#910 - Dr Julie Smith - The Science Of Emotional Intelligence & Self-Understanding

28:40If only I could get rid of my overthinking on my whatever it is, which is now opened everybody up to think back more. But our parents don't necessarily have that. They're just sort of dealing with the physics of their system, the way that it was given to them without necessarily realizing quite some much or quite servicially that well things could have been a different way. It's like well things just are the way they are. And you go, okay, so what do you want? Do you want to be largely unaware that things could have been different and to understand the way that attachment styles and child rearing and behavioral genetics and etc etc work to influence the disposition you have as an adult.

29:15Or do you want to have it this way? Like is ignorance bliss? Because for me personally, I would much sooner be able to contribute a little bit to have the pain of the realization that there's something which is in my hands and that there are ways that this can be changed, but be educated on this and actually be able to make some sort of an impact as opposed to just being at the mercy of it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think what we have to be really careful of and you kind of see a lot of online is this sort of resentment and bitterness, this sort of one -sided this negative thing was done You know parents are the bad guys.

29:51I'm the victim of the bad guys and and now it's awful and you know to a degree you know in the most severe scenarios where things are just awful that's almost separate from what we're talking about here where you can have a fairly sort of normal childhood and there were things that negatively affected you, but they would also have been a lot that positively affected you. And so I think one way of sort of creating sort of antidote to just feeling bitterness and some resentment towards your parents is to sort of nurture some gratitude around, okay, these were the things about your childhood that weren't ideal.

30:39What would be the things that you would repeat, you know, when you become a parent yourself? What were the things that you value about your childhood that you think helped you become the person that you are or that helped you, you know, feel secure or, you know, so your your parents might have been emotionally neglectful and not sort of spent lots of time with you, but actually maybe they held down a really difficult job and endured that so that you could have food on the table every night. And maybe your mum was at home every day when you got home from school with a warm dinner and you know had that kind of beautiful sense of love loving you.

31:17And so there will be new ways of sort of turning something and looking at it in a slightly different way that helps you to shift the feeling and not just sit in that resentment of, you know, I've survived despite my parents rather than the cousin. Are you familiar with the Thomas Soul quote, there are no solutions only trade -offs? I don't know. Okay, so this year it feels like that's been the quote of the year for me. And a lot of the time, what it means is trying to optimize absolutely everything and railing against things that are shortcomings is a surefire route to misery because you're not going to be able to get everything to be perfect.

32:03And in many situations, something is positive and something is negative and the negative thing is probably come along for the ride as the dark side of the positive thing. Yeah. And I think that it's the same with the parents. It's so right. Right, dad wasn't there for me sufficiently emotionally. I imagine that's a big sort of millennial complaint about boomer parents. Dad was sort of this classic still blue collar guy. And he go, yeah, it was at work, like 10 hours a day, five days a week for 18 years to raise you. And before that, and for brothers and sisters and all the rest of the stuff. And he go, okay, so there are no solutions.

32:41There's only trade -offs. You had this level of security. Or maybe there's somebody else who dad was there for me a lot of the time, but we really struggled with money. And he go, okay, again, it came to me because I started, I made a big pivot with my diet and that improved a ton of energy problems that I was having. But I was finding myself waking up at 3 .30 or 4 in the morning every single day for a week. And the first day I thought, oh, this is just, it'll be like, it's a transition thing. And the second day I thought, oh no, this has become a habit. And then by the third day, I was railing against it.

33:13So I woke up and I was like, God, why is this the case? How come I'm waking up at this time? This is so annoying. I'm going to be tired tomorrow, et cetera, et cetera. And that Thomas Saul flooded into my head. And he, they quote, there are no solutions, only trade -offs. I thought, right, OK, would you be happy to get up at 3 .30 in the morning if it meant that your mood and your cognition throughout the day was better than it had been over the last couple of months? So I was like, yes. What are you complaining about then? What you're complaining about is, why can't I have the entire world exactly the way that I want.

33:44No, no, no, no. Would that be beautiful? Yes. Is it in anyone's world realistic? Absolutely not. And the same thing I think when we look at our parents is a nice perspective. Yeah, absolutely. And there's always something to be grateful for and something to feel a bit annoyed about or miserable about. and I think part is a really important life skill to just have that clarity that you can choose. You don't have to be... We're all human. We all find ourselves in those moments. And when I'm talking about that health scare stuff that I went through in the summer, and I talk about sort of being the predator, not the prey and all of that, that doesn't mean every moment I was feeling that.

34:28that was a response to those dark moments where you feel, oh my, what's going to happen to me? And there's dark moments. So it's only human to find yourself in those. But just by having that awareness and knowing that it's a choice gives you that opportunity to step back from it. Get that, put it at arm's length, see it for what it is, and then you get to choose. but having those moments of difficulty, all the moments when you're not doing that. Like you say, the dark moments in the morning, when you're thinking, oh, why am I doing this? It's okay to have those moments, doesn't mean you're failing, but then you had that process of, hang on a minute, I remember that quite, now I get to choose.

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35:45Dr Andrew Cubeman is the scientific advisor and Dr Mark Hyman is their chief medical So you can trust that the data and insights you receive are as scientifically sound as they are actionable. Getting these lab tests done would usually cost thousands, but with function it is only $500. Right now you can get functions, expert blood work analysis, and bypass their 300 ,000 -person waitlist by going to the link in the description below, or heading to functionhealth .com slash modernwistam. That's functionhealth .com slash modernwistam. I imagine that a lot of parents, I'm not one yet, but I imagine a lot of parents have the reversed problem, which is that they're terrified of getting it wrong for their kids as they're raising them or shortly after they've raised them.

36:25What is your advice there? It is part and parcel of the whole experience and you feel it for a woman as a woman you feel that from the moment you know you're pregnant and suddenly everything you do is about somebody else. And so you feel guilt no matter what you do really. And with feelings of guilt, it's important to listen to it as well. I mean, there's kind of, you know, there's stuff online about sort of parent guilt and how you shouldn't feel it or you should ignore it and do what's good for you. And that's fine. You know, there are moments where you know that might be in the context of taking a break because it's difficult to do that and take time for yourself.

37:11And that's when you, you know, acknowledge that guilt and you take it with you because you know this is the right thing to do. And there are other times when it's important to listen to that guilt more deeply and go, well, am I feeding that because I'm not living in line with my values as a parent? And so I don't know, if I, you know, feel guilty about coming here. So come and slundering for a couple of days, doing some interviews. There's a sense that I don't want to leave you guys and if one of my children got upset, which they didn't, but if they did, but I would feel that sort of, oh, why am I leaving?

37:46And that's at the point where I have to get that clarity of the situation where I'm doing this because it benefits the family, like the payoffs thing, right? You're dads at work all day, that kind of thing. They're difficult decisions and by having your values really clear in your mind about why you're doing something, it's easier than to kind of not make the guilt go away, you're willing to take it with you. So you get it in your backpack and you take it with you because you know you're doing the right thing. And because sometimes that feeling is not based on something that's warranted, you know, sometimes it's, you know, if you're, I don't know, a people pleaser or something because of how things were set up in your childhood, you'll probably feel guilty all the time when you feel that you might have, you know, upset someone.

38:38And, and that's, that's not necessarily warranted. That's a pattern. So sometimes, you know, if we, if we engage in sort of emotional reasoning, right, which is that bias of, I feel it, therefore it's true. that can get us into all sorts of trouble. So if, because I feel guilt, that means I'm a terrible parent, then I'm gonna have a terrible time. That's interesting. Yeah, so if you feel guilt, and you don't recognize it as a normal part of being a parent, then you're likely to just think that you're failing all the time. So it's not just the sensation, it's the story that you tell yourself, and you happen to be defaulting to a very particular story, which is because, dot, dot, dot, because I'm a bad parent.

39:20I mean, like the only thing I can contribute is sort of a bit of an evolutionary lens, but I imagine that mothers, especially, but also fathers, have a pretty easy to activate guilt response to kids. Why? Well, because the parents that didn't feel guilty when they left their kids, their kids died. And we've selected for the most neurotic overbearing, caring parents that we can think of. And that's, that those are your ancestors. Yeah. Okay, so this is going to arise. You leave. Like, you know, I'm sure that even just dad going to work. I'm going to work on a morning. Normal day at work. Kid is sad.

39:57You go, okay, I understand that in order to put food on table to keep tiny child alive, I have to go to work. Yeah. Do I feel guilty about that? Well, kind of no. But then if it's something that seems more elective, then it feels like, yeah, that is because it's, I don't know, less justified in some way or, or more opulent, more chosen. So you go, okay, well, I just need to work out, is this in line with something, like you said, principles, the life setup? Am I doing something that makes the world a better place that my kids can grow up in? Is this something that they're going to be proud of?

40:31Is this something that affords us a different type of lifestyle? Is this something that they would want me to do? If they were in 20 years' time, would they want to look back and say, do you know what it is? I'm really glad that you actually went and did that. Yeah. But in the moment, you've got a crying child and you feel like a piece of shit because you're living. Yeah, and it's important to listen to it anyway, isn't it? Because even if you've got the values and you know it's there, it might be an indication that, you know, I do feel guilty, so maybe I need to just redress the balance a little bit.

40:58So, I think people talk about balance as if you find this perfect spot and then you just don't move and that's the perfect way to live. And it really isn't that. If you see someone on a balancing beam or a tightrope, they're always doing this, they're always moving slightly from side to side, and readjusting, readjusting. Notice when you're going off -tune far, readjust, and particularly for, you know, as a working parent, I find that's constant. If you can listen to those feelings when they happen, it can be, it's information. It's, you know, do I need to just spend some more time with them? Maybe I'll spend a bit too much time in the book this week.

41:37Yeah, do I need to, you know, block out the weekend just when? I suppose as well, an uncomfortable realization to look at me, bro -sizing parenting from the sidelines over here. But I imagine as well that there should also be a question that parents ask where they say, well, are my kids maybe too sensitive? Are they too unfamiliar with me being away from them? Are they unable to regulate even a small amount of time away, which is unrealistic and is making them fragile in a way? Maybe I need to step in on the other side. Maybe we need to do a little bit of training. I need to sort of bring them into land a little bit.

42:15I need to calm them down. I need to say, hey, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to be away for 15 minutes. I've got to go to the shop. I've got to go and do whatever. So yeah, they're all signals. And I guess it's a good learning experience. And if you deny them, then the opportunity to learn is just out the window. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's all about opportunities to learn, isn't it? And like you say, if a child has been used to having you there, that sort of post -lockdown kind of experience for lots of parents actually where, you know, everyone had been at home for many months.

42:41It was really difficult for young children to then transition out to nursery or go to school or, you know, I wonder what we'll see in a decades time from an attachment perspective, from a lifestyle perspective, from a psychological makeup perspective. You know, we may find out that kids have largely surrebusped a two -year period during the formative, yours didn't make that much of a difference. Maybe it'll be really great, or maybe it'll be really terrible and time will tell. You mentioned before about people pleasing. This is something that over the last year or so I've realised that maybe at pathology I'm more familiar with than I realised.

43:18What have you come to learn about people pleasing, people pleasing, where it comes from? Yeah, so often it makes sense that, you know, often these things feel confusing until you hear someone's story and then it makes complete sense. and you kind of, I've had so many of these moments with people in the room where, you know, they come in and think, you're just not going to understand this, this is just bizarre and complex and I don't get it and then you spend a decent amount of time going through someone's story and then you get to this lovely point where you kind of say to each other, of course, of course it is this way, how could it not be given everything that's happened?

43:59And, you know, there isn't sort of one story or one scenario that always leads to people pleasing. There are lots of different ones. And, but I think it's important to distinguish that people pleasing isn't being a nice person. It's so much more than that. It's being absolutely vigilant to how other people feel and placing that as your absolute priority over and above your own well -being, your own health, anything. So, you know, it's just terrifying the thought of displacing someone else or experiencing their disapproval, or they're not liking you or rejecting you. And so, you know, I've seen people who live in turmoil trying to you please everybody around them and keep them pleased, which is not sustainable.

44:55And so it creates chaos where you're constantly chasing your tail and it gives other people a lot of power over you. So you can end up in relationships that are sort of exploitative or just not healthy for you. And yeah, so I think it's one of those things that sort of banded around. And it's something that a lot of us kind of do in bits and bobs. Yeah, sometimes I'm like that or in certain situations, I'm like that. And some people spend their lives really, really struggling with it. The desire for us to take something we do a little bit and turn it into a label that describes our entire personality is quite strong.

45:40Even the pathologization of sort of normal emotions in that way, which is odd, right? Because both of you are fans of sort of emotionally informed therapy and people understanding their emotions. I also think it's very interesting. I think it's one of the most interesting things that you can do. And yet, I imagine that you have a similar problem to me as the overuse of therapy speak online to describe like, this person wasn't mean to me. they were narcissistic or they caused me trauma, you know, I'm not sad, I'm depressed and they're sort of the straying over into you cross the boundary, that's one of my boundaries, etc.

46:16etc. So people a lot of the time will say yes to things when they mean to say no, or they want to say no, they want to become firm at being able to disappoint those around them, how can they become better at that? I think is one of the most important skills anyone will ever learn actually because you put yourself at risk if you can't say no when you need to or you can't hold boundaries and there's that people pleasing tendencies so if everything is about everybody else and what they want from you and that's why it's not the same as being a nice person so you know if you're if everybody else's needs and wishes and desires is, come first, and you don't have the ability to put a stop to that when it doesn't fit.

47:03Then you'll end up doing things that you regret and don't fit with your values or that don't feel like you're being a nice person, but it's because somebody else has more power over your behaviour than you do. So I think assertiveness skills are a big part of what's taught in therapy actually, and you know, teaching people to manage difficult people and people who perhaps have more power in relationship or you know it kind of sounds easy to be able to say no and and it's not because it's always packed out with lots of emotion and the complex dynamics between two people and so it can be really difficult but it's absolutely learnable and so that's where it's important to remember that even if you've had a habit for life of putting everybody else first and being the I don't mind I'm fine.

47:54What have you think, type person, that you can begin to change, but it's often about learning specific skills. Why do you start? What are the skills? So a lot of it is practice in lighthearted ways. We talked about the acting opposite to urges, using polos and situations that aren't necessarily the most emotive, the most difficult for you, you kind of grade situations, you could even make a list to be fair. So you can make a list of the different situations where it's difficult to be assertive or state your own needs and you take the easiest one and you start with that and you practice and you have a go and then you come back and you see how it went, what went well, what would, you know, and so I was working someone on dealing with those kind of assertiveness skills or needing to state your own ease in a workplace and going home on time or taking holiday, those sorts of things.

48:56So we started with something really that felt the easiest and then we just assessed it. So stress test things and then learn from it. Actually, the anticipatory anxiety about it was much worse than actually the awkward moment of saying what I needed to say and their reaction was not as bad as I thought it would be. You know, I had all that fear and discomfort but that died down as soon as the moment was over and then actually I got what I needed and the situation was better than it would have been and I'm not living in resentment. So when you start small, you get these small victories that give you that momentum and give you that sort of drive to move forward and go for the next challenge but you can't expect to suddenly go right from now on, I'm going to be boundered and assertive and strong and and we're going to overnight hard at.

49:47Yeah right, it's just not going to happen, you have to do these things gradually and start with the easiest thing. Something that almost feels a bit silly, that's so easy, it's almost a bit kind of really, am I starting here? But then you get that little easy victory and then you move on to the next one, which is a little bit more difficult and so on. That anticipatory anxiety thing is so funny because you're right, it's almost always your ability to turn the future situation into a nightmare is significantly better than you're almost ever is. And the stupid thing is that all of the nightmares that you genuinely encounter in the real world are ones that you probably didn't see coming.

50:23So you're right, okay, so I have this unbelievable ability to predict things that aren't problems and not predict things that are going to be massive issues. Okay, brilliant, thanks. So, an amazing way to uproar into setup. But yeah, I think that that's right. And again, as a slowly rehabilitating people, pleaser, that's a way that I find to be better as well. To learn to be able to make demands of other people, to not subjugate my needs, or believe that I don't have needs, or think that it's noble to not have needs, to put somebody else ahead of me. Oh, this is like a sort of sacrificial type.

50:57It's sort of odd like emotional puritanism, where you think, if I feel bad, but someone else feels good, net, net, that means that it's good. You go, what if both, what if you could both feel good, but you just need to sort of make a demand? Yeah. Yeah, so true. And often you're, when you feel like you're being a nice person because you're making them feel good, actually sometimes what you're doing is just appeasing them and you're just scared of their emotional reaction or their disapproval and it's, you know, feel it's motivated by fear of what their reaction might be rather than, you know, your own values around what should happen in our situation.

51:38It's also not very trustworthy. If somebody can't trust you, I know it's very difficult to trust you, yes. And you know, you hinted at, if you don't have any choice, it's not particularly virtuous, you don't even feel good about doing the virtuous thing because you didn't have any other option. But you didn't choose to be nice to this person. You simply couldn't be bad. Yeah, and I had wrote about this this week actually the Friend of mine a few months ago Me and I met at a sort of well -meaning debate, but I was worried that I'd upset him So I rang him a little bit afterwards and I was like I came on just what it's sort of check in and make sure that you're right So yeah, of course like of course it was it was totally fine And then I said he heard me start to chastise myself for going see this is this is my people pleasing nature coming out This is me I had to check in he's like well well well hang in a second the reason that I love you as a friend And for one of the big reasons is because you decided to put me first, even in this situation, even one that was neutral, the fact that you did reach out and carry, is like, be careful pathologizing something which is actually a really virtuous part of who you are.

52:37I'm like, right, okay. So doing the thing was good. It's a part of my nature that my friends are glad that I have. But by being compelled to do it, as opposed to choosing to do it, that just kind of derogates some of the virtue that's behind it. So that's right, okay. So am I supposed to purposefully try and get rid of that? So briefly make myself a worse friend to then relearn it again consciously so that I can finally get back to the place that I was in the beginning. Like that seems unnecessarily effortful. Like to go around this whole loop to end up at the place that I started again, but this time it's, you know what I mean?

53:11And I think this line between virtue from compulsions and virtue from choices and then this odd sense that we need to deprograde. And it's like, okay, so if it's hard to do, does that make it more virtuous? Like, it's in my nature. Like, that's just me speaking forward. What a lovely way to be. Would you rather be somebody that's mean and you have to work hard to do that thing would that make you a better person? If you were good, but you was naturally mean, I'm sure I'd be able to find a way to castigate myself and whip myself into submission, say, well, I mean, you know that you did the thing but you didn't feel like doing the things.

53:43That's, you know, the human desire to minimize our sort of good points is robust, to say the least. Yeah, and like you say, it's all about the choice and you know, you clearly have an awareness of it now. And so if you found yourself in a situation where it was really detrimental to you and you knew that you probably should say something different, but you'd said X because of that people please intendancy, then you'd be in a better position to be able to choose something different because you have that awareness. And that's the key isn't it? It's okay to have that as a trait and that sort of tendency, because if you're aware of it, then when it becomes troublesome, you stand a chance at doing something different.

54:30It doesn't mean you have to eradicate everything and clean slate and start again. And that's a thing, a lot of stuff now is about, you'd like you say, pathologizing everything, and as if it's something that's wrong with us. and actually those tendencies can also be really lovable parts of us and things that other people appreciate about us, or that we appreciate about ourselves, but that don't always work in every context. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Element. For the last three years, I've started every morning with Element. Element is a tasty, electrolyte, drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that that you don't.

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56:12What's your advice for dealing with passive aggressive people? Oh, so with passive aggressive behaviour, I think it's one of those things that you feel it very subtly. So, and you start to question yourself, I think that's one of the key signs is that, you know, something will happen. maybe it's a compliment that feels more like an insult or something that's where on the surface everything seems friendly, superficially, but you come away feeling like you're not sure if they really like you or you come away feeling sort of wounded in some way and or maybe you're being kind of subtly excluded. And that sort of behavior is inviting you in to become, especially if someone is being a passive, passive -gressive by taking on role of a victim in a situation.

57:11They're inviting you to come in as a perpetrator. And passive -aggressive behavior is one of those things that it's really difficult to pinpoint exactly what it was. And with the culpable deniabilities the entire reason for the passive aggression. Yeah, so someone could, you know, I don't know, let's say, you know, something great happened in the United States, successful. One of your friends has a problem with that and so start sort of ignoring you or trying to exclude you and stuff. But as soon as you pick up on that and say, are we all right, then all is denied, right? Everything's fine. I've just been busy.

57:50I haven't been able to, you know, and so you're kind of stuck in this place of, I can't really address it because they will deny it. And yeah, I feel terrible and I don't feel connected to this person anymore. I feel like they maybe don't like me or something's going on. And the trouble is the more you then get sucked into kind of joining the circus in that way and playing the game, The more you lose, I think. So a lot of it is about watching and learning. You know, if someone reveals themselves to you that they're not okay with you in a certain way or that that friendship is now conditional on you, I don't know, making yourself smaller or not doing certain things or associating with certain people, then all you can do is learn from that and make your own decisions then about whether that's a friendship for you or whether that's something that your friendship can overcome, you know, might be a blip, but it might also be something bigger.

58:53Yeah, I am intimately familiar with passive aggression and it never really points at the thing that someone's trying to say. It's this sort of shadow sentence that gestures in the direction of it whilst also being able to be completely denied that it is that thing that we're talking about. So that it's quite a cowardly form of communication. I'm aware that it's coping mechanism, there's lots of reasons that people do it. But it's a very cowardly form of communication because it doesn't ever actually say the thing that you mean. It just sort of points in the direction and then gets mad at you if you don't realize it.

59:35So Neil Strauss says unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments. And I think that's sort of passive aggression in a nutshell. But yeah, you know, there's two, at least for me, there's sort of two broad approaches. The first one being, like, call it out is gently as possible. You like luck. Hey, man, it feels like such and such a thing has happened. I'm not really too sure what it is. But I don't like this sort of lingering sense of something and spoken. Help me understand here, like, what's going on? This is an open forum. I'm not going to judge you, just let me know. And for me, with that, you know, that's a really, as long as you deploy it in the right way, there's a really open door policy.

1:00:16That's an olive branch for somebody to go, ah, okay, it's a bit safe. Yeah, do you know what it is? Like, I know that you don't even think about it, but you said this thing the other week and fuck, it's just got to me and I haven't really been able to stop thinking about it. And you go, awesome. Like, what run to the bridge? And you can then round it out quite nicely by saying something like, hey man, look, I just just want to let you know, if this ever, ever happens, if anything even remotely close to this happens again, just call it out, like just say it to me straight away. Is that what happened for you in your situation?

1:00:43I mean, I'd like to say, illustrious career of dealing with passive aggressive people. But that's at least my current working theory of one of the better ways to deal with it. And the second side of it is, look, like if you've put that forward in this person's sort of behavior this way, I think going, okay, like I trust what you're saying. but it still feels like there's something lingering there. And, you know, reliably now, those situations, those people just got phased out in my life. So I'm like, hey man, are you overthink enough? I don't need to be over thinking about your thinking as well.

1:01:19Like I've got enough of my own thinking to overthink about. Yeah, and there's a big decision to make, isn't there? When someone is behaving in that way towards you, and, you know, friendships are valuable. So, you know, it's important not to make that decision impulsively, but to, like you say, do that over time. So, you know, someone might make a mistake because they're having a hard time and that might change and get better after a while or it might not. And so, with that sort of watch and learn approach, take it in, adjust the amount that you trust someone. So just how much you share with them, just how much you trust them to, you know, know certain information or whatever, so that you can kind of, also that you're always guarded, but so that you're just protecting yourself if this person is reading themselves not to have your best interests at heart.

1:02:14And then gradually come to a decision about whether this friendship is really for you or not, whether it really adds to your life or if it actually takes away from your life. I think sometimes that decision has to come just carefully and considered so that you're not sort of impulsively pushing someone out and then later realize that there might have been an explanation for it. It seems like I think talking about relationships, intimate relationships, There's sort of two broad buckets of challenges early on in relationships. One being, you loving somebody who doesn't feel the same, and the other being, somebody loving you, but you sort of struggling to let them get in close.

1:03:01The sort of anxious versus avoidance, I suppose, the push versus the pull. What's your advice for these two buckets of people? Yeah, so I mean, it's quite common actually, this sort of avoidant person, and getting into relationship with an anxious, attached person. So if you're sort of anxiously attached, you might always be worried about all that other person feels and you will want more affection from them and more reassurance that they still love you. And that's based on those early attachments. Whereas the avoidant person, they still need love and they still need that reassurance, but they're not gonna ask you for it.

1:03:44And when things get to sort of intimate, then that will fill them with some sort of uncomfortable feelings, maybe fear, and they will kind of shut that down. And doesn't mean they don't need love from the other person. They still benefit from connection. They just find it really difficult to reach out for it and to sit in that sort of exposed state. to that vulnerable state of being close to someone or being intimate with someone. So I think what you're doing when you're working with couples who are in that relationship, the risk is that the relationship ends because the the avoidant person becomes so overwhelmed by the anxious person who keeps trying, keeps trying, keeps trying, that they kind of push back or become sort of rejecting and then that's too much for that anxious person and at the end they say I can't do any more of this and they move on.

1:04:48And so what you're aiming for in that scenario is to, and it's important to, I know you said at the beginning there about, you know, someone who doesn't love you back, this is the kind of scenario where these people do love each other, they just have different styles of attachment. And so what you're aiming for is awareness of each person's cycle, you know, own sort of cycle or pattern of dealing with people in the relationship so that they have some level of appreciation and a degree of patience for the other person and what they're, you know, what they're experiencing. But for both of those to aim for a more secure attachment style, so to the edge towards somewhere in the middle, which involves, compromise for both people.

1:05:30So it involves, you know, the person who's more avoidant, building up their tolerance for intimacy and closeness and for the anxious person to build up their resilience for uncertainty and the tendency to kind of seek reassurance. Carming that. So it involves both people kind of working to fit together and it's absolutely possible. You know, there are lots of couples with those sorts of styles of that work really well. Yeah. What about the person that doesn't love you back? I guess we're one step before the relationship here, you know, pining, pandering, clawing for somebody who just, you want them and they don't want you?

1:06:18Yeah, I think, you know, they're just, I don't know, probably thousands and thousands of books written on that kind of scenario that sort of unrequited love and things. and I think, you know, when we're talking about the people pleasing side, some people will have that tendency to stay in relationships in which the other person has no affection for them, because of the fear of being alone, being rejected. And I think you make better decisions about those kind of relationships if you work on having your own back. So it's much less scary, the idea of leaving someone or being rejected by someone, if you know that you will look after yourself and do the best by yourself and you know, you're much more resilient to any of that and you're much less likely to put up with someone who doesn't love you back and treats you poorly if you have your own back and you're looking after yourself.

1:07:18So having that kind of good relationship with the South where you come first helps you to be able to do it. Isn't it strange? We've got this sort of odd balance when we get into relationships with people. Before we met them, we were a self -sufficient human, perfectly fine. Most people, maybe in many ways preferable to being in a relationship. and then you decide to let this other person into your life and you think, right, okay, well, I know that in order to fully love this person in order to integrate them into my lifestyle, I need to not just sort of continue to do the independent thing that I was doing with the window dressing of like some companionship every so often, but they actually infuse themselves into it.

1:08:08I begin to take heed of what they say. I care about their opinions. There is a bit of them in me. And if that leaves, there is this void there. And you're sort of trying to create this balancing act. And then as things get more and more, you think, well, maybe even their opinion of me is more important than my opinion of me. And I am so concerned about what, whether they're okay, that I can't be okay with that. that and if they were to leave, I don't even know what would be left. But in order to have, in order for you to hold on to the initial type of sort of ruthless independence that you had before, it feels like you wouldn't ever really fully be able to let that person integrate into your life.

1:08:53So yeah, this sort of delicate balance between you are okay, you can back yourself, you are not a fragile little mouse. And also, if you want to experience everything that there is to enjoy in a relationship, you need to allow yourself, you need to open up that side of yourself in order to be potentially hurt. It's not a simple balance. Yeah, and it's a risk, but it's a risk that's worth it because we do a lot better in relationships than we do outside of them. There is so much to gain from that risk that it makes it worth it. You do make yourself vulnerable going into relationship, don't you?

1:09:37And so when you're kind of at stage where you're not sure whether the relationship is going to end, like you say when people have been so into a relationship and sacrifice so much of themselves, that it's become all about the other person, ending that relationship, then can be this process of rebuilding. day, you don't know what your preferences are because you've spent so many years prioritising somebody else's, but it's absolutely possible to do that and to rediscover yourself and your own preferences and the things that you like to do or that your own goals and your own values, but it takes a bit of work.

1:10:20We'll get back to talking to Julian one minute, but first I need to tell you about Maui Noi. Not all meat is created equal and that is why I partnered with Maui Noi. Not only does their meat taste amazing, it's actively combating the environmental destruction caused by Maui's access to the overpopulation. It has the highest protein per calorie ratio on the market. Up to 53 % more than grass -fed beef and it is the only stress -free 100 % wild harvested red meat available. Their venison sticks are with me whenever I travel. These are phenomenal. They taste unreal. 9 grams of protein. I love them.

1:10:54They're a complete life hack. You need to get more protein in your diet and this is going to help. You can get the healthiest red meat on the planet delivered directly to your door by going to the link in the description below. I'm heading to Maui new evanesan .com slash modern wisdom using the code modern wisdom. A checkout that's M -A -U -I -N -U -I venison .com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. I suppose a lot of the time the sort of disagreements, I guess before the relationship breaks down the kind of arguments that people have. I had Ben Shapiro on the show recently, who's a good debater, and he mentioned that he has to remind himself that being loved by his wife is more important than winning an argument.

1:11:37Because a lot of the time, regardless of whether he's in the right or in the wrong, he's very well trained. It's like saying, I go into a fist fight and I'm an MMA fighter. He has a very particular set of skills. Human's hate being so wrong so much, I think that we can become myopic about this sort of stuff. that we just don't want to lose the argument to our partner. Yeah. Even if we might be in the wrong, even if the outcome results in us being more miserable or the things being more sad. Yeah. What's your advice for better disagreements and for letting go of this need to win arguments? It's interesting, is it?

1:12:14Because when you're in the moment and you're angry with someone, it feels as if the best feeling is going to be when you prove that you're right and you come out on top and you're the only person that thinks you look good when you win. And actually, if you're in a loving relationship with someone and you know, you preview yourself right and you feel like you've won the argument, what the other person then feels is probably a bit crushed and a bit disappointed in you for being so ruthless with them. And so it's so important and I think you learn this over time, the longer that you're in relationships, you learn how to argue in a way that leads to reconnection.

1:13:01And the aim is no longer to work out who's winning and whether the relationship of this going to continue, the aim is to resolve it in a way that doesn't hurt either of you too much. And arguments that focus on reconnection and repair as opposed to winner and loser lead to much, much stronger relationships in which you can argue and still trust each other. I also had this thing in my mind, this is early brochines from me, this is like early 20s brochines stuff, where I noticed that the tone that was set at the very beginning of a relationship that I would get into, very much sort of determined expectations down the line, that during the first six months or whatever, three months where everything's amazing, the expectations coming down the line.

1:14:03And if you spend four nights a week together because you're besotted and you can't think about anything except for them, etc., etc., but really where you want to bring this relationship into land is you probably see each other two nights a week or whatever. The change, the pivot that then gets made or this particular demeanor that you have in the beginning, maybe you're more aloof, you're playing it more cool or maybe you're more lovable or whatever it might be, that that tone setting in the beginning is highly determined of what is expected done right and quite rightly so. Like this is the relationship that I got into.

1:14:35What's this one? Like why is what what happened with this sort of adjustment here? But I get the sense that with disagreement with attachment style, with regulation, co -regulation with the way that you make up after you've argued, etc. Setting the tone for that as early as possible as well is maybe even more important because that is going to determine, or at least, my current working theory is that most relationships live and die not on how happy you guys are together but how well you disagree. Because like insufficient happiness may be a reason for a relationship to break up, but what's more likely is too much disagreement, too much unhappiness, right?

1:15:20Like let's get past that first because that predicates you being able to access the happiness thing in any case. And yeah, this sort of direct communication to hey, when X happened, I felt why. I'm sure it wasn't your fault. I'm sure that you didn't mean to make me feel that way, but I don't want to lie to you. I just want this to be other than this is a collaborative process, almost treating the relationship like a third person and being like, look, we have this thing, which is the way that we're in mesh together. And I want to do things that allow that to flourish as much as possible. Yeah, yeah.

1:15:53And also it's okay to, for it not to be perfect at the beginning. So, you know, I've been with my husband for like 20 years and we don't argue in the same way that we did when we first got together. You learn to argue. You learn to, yeah, your relationship evolves and And as long as you're always doing your best to try and improve on yourself and how what you bring to the relationship and making adjustments when things don't work well, then what you have is this amazing, flourishing, strengthening thing over time. Whereas I think, you know, if you base your choice about whether you continue a relationship it on how you are doing right now, as if that's the only way it can ever happen.

1:16:49Then you might end a relationship that could have improved or got better. So it's all about sort of learning from each experience, isn't it? And then trying to do better if you feel like you've not really bought your best. Getting under the individual, what's your advice to people that have got a critical in a voice. You know, in my years of sort of doing therapy with people, I've come across so many people who are highly self -critical, painfully so, and yet hold onto it for dear life because they think that that's their source of drive and motivation and productivity and achievement and so they'll defend it like it's doing something for them.

1:17:38And until they learn that actually it's probably doing damage or it's holding them back. And because often they'll come with some other problem and won't necessarily recognize that it's being perpetuated by that tendency to not only be self -critical, but just psychologically hammering yourself yourself into the ground when things go wrong or when you're not perfect and that sort of thing. But I always like talking to people about the idea of, okay, we all want to do well in life, right? We want to, you know, be at our best. And if you take that idea and you take, I don't know, elite athletes, there is no elite athlete out there that chooses not to have a coach or support around them to do their best, right?

1:18:28They recognize that that's helpful. but they also don't choose their high school bully to come and coach them and come along to them with their, come along to competitions with them or they'll choose someone that they trust, someone that is honest with them but delivers that honesty with respect and someone who genuinely wants them to be at their best and achieve. And so if you take that idea of a sports coach and everything that they have to embody to be decent at that job, to get the most out of someone. Why wouldn't you want to also do that for yourself in your own head? The differences between that kind of high school bully sound or the use of parent or whoever that voice is in your mind, that is never going to get the kind of calm that you would get from, you know, a really good coach or someone who genuinely wants the best for you.

1:19:27It's a great realization. It's a really lovely realization, you know, I would certainly put myself into the category of person who believed that his castigating inner voice was encouraging his performance for a long time. Kind of got myself to at least now realizing, it's probably not helping, certainly not making me better. But then it doesn't even more sort of difficult question, which is, okay, it's not even useful. Dot, dot, dot, and it's still there. Right, okay. So it's no longer performing the function that I thought it was, but you've got this, you know, lifetime of habit of that just being the default that you go to.

1:20:06I remember I used to do this thing when, again, CrossFit World. It's interesting that I use CrossFit a lot of the time when I'm talking about kind of like the induction to personal growth because those, both those things happened at the same time. Okay. So I kind of anchor a lot of the things that I was doing then to the training modality that I did. And if I was doing a workout on an assault bike, my heart rate was really, really high. It's 170 or whatever. I've got the taste of metal in the back of my throat. I'm aware of 170 is not that high for some people, but it was high for me. Working on the this op -acc, and during that extreme stress, acute stress, this weird texture would appear this landscape or whatever in my mind, and it was always critical voices.

1:20:54It was always, and I have had it a couple of other times, when I'm under periods of extreme stress, the less gracious parts of my inner monologue come up. And yeah, I wonder it certainly got infinitely better, but there still work to be done. Did it help you at the time? To perform? Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, in my experience, most high performers are not driven by a perfectly balanced desire to enact their logos and actualize themselves. They are looking for validation from the world. They are looking for acceptance in a way that they never got it as a child. They're looking to prove the chip on the shoulder or the bullies wrong or whatever it might be.

1:21:40A lot of people are driven by running away from something they fear, not running towards something that they want. And it allows people to create very, very impressive lives, but in the only way that everybody else can judge it, which is outwardly. And I know that this is one of your pet obsessions too, which is the price that successful people pay to be the person that you admire. It's probably been the most interesting question that I've considered over the last few years and you speak to a lot of people that are very successful. And you look at the price that they pay and you go, I didn't know if this is worth it.

1:22:20You have this cathedral of accolades and success and reputation and other people admiring you and so on, but look at what you've had to do to get there. And again, there are no solutions only trade -offs. I'm currently sort of really, really trying to work about what would this be like if it was more fun? What would this be like if I sacrificed maybe even, you know, 2 % or 5 % of the gripping and the clawing and the sort of like control in the real world to maybe unlock 50 % more enjoyment internally. And I don't even know if that's a trade that needs to be made. It might be a sort of a false equivalent or whatever.

1:23:04But I made it, I made it on a progress. So for the people who've got an endemic critical in a voice, I think certainly there is at least a little bit that can be done to deprogram that how much whether you can get to the stage where it's the perfect high school coach that you never had, I'm not sure, but yeah, I'm moving in the right direction. Yeah, and I think a lot of people get the impression that if you're not sort of verbally hammering yourself, that the alternative is some kind of airy, fairy, you know, you're lovely as you are and that kind of thing that you just, you can't believe in and just feels it can and there's a lot in between, isn't there?

1:23:48So, you know, when I talked about the kind of fear chapter and and that sort of inner voice that I needed when I was going through all my health stuff in the summer, I needed a hard, hard voice. We are not victims here, we are being strong here, we are doing this and it was very sort of powerful, needed to be a powerful approach and needed that. I think what wasn't there was the contempt, was the digging at yourself. So I think what stops a lot of people from trying to kind of challenge how they speak to themselves is that they think the airy fairy stuff is the only self -indulgence is the only alternative and it's not, you know, actually self -compassion has to be honest all the time and if you're not living in line with your own values or you're not making yourself proud, you have to be honest with yourself about that but in a way there's also respect And that doesn't make you recoil and shame and then unable to learn from it.

1:24:54So there's this kind of halls, fetrom and variability and choice about what that tone is like. I think as well, it's very much a horses for courses thing that maybe at the beginning of your journey, if look, if you are £450, you're kind of getting towards the stage where you just need to use whatever you can. And if shame is the most salient sort of tool that can get you from there down to a more healthy body weight, pick whatever it is, on the verge of a drug addiction or whatever, like you just get whatever fuel you can grab a hold of most easily. But after a while, you have to think, right, okay, I've got myself into some degree of momentum here.

1:25:39Is the tool that got me here, the one that's going to get me there? And is this really like have I worked this hard to achieve all of these things To still call myself a piece of shit if I fall short like really that's what you're doing That's the that's the fuel that you're relying on like a guy with a hammer. You go, okay There's only one use that I have for this. I only have one mode of inner monologue I'm never going to be gentle with myself. I'm never going to be caring. I'm never going to be reassuring I'm never going to be supportive like no, no, no, no I'm just going to whip myself into submission and it's always that's that's it.

1:26:13And those sorts of responses are often going to increase the urges to escape and avoid, which aren't going to lead to success anyway. So, you know, even if you feel like shame or fear or something that that has worked to get you set on a better path, it's not sustainable because it's more likely to lead to the need to use those escape methods and later on. So yeah, it's recognizing that even if it's been useful, it's really helpful to find other resources as well. Is this similar to the approach that you have for dealing with self -doubt? Yeah, I think with self -doubt a lot of the stuff online is a sort of like, you know, just don't do it, just believe in yourself.

1:27:00And again, honestly, it has to be part of that. So with self -doubt, sometimes it's useful to listen to it because it's some of it's valid and warranted. So if you're really doubting your ability to perform, I don't know, in an exam, because you haven't studied, then you want to listen to that self -doubt, but in a constructive way. So it's like, why am I feeling this? Okay, I haven't studied, let's book in a load of study time and let's make it happen. So there are certain, you know, you don't want this sort of like, you know, happy, happy, I'm never going to be honest with myself, I'm just going to be happy with myself all the time.

1:27:40It's okay to fill these things, all of those emotions that we can feel, including the negative ones, they are information. And we get to choose what we do with that. You have to choose to listen to it first off. And when you're listening to it, you kind of have to ask yourself, is this warranted? And is it a fair reflection of reality? And is it in proportion to reality as well. So, you know, some people will have self -doubt because that's a really useful natural thing to do and it reflects a need in the situation. And other people will just chronically doubt themselves all the time. And sometimes that's more of a pattern that's developed that doesn't always reflect reality.

1:28:26You know, it's a learning experience that has happened possibly early on in life. All of this is made significantly harder when you're overwhelmed and emotionally activated though, I guess, which is, you know, to kind of bring it full circle, I suppose. All of the things that we're talking about in the Cold Harsh Light of a podcast studio

1:28:50sound, achievable, rational, within reach. But you're just swimming in emotions. This thing happens, I'm overwhelmed, there's too much going on. What is a way that people can kind of come back to center when we've got these things that we maybe even understand the tactic? I should be more supportive with myself. There's that inner voice thing again, but you're just, all you can feel is just this activation. Yeah, and that's why I wrote the book actually, this idea that when you're in it, when you're in the storm, what you don't need to hear is someone saying, well, maybe you should have learnt to meditate six months because you'll be alright now.

1:29:33What you need then is you need someone to kind of, you know, grab you by the shoulders, look you in the eye and say, okay, I know away through this, follow me. Here's what you need to focus your attention on, and here's the next step you need to take, and we're going to take that together. And you know, it's really difficult when you have a flood of emotion because of whatever situation you're in, it's difficult to work out which way is up, let alone what step you need to take. There are these moments of your brain is sending you lots of information in the form of emotion in its attempt to apply meaning to what's happening and to work out what's happening and what you need to do next.

1:30:09So in that moment, you know, the best thing for our nervous systems is each other and is someone else. And so I always say to, I think, I'm certainly in the introduction, actually, you know, that in a world is a bit like a sauna. There is benefits to being there, but only if you don't stay too long. And so in, if you're struggling, reach out to somebody else and another human being that you trust for connection. And that will be the most helpful thing to you if you have someone in your life like that. But not everybody else, not everybody has that. but also even the people that have it, sometimes that person isn't with them all the time or in the moments that they may need it.

1:30:47And so that's what this was really about, is about kind of talking to someone in the moment and say, okay, right, we're in this situation. It is what it is. His, his, how we deal with this moment, find some calm, find some clarity and then work out which way we get through this. Because the only way is through it. If you, as soon as you normal that emotion, well, that's all information for you. So if you numb it, you'll not be able to use it. But it's just, it's not easy to kind of work out at the moment because life is complex and it throws stuff at us, right? I realized that the sort of numbing of emotions, the fleeing from them, there are better and worse ways to do it.

1:31:26It's try, you know, people to say, well, it's better to be addicted to the gym than it's to be addicted to fentanyl and you go like, yeah, obviously. But one of the more sort of, not insidious, but certainly subtle ways that people do that was meditation or breath work or, you know, what people would typically consider to be very healthy, very embodied solutions to this. So an emotional arises inside of you and if you're good at meditation, you notice it, you release and allow it. Right, okay, brilliant. You still don't know anything about that emotion. You haven't sat with where that's come from and that's just going to continue coming up.

1:32:03Now, are there times when you need to just let it go? Yes, absolutely. But if this thing's going to keep on happening, it is permanently putting some sort of bandaid over the top of this and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. You go, after a while, you need to kind of admit, I just need to sit and investigate where this comes from. Yeah, and some people are able to do that individually and kind of sit with it and listen to it and be with it. And other people need support to do that because it feels danger. you know, it's only feels comforting if your body feels a safe place to be.

1:32:39So for some people, that's not the case and it's terrifying and leads to all sorts of unhealthy strategies. So that's when it can be really helpful to do that with someone else who can kind of guide you through listening to that and then when things get too much kind of pulling back a bit and coming and again and you know these things can be done really carefully and piece by piece and by teaching some of the skills to begin with to cope with how distressing that can really be you know some people have a lot a lot in the past that they've been really successful at numbing and covering up and so the minute you ask someone to take a look at that well there is a reason they've been numbing that for a long time and so well because it's really painful it's really scary So, you know, no therapist worth their salt would ask you to sort of do that without first teaching you the skills to be able to cope with how distressing that could be.

1:33:35Dr. Julie Smith, ladies and gentlemen, Julie, I appreciate you. I think the box is great. Where should people go? I want to keep up to date with everything you're doing. I'm on Instagram and YouTube and all the platforms just as Dr. Julie, but yeah, the books available everywhere I think. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you.