The Secret to Living Guilt-Free | Dr Jennifer Reid

25:46So you think you've written your own playbook, and then you have to throw that out the window. So I think setting expectations as parents, I've seen people write about really trying to set them very basic, very low, literally. I'm here. I love my children. I'm here to listen to them. These are the values I really want to use. And I have to let go of this idea of perfection in so many other parts of parenthood. Johnny, real talk. Upwork is the reason we've been able to grow the way we have. A hundred percent. Website, SEO, marketing consulting. We found specialists for all of it. The results blew us away.

26:25And here's the thing nobody tells you. The fastest growing businesses aren't doing more. They're delegating smarter. You don't have to hire full-time to get world-class help. Upwork lets you find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across over 125 categories. Web development, data, marketing, business ops. It's all there. You browse profiles, see their past work, and get matched fast. Business Plus gets you the top 1 % of talent with AI-powered shortlisting, finding your person in under six hours. Contracts, payments, handled all in one place. You stay focused on the business. We've used it and it works.

27:02In fact, our most recent project, we did an SEO audit. We've had our website for almost 20 years and we had no idea how AI was searching our site. We worked with an Upwork specialist to get our results fast. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com, Upwork.com. AJ, what's the one thing every adult wishes they could get back from being a kid? Easy. Freedom. No obligations. No one taking your money every month for something you barely use. Mint Mobile just made that real. All plans,$15 a month right now.

27:42Even unlimited. I couldn't believe how easy it was. Bring your own phone, keep your number, sign up online in minutes. You're on the T-Mobile 5G network. We're talking high-speed data, unlimited talk, and text. The only thing that changes is how much you're paying. Choose three, six, or 12 months and kill the monthly bill for good. Big Wireless has been overcharging you for years. This is the move. To get your new wireless plan for just$15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash charm. That's mintmobile.com slash charm. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash charm. That's it.

28:17There's no catch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12 months. Plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Another big struggle, especially around the parenthood piece, is just the nature-nurture component. And I feel like so much of what we're consuming on social media and we're reading and parenting books focuses so much on the nurture and what we can do and the outsized impact that we have.

28:57And then we can feel with the imperfection of how we're showing up day to day or how we're struggling with the changes at work and trying to adapt that, well, we're not being the perfect parent based on the book or the podcast we listen to. We're making mistakes and we're having moments where we overreact or we aren't showing up in the way that we had hoped when we got the news that we were pregnant and we were excited to start a family. And the guilt that can also come then from the generational differences. So when I talk to my family, the choices they made are way different than what the books are telling me now and the way that I want to approach it.

29:31But that guilt can come up like, oh, I'm not a good parent in their eyes because I'm not making the same choices. Part of what I see is this increasing guilt and this increasing focus on trying to get everything right as parents in modern times is that it's a reaction to sort of increasing levels of insecurity. And that, frankly, with our globalized media, including social media, but many other sources, we can see so many different things going on in this world, including really scary, really awful, really difficult images. And I think when we feel that uncertainty, one way of trying to get control is to say, okay, in my parenting, I'm going to get everything right because then that guarantees that I'm going to have a happy, healthy, successful child.

30:19And I think if we step away from that guilt and that constant attempt to do it perfectly, we again have to accept that we don't have control over those things. We can do the best thing. We can do the best work possible. We can show up the way we want to and things may not work out the way we want. That's true of any relationship that we're in. And that is a really hard emotion to sit in, especially as a parent. I didn't have nearly as much anxiety until I had a child. And I was like, wait, I have to let this being go out into the world and I can't control their every single move? Well, no. Especially when they're teenagers and you're like, this is impossible.

31:00So I think that's part of this intense focus on how do I get everything right? Because we want to control something that's really out of our hands. in my experience and working mostly with men in our coaching and then also in my male relationships, I think competition also becomes a part of it that's woven into our story of how do we measure up? And we do want to be showing up as the perfect dad, as the one who's prepared, who's put in all the effort, who's read everything and made sure that they're handling not only work, but then also fatherhood. And I think with that comes this mask that we bring into our relationships and that lack of vulnerability that harms us on the guilt side of things, because then we feel guilty when we aren't showing up as vulnerable and we're forcing other people to be more shallow in the way that they show up to us because they don't feel comfortable being vulnerable in their relationship with us.

32:01And it can be a really slippery slope. I think that's really true. And I think that when we think about society's expectations for what a man's role might be or what we believe is okay for men to feel and express, vulnerability, fear, uncertainty, a need for reassurance or attention, those aren't necessarily things we allow men to need without sort of judgment or kind of giving them a little side eye. And I think what that does, like you're saying, is it forces you as men to show up in this way that is stoic and I've got this figured out and then doing it all right. And I think I remember like a mommy and me class I went to first early after having a baby and all the moms were just like, everything is so wonderful.

32:50Baby latched right away. He's growing. He's sleeping through the night. I mean, who knows what they really were. Right. But I felt just terrible. And what I did is I had to find my people where we could get really real about it. And I think women maybe are given more latitude to do that, to have friendships where we really call and we talk for an hour about like, oh my God, can you believe this happened? This was awful or this I'm so frustrated or I'm exhausted. And men, I think some have friendships where they allow that. But I think more often we need to give men the latitude to express all of these human emotions, right?

33:28It's not that only women have these and men are just fine. Like men, of course, have any of these emotions included guilt, but they maybe don't feel as safe or as able to authentically express that. Even if it's not to everybody blasting on social media, maybe it's to a close friend or a family member that you really trust that you can be real with because otherwise you're sort of hiding behind this idealized version of yourself. And then shame can come in, right? Because it's like, well, I'm not any of those things. I'm actually inherently this flawed person and shame can be really toxic. So one thing that my wife and I joke about is, you know, in sleep being one of them is like, oh, we got a different model.

34:11And I think that's also what's really challenging. Like two dads can be great friends and be really conscious of wanting to be vulnerable and share and have a deep relationship and fatherhood and have two entirely different experiences on what it's like to care for their child. And I have friends who had kids who are amazing sleepers and were sleeping through the night immediately. And we're a year and a half in and it's just not been that situation for us. But I also feel a sense of shame and guilt around like, well, I don't want to keep talking about how I'm not sleeping. They clearly got through it and they've moved on or that's a different experience for them.

34:46And that can also create distance and that need to not be as vulnerable. I don't want to sound like a broken record or I don't want to make it all about my experience that is different than your experience in fatherhood. And I think that range oftentimes can be difficult because many of us as men, we try to like get together in what is that band where we're all experiencing the same thing. Maybe it's around an activity or a sport we love and share the camaraderie aspect. And then parenthood is just one of those situations where we could be on two entirely different timelines, even if we had kids at exactly the same time, and they're the same age.

35:23And I think finding a way to separate from that. So for example, I have two boys, and they are vastly different boys. The first one was a good sleeper, and he was a pretty chill kid. And I could take him anywhere, and he would just fall asleep in his car seat. Well, second boy was not like that. And I think you recognize how little control you have over either of those things. They do come out with their own temperament, I think. So that can give you that visibility. If there's a way to extract, pull back on that responsibility, because I think our idea of responsibility as parents, as, you know, in so many roles, expands far out beyond our control.

36:02So our responsibility is way out here, and our control is really right in here. So if we can find a way to bring that responsibility circle in, in, in, in, and just say, yeah, we did get a different model, and we're doing our best that we can, as opposed to absorbing that, internalizing that as a failure, right? That you and your wife are on the same team in trying to manage sleep challenges, as opposed to we're doing something wrong and then the sleep is not following, right? So it's recognizing what is my circle of control and can I try and match my responsibility circle, even my own thinking to sort of match that.

36:42So I'm not living in this guilt over failing at something I don't have control over, which is a pretty tough place. I think another triggering word for many of us is balance. And then feeling that because we lack balance, there's something wrong with us and the guilt that then comes from it because it can seem like everyone else has mastered balance and they've figured out how to achieve everything that they want personally, professionally, etc. Yeah, balance is one of those things that can be sort of weaponized against us, right? This idea, if you think about it, right, that we can never truly know a particle's location and speed at the same time.

37:23And I think the idea that balance is ever something that's static is really putting us in this remarkably difficult place because there truly is no absolute balance, right? Like the example is someone who's in the workplace is very assertive. They're leading a team. They're doing things quickly. They're calling things out. The team knows that we're just going to get things done. I'm not going to soft shoe it very much. This is how we work. This is the office culture. Boom, boom, boom. And then they finish work for the day and they come home and all of a sudden they have to just like rewire their entire personality, right?

37:59Be listening and take time and not try to fix it right away and just be compassionate. I mean, it's expecting, I think, absolutely unreasonable amounts of sort of frame shifting there. And I think, A, just recognizing how hard that is and that it's not going to be a beautifully smooth course. I have worked with people who've literally found ways to kind of take a minute in between when they can before returning home, right? How do I take a minute to just like decompress and not expect myself to be the perfect person in each of these very, very different environments asking very different things of me?

38:40Because that's, again, setting us up for this perceived failure as opposed to I'm just a human being. I can't sort of code shift that quickly. And so having that communication, maybe with your partner at home, you know, sometimes one of us, my husband and I will come home in a terrible mood and we'll just be like, oh, we just want to just yell at each other. But we're like, no, it's just been a terrible day. Just give me 10 minutes. Right. That feels a lot different, doesn't it? Than someone coming home and like telling you off right away because they don't know where to put that. So I just think balance is a really brutal, brutal one, because what would be a better word?

39:18Maybe we can come up today with a better word than balance. Maybe it's, I don't know, flexibility. Maybe it's a willingness to try, right? I mean, just the idea, I think it's balance or having it all is keeping us trapped. AJ, what's the one thing every adult wishes they could get back from being a kid? Easy. Freedom. No obligations. No one taking your money every month for something you barely use. Mint Mobile just made that real. All plans,$15 a month right now. Even unlimited. I couldn't believe how easy it was. Bring your own phone, keep your number, sign up online in minutes. You're on the T-Mobile 5G network.

39:57We're talking high-speed data, unlimited talk, and text. The only thing that changes is how much you're paying. Choose three, six, or 12 months and kill the monthly bill for good. Big Wireless has been overcharging you for years. This is the move. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com slash charm. That's mintmobile.com slash charm. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash charm. That's it. There's no catch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12 months. Plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra.

40:36Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot, capable device required. Availability speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Johnny, real talk. Upwork is the reason we've been able to grow the way we have. A hundred percent. Website, SEO, marketing consulting. We found specialists for all of it. The results blew us away. Here's the thing nobody tells you. The fastest growing businesses aren't doing more. They're delegating smarter. You don't have to hire full-time to get world-class help. Upwork lets you find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across over 125 categories.

41:15Web development, data, marketing, business ops, it's all there. You browse profiles, see their past work, and get matched fast. Business Plus gets you the top 1 % of talent with AI-powered shortlisting, finding your person in under six hours. Contracts, payments, handled all in one place. You stay focused on the business. We've used it and it works. In fact, our most recent project, we did an SEO audit. We've had our website for almost 20 years and we had no idea how AI was searching our site. We worked with an Upwork specialist to get our results fast. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

41:52That's Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com, Upwork.com. Yeah, I think of it almost more like juggling, right? And while we're juggling, something might be in our hands, something's in the air, and we just keep it moving. And I think many of us, when we think about balance, we're looking at it from a 2D perspective where, yes, if we look at it, it looks like balance. But if we zoom out to 3D, there's probably something else, some other ball that might be dropping or another ball that's about to be in the air but isn't. And I think as you start to have that perspective and recognize, okay, well, then if that's what balance really is based on social media or other people's share, then I don't have to be so hard on myself.

42:36And I can recognize that, yeah, those two things that really mattered to me are in proportion. But there's a third thing that's just dropping off right now. And that's the chapter I'm in. That's the phase of going through. And that's okay, too. Right. That when you're seeing it on social media, just like sort of some of these classic, typically it was men, but men in literature who people saw as just they just were so prolific in the work that they were doing, but actually had a lot of support, whether it was coming from a financially secure family or having a partner that helped them. Right. There's these things behind the scenes.

43:10And that's still the case in social media when someone's projecting balance and they're like, I wake up at this hour and I do this workout and then I take this supplement and then I do this. Like, well, what happens if like a kid gets sick at school or daycare? What happens to your perfect schedule there? And I think, again, it's that nuance. It's those aspects that are not in our control that really make life what it is, the richness of it, but also, you know, the difficulty. I think for many of our audience members, they're very analytical. They work in careers that are very cerebral and their critical thinking, decision making, weighing different options is validated through how they're paid, how they're promoted, what their compensation structure is.

43:56So I'd love to give them your guilt equation so we can start to analyze and work through this if we're now recognizing that guilt has been something that's been tripping us up. Yeah. Yeah. I love the idea of a guilt equation because I think math is so wonderful because it's subjective. Like one plus one equals two. You have an answer. I could never handle comparative literature courses because I just struggled with all the interpretation, you know? So math. So the guilt equation is just this, that guilt equals our expectations of ourselves in that role minus our perceived reality. So expectations minus perceived reality mean perceived reality is really what am I noticing that I'm doing right now, right?

44:36If my expectation is I'm only a good dad, if my one and a half year old is sleeping seven hours a night and anything short of that, if that's not exactly what's happening, that's not being a good dad, right? That if you have this narrow threshold for what is good. But on the perceived reality side, also to continue with the example, and I hope that's okay if you're describing, what are the different ways that you are being a good dad, Even if your baby's sleeping six hours, then wakes up or sleeps two and then wakes up, right? You have a safe environment for them. You're taking them to doctor's appointments.

45:08You're giving them nutritious food, right? All the different things and ways that you're showing up in that role that we sometimes will dismiss. And I think people who are really action oriented will very much say, what's the problem we need to solve here? Because I'm going to just ignore all the things that are going right because they're doing great over here. And I'm just going to focus on that. But I think we do need to put some attention on the ways that we're contributing on the things that are going well, because truly where we focus our attention is what life looks like to us. That is our life, where your attention is.

45:43So I think not giving any attention to the ways you're doing well and only trying to meet some certain expectation of what success, for example, looks like. because success to be defined in some only singular way, like it's climbing some hierarchy, it's a certain amount of money, it's a certain title. Maybe people think it's gonna be a certain feeling and they chase that to the end of their life and never find it, even though they end up with billions of dollars. I think we also have to be careful about what does success look like and how can we manage our guilt moving towards something we want.

46:18And I think that does open the door for self-compassion. And I think that really is kind of the first opening for many of our high performers and super analytical people. They feel like, well, self-compassion is maybe going easy on myself or letting myself off the hook. And that can feel really difficult. Like, well, I don't want to slip. I don't want to lower my expectations. That doesn't feel good to me. And I think instead, if we actually look at, well, we're not lowering expectations, we're taking a more holistic look at those expectations and recognizing, well, there are a lot of other expectations that I am meeting.

46:54Like I am showing up in other ways. Maybe I'm sleep deprived because of the lack of sleep or maybe at work, I didn't speak up in the meeting, but I prepared the deck and I stayed up all night to make sure that all the team members had what they needed. So those are other expectations that I am meeting to manage the guilt equation more effectively. Right. And I think it's also our idea about what self-compassion means. I think many people think it means I'm only going to focus on things I'm doing well and the opposite of what I just described, right? But self-compassion really has three key components.

47:28Yes, it is self-kindness. It's treating oneself with kindness. That's not saying I can do whatever I want and I'm not going to be upset. Like, I'm treating myself with kindness. and I'm also I'm part of a common humanity I'm part of this community of people who have similar feelings who go through similar challenges and lastly it involves mindfulness really noticing what I'm feeling in this moment which again in distraction attention caught me that's really hard the thing about self-compassion is that it allows us to be more honest with ourselves about things that are going well and things that aren't going as well because we're kind of creating a safe environment where our brain can say, okay, I'm open to hearing it, right?

48:08Like truly someone who you know is going to give constructive criticism, you're much more open to that conversation than someone who thinks they're giving it, but they just make you feel like a piece of whatever, because their criticism is just really harsh. So you're creating sort of this constructive exploration of your own feelings. And that might say to you, I want to do better at this. I want to grow in this way. I want to go after this goal. It doesn't that self-compassion says you're good enough as you are, don't change. It's saying what actually is true for me and what do I want? I think for me, the first eye-opening part of recognizing expectations was in one of my first therapy sessions where my therapist said, hmm, sounds like some expectations there that are unmet.

48:57And I didn't even recognize how much expectation was coming into play in a lot of the covert contracts, the way I was showing up people-pleasing, the way I was putting other people's emotions ahead of my own and then feeling the guilt around it. How do we start to untangle expectations if for many of us listening, they're invisible right now? We haven't really wrestled with them. Right. Well, that's why noticing, I mean, when a guilty thought shows up, oh, I can't believe I didn't do X or I should have done X. We can plug in that guilt equation because it works across different contexts and different roles.

49:29And we can say, let me think about, this is the thought I just had. So if my guilty thought is I should be playing chess with my kid right now, I'm not a good mom. Okay. Let's think about that. Let's explore the expectation. The expectation is that a good mom would do what? She would never tell her son she couldn't play a game with him. She would never tell him that there's anything more important than him in that moment. Well, of course, that's not the case. There are going to be situations. We all have to live life. We have to go to the doctor. We have to use the bathroom, what have you. And so I think it's recognizing, figuring out what that expectation is, which is really what is the story we're telling ourself here?

50:08That's really all it is. And then thinking, who is the author of the story? right was that shaped by how my own father showed up or by how i used to think this is how i was going to look because it was the opposite of my own father is it some crowdsourcing from social media about what a good dad is what is it who's writing that story and if it's not the author we want we have the opportunity to rewrite it is really these guilty thoughts can be a rough draft right as i'm sure you learned in therapy we are not our thoughts we're not our guilty thoughts We're not our anxious thoughts. We can rewrite those.

50:44And I think recognizing the story we're telling ourselves gives us a ton of power because we need to tell a story that aligns with our values, our goals, like who we actually want to be, not some idea of who we should be. Well, I think the struggle is when those thoughts have such a strong emotion tied to them, like an anger or resentment, something that goes beyond just of feeling like I should be a better caretaker, I should be a perfect dad. But the emotion tied to it then can almost overwhelm us in that moment and be challenging for us to then start to dig into, okay, well, what's the underlying expectation when I'm feeling this intense emotion triggering it?

51:28Right. And I think what we can do is maybe protect ourselves with other emotions. We can say, we can feel guilty for feeling angry and try and shut it down, right? But again, any of these emotions, even really strong ones, like all the emotions teenagers have, they really are signals, right? That something is signaling to us, this is creating this feeling. And I think a healthy curiosity towards oneself, allowing these emotions to just be present. I think there's a fear that they will last forever, that they will totally take us over. I think grief is one of those that people really try to avoid because it feels like it's just going to come and take over my day and I'm not going to be able to function.

52:09I think realizing that we are more resilient in the face of difficult emotions than we think we are, right? It's when we try to suppress them, ignore them, hide them, you know, shift them onto someone else, that's really when they're causing problems. But when they're just a feeling we're having, that's very different than acting on them. So how do we begin to just allow those feelings to be there for a minute and not try to usher them away so quickly. I know we ask a lot of our clients how they would rate themselves introvert, extrovert, ambivert, and we find a lot of them will self-label as introvert and because of that, take on this identity of, well, I can't speak up.

52:53I can't have great relationships. I can't connect to many people. I have to do one-on-one or I don't perform well in groups. And unfortunately, Unfortunately, that labeling creates an identity that then can create expectations that create guilt. And it can be really challenging to break through once it's reached the identity because those expectations now are also reinforced by the people around us. It's like, oh, yeah, AJ is my introverted friend. So then I try to be extroverted or speak up or say something and it's like, it's uncomfortable for other people because they've also labeled me and put me in that box.

53:26Mm-hmm. Right. And we can carry these labels from childhood even, right? We were always seen as X, Y, or Z. And it's funny, right? Like, I love a good BuzzFeed quiz as much as anyone, but I think we have this real desire to put ourselves in a particular slot and say, this is me. Because we want to feel seen. We want to understand ourselves. But I think that, you know, when Carl Jung was coming up with introversion and extroversion, this idea that it would be a singular label for someone that they would carry with them the rest of their life in every context, he probably would have said, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, hold up a minute.

54:01These are some ideas I'm coming up with. And so I think you're right. I think setting an identity, maybe one that at some point in your life was adaptive for you, was helpful for you, whether or not it's introversion, extroversion, but let's say people pleaser was helpful for you when you were younger because it helped you to calm down a pretty volatile environment in your home. It's just that when you pull it forward into the here and now and try and apply it in every situation, pulling some old plans for an old house and bringing them forward to your new condo and thinking this should work just as well, of course it doesn't.

54:37And so that's where we can start. We can change that. That's not static. That is dynamic. Some of it is just really like exposure therapy, like we might do in social anxiety, which is experimenting with speaking up a bit more, experimenting with saying, I contain multitudes. Like, you wouldn't believe it, guys. Like, I can do a one-on-one, but also I can get up on a stage and speak to 100 people. I think we have to keep pushing those boundaries within ourselves and know that it might take others a little time to catch up, but that's okay. They don't get to define us in this particular place. Yeah.

55:14And I think a big part of what we've experienced in our coaching with a lot of those participants who self-labeled as introvert, you know, different environment surrounded by other people who are working on similar goals, they'll react completely differently than what they would react in a group setting at work or maybe how they acted in college or in middle school when they were labeled the quiet one or the introverted one. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think it's giving yourself room to grow, which may seem like, of course, but I think it can be really hard because you think, well, this is how people see me.

55:47And this is why people like me. This is why people want to spend time with me, right? Someone who's struggling with addiction, and is able to become sober, struggles because well, who's going to want to spend time with me, I'm not as fun, or I'm not as engaging, or I don't want to do the same things, Right. So it's some trust in yourself and that future you is going to have aspects that other people will still love and be interested in and that you have that space to really push back on some of those limiting labels. When it comes to a lot, especially around work for our clients, a lot of, and even the social media piece we touched on, status, signaling, trying to showcase things that allow us to compare ourselves to others, stack up, drives a lot of our behaviors, maybe outside of our character, outside of how we actually want to show up.

56:40But that need to compete can feel overwhelming. And then I've heard even in my own thoughts and expectations, like, why did I say that? Or I'll feel guilty then for showing that side of myself. And it can be harder, especially in higher stakes environments, larger group environments where it feels like, well, that's the norm. Therefore, I have to behave that way. Right. When I'm in this particular culture, this is a sign of leadership. This is a sign of someone who's going to be in the sort of alpha a position, which goes way, way, way, way back evolutionarily, right? That that really is within us, that desire for competition is so that we can sort of pass along our genes, right?

57:23That is really at the absolute core. I think when we're feeling that way, again, recognizing when we're feeling most insecure, and those people who are most insecure might be the most likely to sort of shout from the rooftops about some of these things. But inside, they may feel very differently. And again, I see that lens because I'm a psychiatrist and they come into my office. But I think the more we're really in tune with what are the things that we really value in ourselves and what is it that, you know, I often will think about, I compare myself to like a younger version of myself. What would she think of what I'm doing here?

58:00Would she be proud of some of these choices I'm making? And what would a future self say in these circumstances? Because I think we get so wrapped up in being better than what's right next to us, we lose track of kind of our actual life story. How do we want that to look, knowing that that pull to competition, that pull to be better than as opposed to better with, is one that really can separate us from ourselves and from those we really care about? On my own personal journey, I think a lot of what I believed masculinity was, was downplaying my emotions, hiding my emotions, especially around other men, and not allowing them to showcase behaviors that feel uncomfortable or could make me seem weak or make me seem less masculine.

58:49And because of that, I found myself in a lot of relationships that were surface level, where I didn't feel comfortable sharing those emotions. Or I would only mirror the emotions that my other friends were sharing. Like if they're super happy, then I can only show up as happy. I can't show the harder emotions that I'm feeling. And then with that comes guilt. And I've started to do men's work and getting groups and work around, okay, getting more in touch with my emotions and being comfortable sharing those emotions. Even if everyone else in the group is having a great time and I'm struggling or everyone in the group is struggling and I wanna celebrate something, getting comfortable with that.

59:24But guilt is, I think, a big driving force for a lot of our male clients around, well, I feel guilty that I'm putting my emotions on someone else. I'm showing emotions that make me less masculine or make me seen as weak. Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, the expectation about what is masculine, right, is just going through such upheaval. I think there's so much change. I mean, I grew up in the upper Midwest where the stoicism among the farmers there was sort of legendary in that you didn't show any emotion. And I think that imagining the cost of that, thinking about the cost of that and not having the capacity or ability to share any of that, this comes up a lot.

1:00:04I feel like when I've worked with people, I worked in a cancer center, and there was this fear that if I talk about how I'm feeling, really feeling, which is scared and physically really uncomfortable and, you know, angry, that that's going to burden others and I'm just going to hurt them. So I need to just be quiet or else they would come talk to me about it, which is good to have that outlet. But I do think that remembering that it is the interpersonal dynamic that you're working with here and you having a time where you feel comfortable and safe sharing those emotions, even when someone else might not be in that same place, is creating a culture, a mini culture there where they could do the same in response.

1:00:48And one way I kind of like to tap into that, there's a self-compassion exercise, which is basically thinking in this situation, the way I'm talking to myself is here, probably really critical. How would I talk to a friend who was going through this experience? So if you had a friend come into your group, everyone was having a great time, but he was really struggling, what would you say to yourself if you were him, right? Oh, I need to just keep my mouth shut and not tell him. I'm going to make everyone worse. Well, what would you as a friend say to him? And like, as you can imagine, it sounds really simple, but it really is a powerful way to remove some of that internal baggage of my own identity and how I'm supposed to think and feel and just bring out compassion to someone else.

1:01:28Yeah, buddy, you're having that kind of day. you've had a really difficult time it's understandable you're feeling this way is there anything we can do to help or would you rather we did just keep it light you know what i mean right so knowing there are other people involved it's like in a marriage right you know there's gonna be ebb and flows i am not a huge fan of the summer it's hot i just feel kind of tired all the time i'm not jazzed my husband loves it but in the winter he's like this is the worst so we there's ebbs and flows when do we need more support when do we need less and that we this is a long journey that we're going through together with partners or our friends yeah and i think what goes along with that is the duality or or just feeling multitudes of emotions at the same time i think it's very easy for us to quickly label okay well aj's just in a great mood so i don't want to burden him with you know what i'm going through when in actuality like even though outwardly i could have a great mood i could also be feeling frustration.

1:02:24I could also be feeling emotions that you might label differently. And I think it's okay. Like that messiness is a big part of the work that we do with our clients and recognizing the vulnerability and then the connection that lives in that messiness instead of trying to project or portray a stoicism or only positive or I'm perfect or I have status and therefore you should respect me or feel a certain way about me. That of course, when we act in that we push people away and we create a lot of space for that guilt and shame to follow right and it's giving other people the benefit of thinking they have the capacity to handle what you're feeling that day that even if they're in a good mood they have the capacity to hear you out when you talk about something that's really difficult for you right it's really putting faith in those other people that you can be human and they will stay be put and they will still show up as humans themselves.

1:03:23So in a moment where we've recognized, okay, I have these expectations, I've understood the guilt equation, guilt is coming up for me. What can we do in those moments to start to work backwards and not allow it to overwhelm us or keep us from our goals, what we care about, the relationships that matter? mm-hmm well even i was reading this this book up here mine wrote about ocd and anxiety and it's not so much that the thoughts arise it's how what meaning we give to them so an ocd if you have a thought that feel like an intrusive thought that feels very dangerous and then you're telling yourself that means that something's wrong with you right that you're somehow flawed that's what gives it the power and i think the same thing is true of guilty thoughts that when we have a guilty thought, we can say to ourselves, there goes that guilty thought, right?

1:04:15There goes that part of my brain that has these expectations that are just unreachable. Like, however we can be able to label that, it's not so much that we can make it go away or suppress it, right? The research on don't think about X, well, that's immediately what pops into our head, but that we don't let it guide our next steps, right? We can feel it. We can feel anger. We can feel guilt. We can feel disappointment. We have to decide then whether or not that's going to guide our next decision. And when we make decisions based on guilt, that's what leads to things like resentment or overwhelm.

1:04:52We stretch ourselves too thin. We do things that really don't align with what's meaningful to us. What other things can we use to make those decisions, right? Things that I really want, that I need, that I desire, that align with my values, that create the growth I want to create. That's what we're trying to make decisions based on. So it's not that the guilt never shows up or that we can just hide that guilty thought right away. In fact, just the opposite. We acknowledge it. If anyone's tried to do meditation, I have tried a million times to do meditation. I find it very difficult. My brain is just all over.

1:05:27But that's what we're supposed to do is recognize and say, hey, here's this thought. I'm just going to let it pass through. I'm going to move on to whatever's next in my day. And I think that it's so powerful. It sounds passive, but it's not actually. It's ability to not let those guilty thoughts hijack our decision system, that we have other ways to make that decision. it's really well put and i i'm happy that we are ending on that because i think the recognition and understanding the equation now and understanding it's okay it's what happens after and you have agency in that you can create the space and the reaction thereafter once you start to recognize okay guilt is running this life or this pattern is coming up again and again in these situations, oh, okay, I can unpack where the guilt's coming from.

1:06:19What's the expectation I'm putting on myself? And oh, it's actually not as important of an expectation as I thought. It was something someone else put on me and I've just been carrying. Right. And I can choose whether to continue to do so. Maybe I won't. Thank you so much for joining me today. Where can our audience find out more about your book and the work you do? They can check out my website. It's just both will take you to the same spot. Thank you again. Thanks for having me.

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