E089 - Why Do We Feel So Empty Inside? (Psychologist Reveals Fixes) | Dr. Saliha Afridi

35:00and disappointed. Now, you could say, well, they kind of feel the same, but no, disappointment. When I say you're disappointed, something feels a bit heavy, like something feels like it dropped inside of you. But when I feel sad, you kind of feel a little bit of a pressure in your chest, maybe. When I say betrayed, feels like a stab. When I feel anxious, it feels very noisy. So you start to get a very nuanced read of your body in those emotional states and then they guide you to make the best decisions for your life this episode is brought to you by whoop the all new whoop is here the only wearable that turns your health and fitness data into personalized guidance now seven percent smaller with 14 days of battery life i've been wearing whoop since 2021 and i've been wearing it every single day.

35:52It's a device which I have used to improve my training, improve my sleep, and stay away from the things which are definitely not good for me. It's been a game changer. Now, Whoop includes a heart screener with on-demand ECG readings, so you can check in on your heart anytime and share results with your healthcare provider. It also includes a health span, a new feature that demystifies the aging process and shows how your daily habits impact your pace of aging, as well as hormonal insights for personalized guidance throughout your cycle or pregnancy. It's the only wearable that gives you a truly comprehensive view of your body designed to help you improve your performance, longevity, and overall health.

36:32So you can join now at joinwhoop.com forward slash firstthingstirst to get your first month for free. Let's get back to the episode. Yeah, I think with this process, it's definitely helped me to improve my life and maybe rethink the things that I desire or the things that I should do. But I still far from mastered it. And I still do things that I know I shouldn't do. So why do we do that? Why do we do the things we know we shouldn't do? Because it's serving some function for you. So if you give me an example, I would tell you that, you know, there's a Harvard researcher who talks about immunity to change.

37:14We have an immunity to change because one, we want something, but we want something else too. So there's a competing commitment inside. I'm lonely. I really want to go out and make friends, but I really kind of want to chill and relax and be lazy too. Like there's a competing commitment. I'm committed to both. Then you have to like lean into the uncomfortable one, which is going to say, okay, come on, get up, go out. And usually people don't want to do the thing that is uncomfortable. They just want to do the thing that feels good. We are programmed, designed as human beings to avoid discomfort and to seek pleasure.

37:56Yeah. This is like a hard wire. This is not something you can avoid. So doing the hard thing, doing the uncomfortable thing feels almost like, um, like anti instinct. My instinct is to be lazy. My instinct is to lounge around. It requires discipline and practice to keep leaning into discomfort because that's where the growth is. okay i'll give you two examples so one which is very sort of problem to me in the the field that i'm in or have been in is to do with physique and looking a certain way like most people know what they need to do in order to look a certain way go to the gym workout move your body and eat the right things usually people go through phases where they're motivated to do this they will be disciplined, but it doesn't last very long for whatever reason.

38:49And then they fall back to their bad habits of not paying attention to what they eat, maybe having too many desserts, maybe skipping the gym. And then after a certain point in time, they get so fed up and they're like, oh no, I can't do this anymore. The motivation will come back. They need to sort their physique out, whatever it might be. So they go through these cycles of on and off. And by doing that, they never really achieve that physique or look the way they want to look because they're so inconsistent with the the efforts that they put in so what's going on there in the mind because I I teach as much as possible I show people how it's done I open the door it's like do this in the gym do this outside of the gym but the psychology and the the mental discipline that is required to achieve a great physique is difficult.

39:43So what's going on there? Well, I think you use the word discipline. I think that is what is needed for long-term gains and sustainable gains. One thing that I can get in people's way is that they don't have a good self-awareness. They don't understand that when they're stressed, they reach for the sugar and then they go off the track. So we need to understand that when we are stressed, we will resort to the easiest, fastest, quickest way to make ourselves feel better. And a lot of times people are living a very high stress life. And so you will resort to your default. You will resort to what is the quickest way for you to feel better when you are stressed.

40:25So all of a sudden I'm a disciplined person and I have a crisis in my life, I'm going to, I am almost guaranteed to fall off that track unless I'm aware that this is when you fall off the track. Unless you have almost like a troubleshooting sheet that you go to when in time of crisis, throw out all the sugar from the house, you know, call the trainer because you won't have the internal discipline. So have someone that's going to meet you there. So have like a plan, which doesn't make you weak. It just makes you prepared. And that's what people don't. I can do it all on my own, this kind of rugged individualism.

41:02You can't do it all on your own. You need systems in place and you need people that are going to support you in times where discipline and willpower will not show up for you. Yeah. What I tend to do is if I'm usually, I'm pretty motivated to train and work out because I love it. But there are times where maybe if I'm underslept, I'm like, realistically, going to gym and lifting heavy weights is not going to be very sensible so instead of doing nothing it's like okay but i can walk still so let me just go walk for an hour so that's like the alternative yes with the food side of things well if you would have a look at my fridge and my cupboards it's extremely depressing there's no food there because i know what i'm like like there are moments of weakness that i experience where i will go and grab something if it's there so i make it hard for myself what are those moments of weakness.

41:54If you start tracking them, you will find that it's either maybe 11 a.m. or 4 p.m. It's the evening after 8 p.m. After 8 p.m., you've had a long day. You just need a nightcap of a burger. I don't know. Like, there are going to be times where you are going to have those moments. That's when you almost have a plan in place that this is what I'm going to do. So self-awareness, again, I keep coming back to self-awareness. It is the key because people are solving top down rather than bottom up. First, understand what are your weaknesses? When are your weaknesses? When do you fall off track? How often have you, what has happened?

42:33But most people are like, no, I will just power through with sheer will. It's not going to work. It's the, as well, I know lack of sleep leads to poor decisions. Lack of sleep gives you almost 60 % less access to your frontal lobe, which is the seat of all of your good decisions. It's your executive functioning. So when you don't have access to that frontal lobe, you can have all the information and all the programs and all the apps. You're not going to do it because that connection in your brain that uses the higher power, higher order thinking is just not there. Yeah. I have another example, probably more interesting.

43:15Why do people sometimes, including myself, get themselves involved in partners or relationships when they know from the very start that this person's not going to be good for them? They see all the red flags and they're like, okay. Come, let's do this. Well, we would describe that as a reenactment from childhood wounds. So unhealed, unexamined, unprocessed wounds. We are gravitating towards reenacting that with another person. So if I felt abandoned in my early caregiver relationships or early childhood, I will find a person who is like an avoidant attachment. And then I will replay that out as an unhealed wound inside of me.

44:06So that could be like, and they might be playing out something too. So both are playing out something. But if you know that you are drawn to people that are just not good for you, go do your work. Because it doesn't have to be this way. Relationships should be exciting, but they should not be dramatic and, you know, volatile. and, you know, mind wrecking. Like it shouldn't be that way. There should be some stability and excitement and spontaneity and curiosity and wonderment. But this idea that it has to be thrilling can sometimes be quite... There'll be some people who probably never had a normal relationship.

44:49So that's all they're accustomed to. But that's all they will do. Yeah. Probably because that's what their parents experienced. So they just think, oh, this is normal. And oftentimes people with personality traits or personality disorders, you know, whether it's borderline narcissistic, you're very drawn to that person, their charisma, their intensity. You're drawn to that because you're just like, it's like a defibrillator and you feel alive. But then when they pull you under, that also is like, it throws you down and slams you down. It's very, very difficult to be in that kind of volatility.

45:26what would you say to this statement this is what uh sadia khan says do you know her i don't know her personally so she says if you want to judge that i'm not quoting her this is just a general thing she said she says if you are looking to get into a relationship with someone this is usually a woman look at the relationship that her parents have that is usually a good indicator as to whether or not it's going to be a successful relationship. So if she had, or she has parents that are in a good, stable, happy relationship, the likelihood of you having a good, stable, happy relationship is going to be higher versus if that person has either lost a parent or didn't have a father figure for much of their childhood life, or the father regularly and visibly cheated on the mother in front of them?

46:25I think it's, you could say, yeah, sure. But what if that person has been in the therapeutic process? What if they've done their own work? What if they've learned from past relationships? I think it's this kind of polarized binary way of thinking. It's just, oh, you didn't have a dad. I don't want to be in a relationship. It's like if you take things too literally, everything is wrong and nothing is right. You can't really give them a chance either. Yeah, it's not. You cannot take what you hear or what you see in one research paper or what you see on one Instagram tile to be the ultimate truth.

47:04Of course, there is truth in that. But there is, I can give you a thousand and one people that I personally know and I have worked with that I know are in absolutely beautiful relationships or people that have had really, you know, mom and dad, it looks like everything was fine, but there actually wasn't any emotional intimacy. So what is a definition of a good marriage or a good relationship? I don't know. These things are not very helpful for me. I think they make people very literal. They make people lose the nuance of what is needed. So they want to come up with an algorithm and a checklist of people they will date doesn't work like this.

47:47Oh, father, good. Mother, good. Relationship, yes. Never been. Okay. Who are you going to find with all of these criteria? It's not right. And it's not human. And it's not relational. It's transactional. And it actually lends itself to this consumeristic culture that we have about relationship, where you have to be just right for me. I'm not a sofa or a television. I'm a human being and I'm complex and I have many, many layers and dimensions. And I am who I am today, but I wasn't what I was 15 years ago when I got married. So I will evolve. Will you be with me then? And so all these statements that I hear online, yeah, okay.

48:38And I find them reductionistic. I find them, yeah, simplistic. It's never that simple. How can you tell if somebody has done the work or is willing to do the work? If they can own their mistake. if they can own if someone says how are you feeling and you can say you know what i'm actually like not sure right now if they're not sure if they have some doubt if they're too certain that's also like like if they're overconfident that also for me sends a signal that is there any room for you to grow is there any room for you to take some influence from me for you to learn from me for me to learn from you like how are we going to do this together it's a relationship two people relating together rather than two people like transacting something like it's not um yeah i have a whole lot if you dealt with people like that who are just so i guess they've come to see you so that's a good indication that they're willing to change but are they usually so stubborn and confident that they're they just are reluctant to take in what advice you have to give to them?

49:56Well, if they're in front of me, they're ready to do the work. Typically, I don't see people that were like forced by their wives or their partners. They really want to be there and they really see that something's not working, that my life is great. I'm successful. I have money. I can afford whatever. I have three children. I have a partner. I have a house. Something I can feel that there is something that's not, I'm not fulfilling my potential. I'm not fully who I am. That's when we begin our work. And I'm really like, that's the midlife work. That's, that's my, you know, my - What, midlife crisis?

50:41You could call it a crisis. But the work you have to do beyond 35. okay well i'll soon be there yeah some people begin at 33 i've seen it um i've seen it 32 33 it's becoming earlier and earlier uh so early 30s even where you have to because success was achieved earlier and people are getting the checklist done earlier um i think purpose is massive because there's a lot of i see a lot of people who have they've made a lot of money and they have everything they could possibly want but maybe the thing that they are doing which is making them money isn't really providing them with that purpose it's not the most rewarding i feel like with what i do uh by just trying to help people online with the podcast with my youtube channel getting people in shape it feels good because i have people who come up to me and they just say like you literally changed my life or you're the reason why i'm here or you're the reason why I lost 10 kilos.

51:44Like that's good. And it makes me feel I should carry on doing this. When you build an audience, it's almost like you have a duty to be a good role model and spread good information and be of value. So it makes you feel good doing what I'm doing. I think that's a really important part of happiness that people don't focus on very much and we don't talk about very much, which is your duty in life is to figure out what your gift is and then bring that gift into the world to make the world better. Most people are, let me just figure out what my gift is and let me just be very happy. And let me just have all the things and do all the things.

52:30But that's not going to give you happiness. Happiness cannot come without you doing whatever it is that you're doing in service of someone else. It cannot come. I have seen it. Now, for 20 years, you will get to a point in your life where you will say, well, but what's the point of all of this? I now have everything. What's the meaning of my life? And life has no meaning. You have to make the meaning. You have to be in service of something other than you, bigger than you, whether it's your community, whether it's your family, whether it's nature find something that you serve and it cannot just be you and your like little bubble yeah and if you i think if you are struggling to find that then have a family have some kids at least then you'll think okay now my purpose is to raise the best kids that i can possibly raise that is a really good purpose yeah but don't have kids for that reason only okay that that reason cannot be because then they become a project and that can be very difficult for the kids that's a lot of pressure to put on kids that i have you have to you have to fulfill my purpose no no no you find your own purpose like your kids they come through you but they don't belong to you and they cannot be your project and they have their own lives and they have their own spirit and we must honor that too.

53:54And so if you make them your purpose, what happens when they leave? Or what happens when they do exactly the opposite of what you wanted them to do? It doesn't feel so good. So have your own, serve the community, volunteer, do some good in the world. Go be part of some organization that builds homes or cleans up garbage or you're you're serving something other than you and and the research is conclusive that when you volunteer you feel better yeah and when you give to people you feel better in a sustainable way not i buy something and i feel good for like the next hour but when i do something for someone or i buy something for someone else i feel good for 10 days after because i just feel good because i did something for someone else i noticed that a lot of the younger generation particularly the guys who are in their late teens, early 20s, they feel very lost and helpless because maybe they hear things like this, but they're so young, they don't know, well, what is my purpose?

55:04I don't even know myself. I hardly know anything about life at this point. They'll just not know what their purpose is until maybe later on. Yeah. What advice would you give to them? Follow the breadcrumbs. You won't find it sitting here looking on chat GPT, you will not find your purpose in a room. You will find it following the breadcrumbs of what excites you. What are you interested in? I have a 19 year old. She went to college and she's like, I have no idea what I'm going to major in. Follow the breadcrumbs, take as many classes as you can in the most random subjects and just see what you're interested in.

55:45And then within one semester, she's now finding herself gravitating towards classics, anthropology, literature, mythology. Okay, follow the breadcrumbs. Now the breadcrumbs are taking her out of California into the UK. So where she wants to study at St. James and do classics, go there. Maybe one year later, you decide, actually, no, that's not what I want. Now go somewhere else. Follow the impulse. Don't be impulsive, which is different. But there's a sense you get of what makes you come alive. Follow that and you will find your purpose. And you won't even find it. You will live into it. It's almost as if it will show up on that path because you have followed what makes you come alive.

56:36Rather than being on a screen and rather than projecting a persona, don't focus so much on your brand and your image right now. figure out who you are and what makes you come alive. Yeah. So go do things. Do things. Do things in trouble. Do things. Do really, really odd things and do various things. And don't say, oh, I don't like this. Try at least three times before you're like, not for me. But you expose yourself to different experiences, which is just not happening. People are so anxious these days that they commit too quickly to a I don't like math I don't like reading I don't like working with tech I don't like it how do you even know that you literally just did that for like four hours I'm like you can't make a decision based off of like a month of exposure to something um so yeah that's what i would say to those kids you mentioned chat gbt and i i was saying earlier that i i did use it uh to kind of prepare for this podcast i asked it what are the leading mental health conditions in 2025 and it came out with five so one of them is anxiety disorders The other was depression.

57:59One was youth mental health. Fourth was substance use disorders. And the fifth was post-traumatic stress disorder. Would you say that's roughly roundabout right? Yeah, I would say clinical disorders, I would say that's about right. I also think...

58:25Although it's not necessarily listed as a clinical disorder, it's a different kind of coding. Relationship issues would be. But obviously relationship issues feed into all of that. Yeah. So it's not listed as a clinical disorder because it's not a clinical issue, but these issues feed into each other. And I would say, if I were to say what shows up in the room, that would be really big. under anxiety it was saying uh some facts including financial stress yeah political uncertainty and the pervasive influence of social media yeah so that sounds about right yeah eco anxiety climate change um climate change came up a lot which i'm surprised about because i don't wake up and think oh my god the earth is getting warmer yeah but is that like people are actually scared about that.

59:22They're scared that the world will come to an end. We will run out of water. We will overheat. It's a real thing. And we are like, we are, you know, absolutely abusing the earth. Yeah, but like, I don't feel - And so when it retaliates, it is not going to look good for us. But in our lifetime though. I don't know. I mean, I understand them a little bit because sometimes I'll watch these documentaries on space and the universe and they go deep into just how vast the universe is and how tiny and arguably insignificant we are. And you're just like, when you really think about it, it starts to freak you out a little bit.

1:00:02But I can handle that. But I can imagine how some people, if they read too much into that, it will mess with their head a little bit. Yeah. It sounds like you have a really good ability to compartmentalize. I think it's a skill that everyone should learn. Sometimes it gets a bad rap, but the ability to compartmentalize is a really important skill to say, okay, this is not in my control. I'm going to recycle. I'm going to turn off the lights when I'm not in the room. I'm going to make sure that I do things in a sustainable way. Okay. I will do what I can, but then it's not in my control, right?

1:00:37I will support businesses that are eco-friendly. I will support businesses that consider the planet. this is the power we have, but everything else is out of our hands. And we have to compartmentalize that. How would you define depression? What's the difference between being depressed and just being sad or unhappy? That's such a great question. Because people use that term quite colloquially. It's a clinical word. But it also is an expressive word that I'm going through a depression, like meaning a lower mood. But depression is a clinical term. It has a set of criteria that you must meet in order to meet that diagnosis.

1:01:19And we look at intensity, frequency, duration. So how long have you been feeling sad? Are you socially isolating? Are you not able to think, concentrate, pay attention? Is your motivation low? Is your mood low? Are you crying excessively or angry excessively, agitated excessively? And there's probably some, or having suicidal ideation, feeling hopelessness. Yes. How long? You must experience that for at least two weeks, most of the day, every day. So duration, two weeks, intensity, most of the day, every day for at least two weeks before we can say, yes, this is a clinical depressive episode. But a lot of times people are just going through a bad period.

1:02:16And sometimes people are going through grief, like they have a breakup in a relationship and they're grieving. And I don't want to pathologize grieving, but it can look very much like depression. But if you're not functioning and it's, oh, I should probably say that it really significantly impacts your social, occupational, academic functioning. So I could be really heartbroken, but I'm still able to show up here and do what I need to do. So this is no, it's not meeting that clinical criteria, but it would be something that I would say, just go get support. Because what most people do, and it's crazy for me to still think that in 2025, people wait six to 10 years before addressing some of their issues.

1:03:03Like when they've identified that I have these cyclical issues of depressive episodes where I'm out for three, four weeks at a time. I have to call out sick. I can't show up for work. I can't keep a job, it takes them, before they address it, it takes them six to 10 years if they even address it. Because some men won't even do that. And some people won't, women won't either. But like I said, men are three times less likely. So that would be the difference between sadness. Sadness is a normal human emotion. If you are not feeling it, then probably you're not living life to its fullest, depression is a clinical diagnosis.

1:03:44Which can be cured or can it not be cured? It can be treated. It can be treated. If you have had a depressive episode, then you have a tendency for that. So it's almost like a switch has gone on in your brain and you are at a higher risk for having another depressive episode. So you're really going to have to build You have to understand yourself and understand yourself and understand what your triggers are. But a lot of times depression. Well, when some people say they're depressed and then I would get them to describe their life and what they're doing. I'd be like, well, that's not very surprising.

1:04:26Yeah. Like change your life. Get out there. Go do something. Yeah. Don't stay. Usually you just stay at home and probably a not very nice home. isolate themselves, not do anything they enjoy and live somewhere miserable. Like that's, you're not really helping yourself out there. Yeah. Yeah. Do whatever it is that you can to, and there's ways to treat it. It's cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance commitment therapy, but then there's behavioral therapy for depression. If someone comes, you might actually say, I am prescribing you volunteering, or I'm prescribing you exercise every day. You have to walk outside in the sun every single day.

1:05:05You might actually treat it in multiple different ways where you are working on the cognitive behavioral, cognitive stuff, maybe past wounds, childhood wounds, any of that stuff. And then you're also doing some behavioral changes alongside of that. I want to talk a little bit about the the stress that a lot of high performers will no doubt experience um and probably a lot of the the clients that you have and the audience which i have because i think a lot of people listening they're they're wanting to perform at their best they're constantly wanting to do more make more money you know just take on more responsibility obviously that will build up mentally.

1:05:49Have you found any systems that worked in order to perform at your best and still work a lot, but also find that balance where you're not overdoing it and just running yourself into the ground?

1:06:08See, this is a little bit of a tricky question to answer because there will be some times, I think it was Steve Jobs who said, in order to make a dent in the universe, you've got to give it everything you've got, right? There have been times I have, I don't remember if I slept that day. Like, there are times where you're absolutely driven by passion, and you're driven by mission, and you're driven by purpose. And there will be days where you just can't even balance that. But okay, have a day there and day here, but not this idea of you're going to live your life like that. I think seeing your life as a wheel, and in that wheelhouse, you have relationships, you have an intimate relationship, you have your physical health, you have your financial health, you have your personal development, you have your purpose, mission, like you see the whole wheel.

1:07:03You can't be tending to one side for too long. You have to do what is needed in all dimensions. And you'll have to think of the thing that has the highest impact. impact. And I can't remember the author, but in the book, The One Thing really speaks to this, which is that what is the one thing that's going to deliver the highest impact in all those areas when you are really giving your work everything you've got, but you still have a partner and you still have children and you still have your physical health? What is that one thing going to be? So that one thing for me is like, okay, well, physical health cannot be compromised because that's the thing that's going to carry over everything.

1:07:46So you have to sleep, you have to eat right, and you have to move, like period. That's a non-negotiable. So don't even have a conversation about that. But what's the one thing that's going to be the highest impact when it comes to kids? Okay, well, eating dinner together. The research is also quite supportive of this, that when you sit together and you eat, you sit and you talk, you put your phone away, that's going to be high impact where you connect. But of course, the other, you know, 20 hours, you might actually be working and hustling, but where can you give time? And I'm not saying you should live like that.

1:08:21But if you are in one of those periods where the project is about to launch or you're about to deliver something, then you want to make sure that you are tending to all those aspects of you by doing the highest impact. So for example, you might decide to meet with all of your friends and have just a gathering in your home where you put your cell phones away and you just hang out. It's three hours. You might even just do that once in a month, but you've really maximized that connection and been together. But if there's a phone in the way and you're connecting, okay, that's not going to work. So think about the ways you can tend to these different parts of your life.

1:09:03And it will never be balanced. It's never going to be this 50-50. It's sometimes going to be that your personal life is taking 70%. Your kid gets sick or your marriage needs work or something happens. And now it's tilting where you are now giving 70 % of your energy to this personal dimension and 30%. So what's the one thing you're going to do at work that's going to make sure that you don't drop that ball. So thinking about the one thing in all areas of your life is very helpful. And then knowing that it's a balancing act, not a balanced life. Always, always, every week negotiating, every week shifting those.

1:09:47It's literally like juggling balls. And it's not this kind of weighing scale of 50-50. I've never experienced that. I have four kids. I have a business. I am studying. I'm traveling into different continents of the world. I'm married. I have my parents that live with me within our household. There's a lot that I have to tend to. But there's a way to do it where you're saying, I'm going to show up for this part of my life because it's important. And I don't want to just sit and work and work and work because it just gives me so much joy. Because then when I'm done with that, there'll be no one here.

1:10:26How did you manage that with four kids and trying to obviously progress with your work as well? Yeah. I'm like high octane. I have a lot of energy. There were periods where, like I said, I've burnt out twice in like diagnosable burnout. Not like this, oh, I had a bad week. I need rest for a weekend. Like proper six-week recovery period where there was just literally no adrenaline left because I was just running on adrenaline and no sleep and no, you know, I just was really obsessed. I learned. If you told me not to do it, I wouldn't listen. So I know. So those high performers, like, I'm not going to tell you not to do that.

1:11:14I'm just going to tell you, find the one thing and just keep it somewhat. Even your therapist didn't stand a chance, eh? No, they didn't. If you told me to slow down, I'd be like, I can't. That's like telling a wild stallion to just stop running. It's like, how? I have all this energy in me, and it must be. I must express this. I must live this. But then through age and experience and wisdom, you see, okay, this is what I need in order for sustainable gains and not just this kind of burst of energy that comes out and then crashes. Yeah, what I've noticed with my life so far is obviously you have those pillars and it is really just this art of trying to juggle them all and feed them as much as you can.

1:12:00It is never going to be perfectly equal. if you're starting a business or you're really trying to focus on your career then the career pillar becomes the priority and because that is so high it means you need to sacrifice those other pillars so maybe the amount of time or attention that goes to relationships that goes down the family that might go down senior friends that might also go down i've noticed myself when you know there's a period in my life where i had to do like quite a serious transition with my career and almost take a I felt like I was taking a step backwards so I had to kind of rebuild and I was so focused on the career side of things obviously the health and fitness that was that can never be compromised so they were the two priorities but I noticed like even though for the first time I was making decent money and I was like I thought it was supposed to make me happy I realized oh I don't have any friends I've just moved to London and I haven't made an effort to make any friends.

1:13:02So my social life has taken a hit. I also, I was in a relationship, but it was a long distance relationship. So there was very intense periods of, okay, the relationship pillar is high, but then when they were gone for a couple of weeks, that just disappeared. And then obviously that made me feel a certain way. So I've realized now if I am experiencing, whether it be unhappiness or feeling like something is missing, usually I just think okay well which one do I need to give some attention to maybe oh I haven't hung out with my friends for a week let me go see my friends and then I go spend you know a couple hours with my friends and after that I'm like oh that was really good like in a way I sometimes treat that as my therapy session but I'm quite lucky because I'm surrounded by these friends who are you know they're pretty old not old but they're mature enough to give me good advice They're smart.

1:13:57They're doing well. Some of them are doing better than me. So, you know, we can all talk and discuss and share our problems. You guys have a council and you share each other's pain, but you also lift each other. It's so important to have that tribe. But it's also, as you said, that life is a great teacher. You didn't know that and then you learned that. And that's what reflection does. Most people will keep repeating the same thing again and again and again and again and wondering why life still feels like this. So this idea that you say, hmm, okay, I realize that when I'm not with my friends or I don't tend to that part of my life that something is lacking.

1:14:37So now I'm going to make that a routine. I'm going to schedule it in with like a Sharpie on my schedule that every two weeks I have to be with my friends. So this is where you start to time box and you try to prioritize what is important. And then you build around that. Ask me what I'm doing on, you know, June 7th, and I will tell you precisely what I'm doing. Because my day, I really schedule it because I want to attend to every part of my life. My exercise is scheduled and my sleep is scheduled and my rest is scheduled and my time with my friends is scheduled and my time with my kids is scheduled and.

1:15:12And when I was doing these two programs, one is in Zurich and one is in Berkeley, California. Now, I have to fly out once a month to California. Like, I had to sit with my kids and say, listen, guys, I'm going to do this, but I'm not going to do this unless I have your consent, I have your permission, I have your support. And what does that mean for you? That means I'm not going to be here a week. That means you're going to have to watch out for yourself during that week. You're going to look after yourself in that week. Like, of course, my husband is there and my parents are there, but like, I'm not going to be there.

1:15:43How long are you going for? I usually go one week at a time. Okay. Yeah. So I've been doing that for the last year. But knowing that it's going to require sacrifice from them is also important. Because then we're doing this thing together and they're investing in my development. And they feel like they have a say in that. So actually going to your people in your life and saying, I need this from you. Will you give this to me? Will you sacrifice your benefit for me? I think that's also a healthy way. And doing that for them as well. Yeah. Have you got any advice for people about having a happy and healthy relationship?

1:16:27Probably got a lot of advice. That's a really, you know, the one thing that I will say is that before the digital age, there was consumerism. And consumerism was already redefining how we engage with relationships. relationships we saw it as a transaction we saw it as a you know a value that you must bring to me how we deal with commodities right how we deal with objects like a tv like if it makes me feel good if i like it i keep it if i don't i return it or i get rid of it and that kind of has seeped into the way we relate to people in our life if you make me feel good then you're here if you don't make me feel good, you're out.

1:17:19And relationships never work like that. The best of relationships will have pain, they will have sadness, they will have disappointment, they will have betrayal, sometimes small betrayals, sometimes very big betrayals. And that doesn't mean that it's the end of a relationship. It just means that you both have committed to being on a journey where you both will support each other, you will grow each other, you will commit to each other, you will go through the thick and thin together. What does that mean? That means that I will mess up, surely. And I will disappoint you, surely. Will you still be with me?

1:17:57And I would say, yes, if you can own that, I'm with you. And if you can do something with that to grow yourself, I'm with you. Now, if you keep doing that again and again and again, okay, maybe not. But is there space for sacrifice? Is there space for forgiveness? Is there space for compromise? We don't talk about these things. This kind of binary, literal objectification, commodification of relationships is not right. It's never like that. It's far more complex because we are far more complex. And who you marry today will not be who is in that relationship with you five years, two years 10 years from now, because you will be different.

1:18:42I hope, you know, when people say you've changed. Yeah, I hope, I hope I'm not the same person that I was, you know, a year ago, even I hope I keep changing. But can we commit to walking this path together? That is, that is important. And I just don't think that that's happening right now. Yeah, especially with social media, I feel like people are so replaceable there's so many options yeah and if there is an argument or you know somebody messed up they're like okay bye yeah and even i'm guilty of that sometimes if somebody's gonna give me some headache i'm like don't need that i'll go find someone else so i'm i'm a part of the problem yeah i well we would probably just want to think about why you do that or what are you afraid of oh that would be that's a whole new conversation right like what's happening inside of you what are you afraid of what are you worried about and what is your selection criteria like who are you choosing to be in these con you know maybe you are being drawn to people that are giving you this kind of high intensity excitement but they're not necessarily going to be a good partner for you well i think now and from the experience i've had i know the difference between okay you can have fun but leave it at that versus okay this is actual like wifey material so I do know now there's a difference and it's it's quite easy for me to see from the behavior what is they do how they behave on social media many different things but I am interested to to know how I will evolve as a person because I feel like now I'm 34 I feel like I have a lot of life figured out.

1:20:26Certainly a lot of things I don't have figured out. I wonder if I will look back, imagine me being my 70 year old self. What would he think of the 34 year old self right now? How foolish you are. Or would he be like, you know what? You did what you should have done at that point in time. I can say to you, I am far older than you are. and I can say when I look back at 34, gosh, like that was a very long time ago. And of course, I did. One thing I can say always, I did the best I could. And I feel really proud of that. I did the best I could. I did it with all my heart. I'd made lots of crazy decisions, lots of bad decisions, lots of wrong turns, the right turns, but I did them with all of my heart.

1:21:19All of me showed up for all of it. And so I feel proud of that. Now, when I think back to what she knew and what I know, that's like a whole different person. 15 years, that's a long time. What crazy decisions did you make? Oh, I cannot go on record. I cannot go on record with that. Yeah, yeah, lots, lots of stuff. What do you think your 70-year-old self would say to you if they were sitting in front of you? But you didn't know it was you, if they were disguised. Yeah. But it was your 70-year-old self. What do you think they would say to you right now? Like, what advice would I give? I've never listened to advice, so they probably would know not to give me advice.

1:22:13whenever someone asks me, what would you say to your younger self or what would you say to your future self? I wouldn't say anything. I know I'm showing up the best way I can. I feel really proud of that. What I would say is just keep doing what you're doing and say yes to all of it. Yes to the mess. Yes to the pain. Yes to the disappointment. Yes to the paradox. Yes to the sadness. Yes to the grief, yes to the love, yes to the joy. Just keep saying yes. Yeah, I often reflect on maybe relationships didn't work out and maybe there was a lot of feelings and emotions that were involved that I had for this person.

1:22:57You could call it love. I don't know if it's love. But when you're experiencing the sadness of a heartbreak, of course I feel it and I embrace the sadness, but I'm thankful for the fact that I got to experience that in the first place. Yeah. Like that feeling of being in love is pretty rare. It is. It's so rare. And there you show this beautiful paradox of grief and gratitude. You are holding both and you're feeling both at the same time. You don't have to choose one over the other. The true sign of emotional maturity and wisdom is can you live the paradox that is life? Can you live with doubt along with faith?

1:23:46Can you be full of fear and still act because that's courage? It's not fearlessness. Can you be with people and not completely consume them? Or can you be relation? So all of this is holding paradox. Can you be grateful and still be grieving? This is the paradox of life. Most people cannot hold paradox. And the social media world does not support paradoxical thinking or nuance. It is moving us into binary thinking. It's moving us into polarized thinking. It's moving us into literal thinking. And that's cancel culture. And it's really, really quite toxic for relationships. So your advice would be to spend less time on social media or just try to control the information that you are taking in?

1:24:43Like, don't follow trash. Well, be very conscious of who you follow because truly they influence your thinking. Even in the most nuanced way, subtle ways, they will be influencing you. One, I wouldn't say spend less time. I would say spend more time doing something else, right? It's not about what you do. It's what about you doing outside of what social media is. Are you spending time with a reflective practice, a discipline? Like you go to the gym, you should have someone that you see. That's like me saying, oh, I'm the greatest player. I don't need a coach because I have the skill. The greatest players on earth have a coach because they can see what you cannot see.

1:25:28And they have an understanding of something that you cannot because they might be able to hold the whole board or they have a skill that they might be able to bring to you. So the best players have coaches. So do you have a practice outside of social media that really strengthens your self-understanding? Because if you do not have that, we are moving towards a generation of borderline personality traits and narcissistic traits. We have fragile sense of self. We have this grandeur and self-aggrandization. It's image and it's devaluing or idealizing and devaluing. These are characteristic traits of personality disorders.

1:26:11And I'm not saying you have a personality disorder, but surely I am seeing these traits in people right now. No, cancel culture is one of those. If I say something wrong or someone didn't like something I said and they just unfollow me. But what about all the things that I said that were right? I recently posted something a few weeks ago and I lost 2000 followers. Yeah. But this is cancel culture. And that tells me that you cannot hold a human being in their totality. That I will be flawed. I never said I was perfect. What made you think that way? And just because you disagree with me, you unfollow me.

1:26:48How will you be in a relationship? How can you be in relationship if you disagree with me and you say, delete or unfollow or whatever happens? You know, it's not normal. We are headed towards a generation of personality disorder traits. I'm seeing this in the adolescence. I'm seeing this in young people who really, and I'm seeing this when I say young people, like anybody under 40, where they don't have a good stable sense of self because they have spent their whole life projecting an image. not show thyself not know thyself and really if you spend that time outside of social media really understanding who you are really and then when 2000 people unfollow you it doesn't derail you some people it really puts them under it really really affects their self-esteem it's their self-worth there have been suicides that have happened like this really can be very painful because that sense of rejection is not easy.

1:27:54I just see it as, oh, well, I just got rid of some people who I probably didn't want following me in the first place. But it still hurts. Some extremely sensitive people, which probably at some point I will offend later down the line. So it doesn't... But I'm at that age where I feel as though I don't let it get to me. And you also have a followership enough. Now imagine if you only have 5 ,000 people following you. I feel as though the particularly the younger generation I don't know how they would deal with that like I'm quite happy I was brought up in a time where that didn't exist you know throughout my teenage years the worst we had was MSN messenger yeah and then I think Facebook came around in my early 20s and then Instagram and then yeah then the chaos started yeah well how are you how are you trying to ensure that your children don't get sucked into that crazy world Well, they don't have social media until they're 18.

1:28:52Do they complain about that? No, they don't. Thank God. Because I've done a very thorough job of teaching them. Why is it that I don't want them to be on there? They all had a therapist on and off that they've worked with, coach, I would say, in a reflective practice. For me, that was a very important thing that I want you to know who you are. I want you to spend time learning about your inner world. The way you go to school for your outer world, you go to this person for your inner world. And so framing it that way where they worked with someone, building an emotional vocabulary, having a way to express in relationship.

1:29:30These were things that were important to me. I still have one of my kids who's not as expressive, which is okay. But, yeah. A boy. Yes. Yes. But no, no, he's great. But no, they never complained about it. They don't feel like they're missing out. Of course they might feel that they're missing out. But, you know, you're missing out when you're not drinking either. That's true. Right? People think, well, why do I have to wait till 21 to drink? Well, you're missing out. Why wasn't they 18 then? They're allowed. Yeah. That'll be interesting. Any of them 18 yet? 19. 19. Okay. Are they doing okay? Yeah.

1:30:13That's good. She is. I sometimes wish she would kind of, you know, be a bit more messy and make a few more mistakes. As long as you're learning from that, it never is a mistake. It's an experience. And wisdom comes from that. So you don't get wisdom sitting in your room doing all the right things. You've got to go out and do things that kind of rock your world a little bit. and they shake you up and they test you and they challenge you and it might be a mistake and then you realize, oof, that did not feel right. That was wrong for my compass. These things are part of life. So I give them full permission to make all sorts of mistakes.

1:30:54I surely have and I'm better for it. Amazing. Thank you. I appreciate your time today. If people want to find out more about you, where can they find you the best channel would be probably my instagram account yeah at this time yeah and if they are considering therapy where should they go lighthouse arabia i can i can vouch for all of them other therapists that are there yes thank you very much thanks mike