 which to me is outrageous, but now do you know how many influence how many?
accounts and things come on my Instagram that have this It’s part of my language is a damn diaper bag in their post or in the advertisement and I’m like and it is becoming my Free will my restraint is becoming less and [00:51:00] less the more I see it because I’m like, oh Do I really need this bag? And then I have to remind myself.
No, victoria. You don’t want to pay 150 So
John-Nelson Pope: what you’re saying What you, what we’re saying is in order to connect more, you have to have your own mind.
Intro: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: You have to have your, you’re, you’re an individual in community. You’re interdependent. You’re not dependent on your community. You’re interdependent.
Chris Gazdik: And empowered with internal resiliency, but being purposeful. To keep your own thoughts,
John-Nelson Pope: you have autonomy
Chris Gazdik: that can be taken. It is vulnerable. That’s the point I’m trying to make though. And you think listening that it’s not you, that you’re aren’t susceptible to this, but psychologically, I’m just telling him basic ways.
You, you,
Victoria Pendergrass: we really are. You are. How many things have I bought because I’ve been influenced from like stuff on [00:52:00] Tik TOK stuff on Instagram and
Chris Gazdik: That’s stupid bag. Well, well, yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: and now I know we said we weren’t really gonna talk too much about social media But now tick tock has like the tick tock shop and people can tag Items from the tick tock shop like just in their videos
Intro: Oh, and so it’s
Victoria Pendergrass: almost like every other video is an ad now because someone’s just like this these Awesome leggings or this like toy or this and
John-Nelson Pope: evidently he’s skateboards.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, and skateboards.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. No, I don’t. Okay. We’re going to all skateboards
Victoria Pendergrass: all over our phones. We probably are there and I’m going to die for the next add on my phone as a skateboard. But like, Yes, it is fragile because the more I see it the more I see this bag pop up Why do you think
Chris Gazdik: they spend so much money on super bowl commercials
Victoria Pendergrass: like the less likely I am To be able to say no,
Chris Gazdik: right
Victoria Pendergrass: and I even had to text my friends and be like I need y’all to tell me that I don’t need this bag You literally did
Chris Gazdik: that [00:53:00] as a strategy yeah It’s a great transition.
If we can transition, you okay? No, I
John-Nelson Pope: just, you know, there’s this idea now that the universe is a, is a hologram and we’re in the matrix and all of that, that we don’t have we don’t have independence and we don’t have autonomy. And I would reject that. And I would say that we do and that we need to reclaim it.
Chris Gazdik: We really need to reclaim our agency over even our own thoughts. I agree. But if you don’t know what’s happening, John, you don’t even know you need to do that. That’s what’s so damning. That’s what’s so alarming. Is he going to take the red pill? Or the blue pill. Or the blue pill. Right? Yeah. From the Matrix.
Alright. Couple other things real quick. Ben was talking about being careful about the labels that you buy into because they become who you are,
understanding that you’re constantly changing. I love the phrase, somebody was married. For 30 years to the same person, but it was seven different persons. I love that.
Don’t you, John? Isn’t that the freaking truth? And that build and use good [00:54:00] friendships around you. Ben says it all comes down to grace. We’re adding things. I, I did want to mention like. Trauma effects on how you connect with others when you’ve experienced trauma is real personality disorders and different issues that you have with mental health conditions like depression and addiction.
We were talking a little bit about addiction because it was on Victoria’s mind from lunch, right? You know, the culture that you’ve grown up with, the culture around you, these things are, are really impactful on how you connect to yourself. And then now we’re transitioning to connecting with other people.
People. So what, what, what says you the two of you in the idea of trying to really get connected to others. So you have to connect with self first. We’re talking a lot about that. What about connecting to others?
John-Nelson Pope: You can’t do it by trying to fix somebody because You’re, you’re not connecting with that person.
You’re seeing that you’re objectifying that person.
Chris Gazdik: Did you see that somewhere in our, in our [00:55:00] notes or, or, or I’m just curious. If not, or is he just that you’re just nailing it? Yeah, I’m just that smart. Yeah. You’re nailing go further with that because I think that’s some, no, it is. It’s yeah. Yeah. You did it.
You put it in there. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t lie,
Chris Gazdik: but I wasn’t sure where it was, but, but.
John-Nelson Pope: That’s one of the things that I identify with and that is I don’t It’s the idea of the Good Shepherd So I’ve got I’m going back to a biblical imagery, but the shepherd doesn’t drive the sheep and the shepherd doesn’t just lead the sheep and none of the shepherds in the midst of the flock and And moving with
So there’s that guy hurting, hurting, interacting, interacting, connecting, guiding, all that, always doing that. And so the shepherd is a part of that organism and is [00:56:00] able to, to, to elicit change at that point in growth.
Chris Gazdik: John, you know, yeah, isn’t, isn’t that, isn’t that what we do in therapy? Yeah. You know, we, you know, people don’t really see and understand that way.
They think we just sit here and give advice out like that very small component, if even at all, is advice or, or telling what to do. It’ll get you in trouble too. 100 percent don’t do it, young therapist. Out there be very leery of that what what much more so it’s this dynamic interaction It’s it’s another one of the many many reasons why I love the show title tag You know the human emotional experience which we endeavor to figure out together.
We don’t know the right path We don’t know the right thing to do all the time, right? We’re working that out in this amazing And, and completely unique relationship that is a therapy relationship. Not just to speak so highly of our own profession, but [00:57:00] the shepherding. The therapy, the, the, the, the, the friendship friends don’t bust each other down and bust the door down and tell each other what to do.
Husbands and wives struggle with that sometimes feeling like they’re told what to do, but generally speaking, I don’t think they’re trying to do that. I
Victoria Pendergrass: tell people in therapy all the time, they’re like, they’ll look at me and they’ll be like, Victoria, just tell me what to do. I’m like, Nope, not doing that.
I’m not here to tell you what to do now. We can, I can’t, we can talk through different options, right? We can. Talk about what your gut tells you to do, what your mind tells you to do, like, we can go through all that stuff. But I’m not gonna sit here and say, hey, you do blah blah blah blah blah.
Chris Gazdik: Or blah blah blah blah blah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Sorry,
Chris Gazdik: I was just
Victoria Pendergrass: Because, also, like, then, they can, like, I don’t know, nevermind. But yeah, I
John-Nelson Pope: mentioned
Victoria Pendergrass: earlier, like I texted my best friends and I was like, Hey, I need y’all to tell me that I don’t need this purse. And at first they were like, yes, get it. And then they saw the price and they were [00:58:00] like, yeah, no, you don’t need that.
But I think it’s also it,
John-Nelson Pope: they weren’t therapists,
Victoria Pendergrass: right? But it’s also like connection to others. I think is a two way street. You have to be, you have to be willing to put in effort yourself. And you also have to hope and pray. And I guess want like the other person to also put in the effort. Yeah, it, it’s a two way street, like, and I do see how sometimes a lot of it can lead to loneliness because if you feel like you’re the constantly always the one reaching out and your friend, your friend never reaches out to you, but you’re always the one reaching out.
Then eventually you stop and then not only, so this spiral into your loneliness, so
John-Nelson Pope: you glom onto a narcissist, basically someone is self centered.
Chris Gazdik: That’s dangerous when that’s dangerous. Yeah. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, because that’s the thing you would always because that person’s incapable At this time in their lives to be able to to respond.
Yeah reciprocate
Chris Gazdik: So I like we’ve been had in the book somewhere [00:59:00] quote fixers aren’t connectors and never will be Until they stop trying to fix pain and share it in the book Instead, unquote, like that is right where you started, John, and I think that that is a dangerous thing to kind of get into trying to think that you know how to fix or whatnot, especially a therapist.
Right? Right. And please understand, you know, Mr. Your wife’s not nagging you trying to, you know, tell you what to do, although it may feel that way or husband, husbands or spouse or what women realize your husbands aren’t trying to be the boss of you and, you know, rule over you. Generally speaking, people understand they’re concerned.
They may give unwanted suggestions. They may tell things that you didn’t want to hear or come up with solutions that you don’t want to talk about or think about. It might not be what you wanted is for you to try to solve my problem or give me ideas. But, but, but it’s just, it’s a, it’s a part of caring.[01:00:00]
John-Nelson Pope: Young, young therapists, you can’t be a fixer. You have to be a listener and if you have one skill is that in the one gift that you give is your ability to listen and to respond appropriately and compassionately and empathetically and be able to just be transparent. And I’m talking about the core conditions, but you’ve got to do that.
You can’t fix be present. Be present. You
Chris Gazdik: know, that’s and you say young therapists, people, you, ma’am, sir, listening. Those are things for you. You may not be a therapist. But that is the way that you forge connection with others. And I like the idea of Ben’s thought of shared pain, shared experience. Listen, survivors, a stupid show.
It’s a fun reality show that we enjoy watching. I do. And you’re not going to vote me off. [01:01:00] No, man. I would never vote you off myself. But
Victoria Pendergrass: the thing is, is
Chris Gazdik: it’s an intense, emotional experience. Absolutely. Formed connections because of that shared experience after the show is done.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, it’s either, it’s either that or be isolated.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right. And so then it’s like, becomes, okay, do I want to be the lone shark over here? Or do I want to participate in the community? That is my only option.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. I want to say that I have a shared experience with your son who’s in the Navy because it’s a unique experience, but shared by a few. Yeah.
And you know, there’s a different way of perceiving things.
Chris Gazdik: And what John’s talking about is my son just graduated boot camp. He graduated a school as well. And he’s going to be coming home and
hanging out with us for a week before he goes on to his duty station. Super excited, but you’re right. Do you know where
John-Nelson Pope: he’s going?
Chris Gazdik: I do. I [01:02:00] do. I don’t think I want to say it on the air though. It’s classified. Yeah, well, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s I’ll tell you off the air, but I, I don’t know the rules about that. It’s probably no big deal, but, but Yeah, anyways. Troop movements and whatever, what are you allowed to say? I don’t know, you just caught me off, off guard a little bit.
Sorry about
John-Nelson Pope: that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, Well, you’re the expert. If you told me,
John-Nelson Pope: you’d have to You’re the expert, though. Is it okay for me to say? Well, it depends. If he’s going to be deployed overseas to a hot area, no. Yeah. But if it’s to just a regular duty station, it’s not a problem. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: okay. Well, he’s not stateside, so I’ll say that.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Yeah, it’s
Chris Gazdik: getting far away. Oh, good. Oh, good. You don’t know that? Do you not know where he’s going? I
Victoria Pendergrass: don’t think you’ve told either one of us. Really?
John-Nelson Pope: You haven’t shared that with me. I told
Chris Gazdik: Neil, he says Neil knows. Oh my gosh. I’ll tell you guys after the mics are off. But getting back here jealousy, envy, spite, resentments, are life matters that support, you know, this book quote.
It’s hard to [01:03:00] connect with somebody when you secretly wish they would get knocked down a peg or two. I had to get over those feelings before I could open up and have honest conversations with them. Unquote. From the book. And I’ll say again, my part. Jealousy. Envy. Spite. Resentments are life matters that support that quote.
Listen you sir you ma’am Listening like look when you have these things inside you that the states of resentment or the envy or like jealousy and and you’re pining after your neighbor’s goods or their Facebook posts or What have you? You are yourself defeating The connection that you want with others and, and the connection that you want with those close to you, maybe in your family or your marriage, right?
Understand that that internal state is the enemy within that is defeating [01:04:00] your own desired connection. How’s that? That sounds like a good way to end that a good, because that’s a good end. So
John-Nelson Pope: it’s a good way to begin
Chris Gazdik: and a good way to end. Okay. Well, let’s, you know what? Let’s just do that. That’s a powerful thing.
Listen. Connect with others. That is the key to defeating loneliness and isolation. I appreciate you listening. Stay well. We’ll see you next week. Bye
y’all. Bye.