Lori Gottlieb on Changing Your Life by Changing the Story

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1:30Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

2:23Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I'm recording this and then getting ready to head to the airport. I'm going to San Francisco and then Seattle, where I'll be seeing the one and only Robert Greene. We're doing these two live events together. Some of you listening to this may have been in the audience. If you missed out, we'll probably to end up running clips of it on YouTube and other places as well. But that's what I'm mentally preparing for right now. Robert and I have been preparing. It's crazy to me if I think about where I was in my life in 2005, 2006, I guess, when I met Robert, that all these years later, we'd be doing an event on stage together.

3:11In one case, I interviewed Timothy Egan on the podcast recently. It hasn't come out yet, but he was saying that the theater that Robert and I are performing in is a theater that Nirvana performed in multiple times. I don't know. It's just crazy. So just practicing a moment of gratitude and gratitude to all of you for listening. So thank you. When I think of the Stoics, I do, I think, I think they would have been great therapists. And that's what Epictetus is doing with his students. He's asking kind of provocative questions that are getting them to think about things. Marcus Aurelius is sort of performing a form of self-therapy on himself, to himself, as Meditations is titled.

3:57And I don't think they would have limited themselves only to philosophy. I think they would have used all the tools in their toolkit, as we have talked about many, many times here on the podcast. I'm no stranger to therapy myself. So I was really looking forward to today's guest, Lori Gottlieb. She's a psychotherapist, a New York Times bestselling author, a TED speaker who's talked to millions and millions of views. She has her own podcast, Dear Therapist, and she is the Dear Therapist columnist for The Atlantic. The pieces there are always super viral and great to read. She studied language and culture at Yale, then Stanford.

4:35And basically, she's immersed herself in people's stories. It does a really good job at exploring which of those stories are true, which of those are not true, and which are productive and constructive, which are helpful and not helpful, which to stick with and which to not stick with. And that's what we talk about in today's episode. Her massive bestselling book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, came out in April 2019. Highly recommend. And then her journal edition of that book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, the journal was released in November 2022. That's what, again, Marcus is doing in meditations.

5:17He's talking to himself in the pages of a journal. Journaling is not necessarily a substitute for therapy or medical intervention, especially in very serious cases, but it's certainly a compliment and certainly been a helpful tool in my toolkit. So check out both of those books. You can go to her website at laurigottlieb.com. That's L-O-R-I-G-O-T-T-L-I-E-B.com. You can check out her podcast, Dear Therapist, anywhere you download podcasts. And follow her on Instagram and Twitter. I'll link to both of those in today's show notes. I will be back in Texas here very soon. Certainly by the time you're listening to this, but in the meantime, enjoy my interview with Dr.

6:02Lori Gottlieb.

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7:53so when i was um when i was reading your stuff and when i was watching your ted talk i was thinking of that famous joan didion quote we tell ourselves stories in order to live right and i was thinking about it because even the way that we interpret that quote is an example of how we do that right she was saying i think we tell ourselves stories to live in that we make stuff up we lie to ourselves. We round the edges off things so we can live with ourselves. And that has gotten twisted in the sort of Instagram quote world to be like, no, human beings create meaning through stories. It's turned from this sort of critical analysis of how the human mind works to this inspirational, amazing thing, which is kind of a story in and of itself.

8:46But talk to me about the stories that we tell ourselves? Yeah. Well, I think the thing is that a lot of us don't realize that every single one of us is an unreliable narrator. And I see that as a writer and I see that as a therapist. But I think I saw it most clearly as a therapist when people would come in and they would tell me these stories and they thought they were telling the truth. truth and they are telling a truth. They're telling a version of the truth, but think about what they leave in, what they leave out, the parts of the story that they, you know, how they characterize their role in the story, how they characterize, you know, who are the heroes, who are the villains in the story.

9:27And I think that a lot of times, you know, it's, it's hard for people to take another perspective, to tell the story from another perspective. And that's something that I'll often ask people to do in the therapy room. If the other person you're talking about right now, we're here and they were telling this story, how would that story sound? Right. Yes. And, and I think that's what Didion was saying that we're inherently unreliable narrators. And people took that to mean like, no, we're the, we're the narrators of our lives as this kind of empowering thing, which is, which is also true. But I think you're saying a lot of the issues that we have as people come from the incorrect versions or the less than truthful stories that we tell ourselves or the story we say about the circumstances we're in.

10:19I think the empowering part is that we have the power to change the story. So sometimes, you know, the story is one of, you know, I'm unlovable or I can't trust anyone or nothing will ever work out for me. Those are the stories we tell ourselves because somebody else told us that story about us. And I think that we need to remember because of the fact that we're all unreliable narrators, that the story is generally more about the storyteller than the person in the story. And so when somebody gave you the message that you were unlovable or, you know, whatever the message was, you know, you're the, this one in the family, you're, you're difficult, or whatever it might be.

11:00That is much more about the storyteller than it is about you. And then we grow up, though, having internalized that story, believing that story and walking through life thinking and playing out that story so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that we end up creating those conditions that back up that faulty narrative. Yeah, the Stoics say our life is dyed by the color of our thoughts. And so the sort of the way that we see the world or the things we tell ourselves that are possible, not possible, to blame, not to blame, et cetera. This sort of constrains or expands what we're going to be able to see or how we're going to see ourselves, I imagine.

11:44Yeah, that's right. And so I think that a lot of the work of therapy is, you know, because I was a writer before I was a therapist and I'm still a writer, obviously, I use a lot of my techniques as an editor in the therapy room to help people to edit their stories. I really feel like my job is almost more of an editor than as a therapist sometimes because people come in with these stories and I'm really helping them to kind of tease out the different elements and what is accurate, what is not accurate. Can we look at this storyline? Can we look at this thread? Can we look at this other character that you're describing this way?

12:22And is there more to that character, you know, this other person in your life. And that's not to say that there are difficult people in the world, right? So I, you know, we always say before diagnosing someone with depression, make sure they aren't surrounded by assholes, right? So, so it's not that there aren't, you know, characters in your story that are difficult. It's when, then what is your role? How do you respond to those difficult people? No, that's, that's interesting. If you think about the, I think people who are not writers, they think that writing is the sort of the creative act of putting something down on the page.

12:58But you're right. When you have a lot of experience with language and creating stories and creating, telling a story, or you realize that, hey, the same thing could be told with the same facts could be told this way or that way. Or that when you put it in this order versus this order, it emphasizes this versus that. or that a small shift in tone or diction can make something that kind of works really pop, or it can break something that totally works, and that these kind of small tweaks that an editor can do can actually be utterly transformative. Yes, even as you were saying, the use of a certain word.

13:43You know, why are you using that word to describe yourself or to describe somebody else? And maybe it's more like this word. And I think too, when you're in the therapy room, you're looking at more than just the words that are coming out of someone's mouth or you're looking at body language, you're looking at tone, you're looking at what's happening to their face. So you're looking at all different things that are happening when somebody is telling you a story. And then there are the stories that we don't even know that we're carrying around. And I see that with couples and especially around, you know, like, let's say that I'm seeing a heterosexual couple and I see all kinds of couples.

14:17I will often hear, and this is kind of a thing that I hear a lot. Usually it's the woman who will say to her husband, you know, I just feel like we're really disconnected. I want you to open up to me. I want to hear more about what's going on in your inner life. I really want to connect. And he starts to open up to her right there in front of me on the couch. And maybe he starts tearing up and maybe he even starts crying. And inevitably she will look at me like a deer in headlights. Like, I don't feel safe when you don't open up to me because I don't feel connected, but I don't feel safe when you're crying and being this vulnerable either.

14:57And that's a story that she's carrying around that I want closeness. But the other part of the story is, and I need my husband to kind of be a rock, right? I need him to be this kind of solid presence. Well, you can't kind of have it both ways. No, that's true. And the writing thing for people who are listening, who are like, you know, I've written before, I guess I kind of get it. There's a big difference between like writing a blog post and having your friend look at it and do some editing. And then anyone who's ever written, I don't mean to be dismissive, but written for a real publication where you have a real editor, right?

15:35And the editor forces you to defend your assumptions. Like they'll go, Hey, um, I Googled that quote and I'm not sure that's true. Or actually the larger context of this quote is X, Y, or Z, or what about this? Or what about this? Or, you know, when, when the editor really challenges you and you realize, Oh, maybe this thing that I built around this whole assumption or this whole, uh, study or whatever, it actually doesn't stand up Or what I'll find happens is it'll be like, I didn't really think about what I was saying at all in this one larger thing. And when forced to really go deep on it, actually, my opinion is more nuanced.

16:18or I have the opposite opinion that I put down the first time I was writing about it. Like there's something, there's something really unusual about truly being edited versus just like fixing spelling and grammar. Yeah. And I think that what a good editor does and what a good therapist does is that they're very curious. They're, they're really asking you questions. They're asking you to consider things through a different lens. It's like you were talking about just now how, you know, when your friends look at something versus an editor, and maybe you should talk to someone, I write about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion.

16:53So idiot compassion is what we do with our friends. So our friends come to us and they say, listen to what my boss, my sibling, my partner did. And we're like, yeah, you're right. They're wrong. You go girl. You know, it's like, it's like we back up our friends. That's idiot compassion, but we're not really challenging them in a way that would be helpful for them. It's kind of like when you listen to your friends' stories over time, often there's a theme and there's a pattern and they're getting in their own way. It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you.

17:27We don't say that in idiot compassion. We don't say that to our friends. In therapy, and I think good editors do this too, what we offer is wise compassion. We really want you to look at something in a way that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do before. And so we're asking these questions. We're being curious. It's not like a gotcha. It's the opposite. It's like, oh, that's really interesting. Help me understand that. What about this? Or tell me more about this. And so you're really helping someone to have a conversation with themselves about something in a different way that nobody has asked them to do before.

18:11Yeah, what I was going to say is I didn't mean to imply that a good editor is like being audited by the IRS. It's not hostile, but it is this kind of probing and questioning going, tell me what you mean. Do you mean this? What about this? And that forces you to examine your thinking and you're You're just not allowed to get away with assumptions or sort of half-baked ideas. And that's probably the problem with a lot of stories. It's not that they're totally untrue. These are the ones I'm saying that you see in your office. It's not that they're totally untrue, but they're not the full truth or they're not a truth that is likely to make the person better or happier or healthier.

19:00Well, I think two things. They're the subjective truth, which of course we can't avoid because we're human. But the other part of it is I think there's a lot of shame that shapes a story. So when you know that you had a role in something, but you also feel very wronged by somebody else, you're going to emphasize the ways in which you felt wronged by somebody else without really bringing up your role in it. Because in your mind, your role is minor. It's really kind of irrelevant to you because you felt so wronged or so hurt by somebody else. But I think that bringing up both parts of the story are so important.

19:36And I think that's what we're hoping to tease out in therapy is let's talk about the whole picture. But people feel shame. They feel like I don't want to get blamed or that wasn't my finest moment. So I don't need to bring up that part of the story. Yeah. And, you know, the kids these days, they call it main character energy. I imagine that's a big part of what you're battling against is we're always central to the story in the sense that how it affects us. And we're much less cognizant about how what we do affects others and how often the things that are affecting us are in response to something that we did that first affected others.

20:18Well, every relationship is like a dance. And so what you do affects what the other person does. it's, you know, your dance moves affect their dance moves. And if you change your dance steps, the other person is either going to change their dance steps or they're going to fall flat on the dance floor. And so, so many times I see this with couples. I see this with like adult children and their parents. You know, I see this with, you know, siblings. I see this with anybody where there's a relational impasse and somebody feels like, well, the other person has to go first. Like if you change that, then I will be more this way with you.

20:59Right. And I always say to people that is never going to work, that you can't change another person, but you can influence another person by changing your own behavior. So instead of saying, well, if you act this way toward me, then I'll be kinder to you. It's I'm going to act in the way I want to be in this relationship. and then the other person will be influenced by that or not, which also gives you information that even if I am my best self in this relationship, they aren't willing to be flexible. They aren't willing to shift or grow or change. And that's important information. So what do you, as you're helping someone with a story, as they're working through things, what do you feel like, what do you feel like positive themes are?

21:47If you're like, hey, these are the things I sort of look for or I try to guide people towards. Is it responsibility? Is it acceptance? You know, sort of what are the traits that you try? You can't tell people what to do, but, you know, editors have devices. We know what good writing is and we try to guide people towards that, you know, hey, show, don't tell, et cetera. What are the things that you try to guide people towards that maybe could stick with listeners now? Well, I think that when people come to therapy, often what they want is they want something to change. And what they want to change is someone else or something else.

22:25And what I can help them with is how they can change. Yeah. And so I think that that's really interesting because we think that change is something that we have control over. Like if we changing ourselves, that we have control over that, But changing ourselves is so hard for so many reasons. Part of it is that change involves loss. And we don't even think about that. That when you change, you're giving up the familiar. You're giving up the situation that you're already in. Even if the situation you're already in is unpleasant or even miserable, it still requires you to give up something that feels comfortable to you.

23:05At least I know this. Yeah. Yeah. And, and some people actually, you know, it serves them to stay in a bad situation. We call them help rejecting complainers. And we all know them. Sometimes we've been them ourselves where, you know, those people who are complaining to you all the time. And then you say, well, what about this? Or what if you try this? And they're like, yeah, that won't work because no, I can't do that because no, that'll never. Right. And so they don't actually want help. They don't actually want to change. They just want to complain about the situation and somehow it serves them to be in this bad situation because it feels maybe like home to them or the situation they grew up in or whatever it is.

23:43So what we want to do in therapy is we want to say, what is it that is keeping you from changing, right? What is it going to mean to go into a place of uncertainty? I write in the book about how when I was going to my own therapy, my therapist said to me, you know, you remind me of this cartoon and it's of a prisoner shaking the bars, desperately trying to get out. But on the right and the left, it's open. No bars, right? So what is going on there? Why is it so hard for us to recognize, first of all, that it's open? And secondly, when we realize it's open, why is it hard to walk around the bars?

24:20And that's because with freedom comes responsibility. Now we can't blame things on other people. Now we are responsible for our own lives. And I think that when we actually make the choice to change that we realize, okay, I'm responsible for this. I can't blame anybody else. And the last thing I want to say about change is that there's a chapter in the book called How Humans Change, and it's about the stages of change. And this is why New Year's resolutions often fail because people think I'm going to make this decision to change and on January 1st, I'm going to change it. And just like Nike, it's like, just do it.

24:53And the Nike slogan doesn't work for a lot of us. And that's because there are these phases of change, these stages, and it starts with pre-contemplation where you don't even know that you're thinking about making a change. And then there's contemplation where you're thinking about it, but you're not quite ready to do it. And then there's preparation where you're preparing to make the change. What do I need to do? What are the things I need to research? What are the steps I need to take? And then there's action where you make the change and that is not the last step. People think that's the last step and that's where people get into trouble.

25:23The last step is maintenance. How do I maintain the change? And the big misconception about maintenance is that you're going to just stay on this trajectory of you've made the change. Like I'm going to exercise or I'm going to eat right or I'm going to not react to my partner this way and I'm not going to slip up. And it's kind of like chutes and ladders where you're going to slip up. And the big thing about slipping up is that you need to have self-compassion when you slip up and get right back on track. And you can't get right back on track without self-compassion. If you self-flagellate, you're going to have a lot of trouble because you're going to be stuck in shame.

26:00And so the thing about self-compassion is it actually keeps you accountable because if you're gentle with yourself, then you can say, okay, I slipped up. You can look at what went wrong. What happened here? Why did I slip up? And what can I do differently next time? And the maintenance phase, the more that you stay in the maintenance phase, the longer you stay in it, the easier it's going to be for that to become your new normal. And when that becomes your new normal and the new familiar, then you've actually made the change. One of my favorite lines from Seneca, he's writing a letter to his friend Lucilius, and he says, you know, how do I know that I'm making progress as a person, as a philosopher?

26:39He says, I know it because I am becoming a better friend to myself. And that's what comes to mind when you're talking about sort of self-compassion, not whipping yourself, not writing yourself off. A friend holds you accountable, but they also aren't your boss. Right, right. And I think this thing about self-compassion and this misconception that it makes you soft or you're not being accountable to yourself, it's quite the opposite. And it's interesting how critical we can be without even realizing it. I had this patient who was so self-critical and didn't realize it. And I said, listen, I want you to go home and I want you to listen to how you talk to yourself.

27:21Just really listen to that voice in your head and write down everything that you say to yourself. And she came back the next week and she had done the assignment and she was shocked. And she said, I had no idea. I am such a bully to myself. And they were little things like she was typing an email and she made a mistake in the email and had sent it. And it was like, it was like a letter was off in the email, right? It was like D instead of a T or something. Right. And she said, the thing she immediately said to herself was, you're so stupid. Now, if a friend had sent that email, you would never think, my friend is so stupid.

27:59You wouldn't even think anything of it. She passed her reflection in a mirror and she said, you look so terrible today. And she did not look terrible. And I've seen this, you know, when I've given talks and I'll be on stage and I'll say, show of hands, who is the person that you talk to most in the course of your life? Is it your partner? Tons of hands. Is it your sibling? Is it your best friend? Everyone thinks that's the person that they talk to most. But the person that we talk to most in the course of our lives is ourselves. And what we say to ourselves isn't always kind or true or useful.

28:32So it's not just that you're blindly being kind to yourself. It's is it true and is it useful? It has to meet those three criteria.

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30:50when it can be so self-defeating right you feel lonely or awkward or weird uh new somewhere and you've got this vicious voice in your in your in your head and then of course it makes you shyer It makes you less willing to share. If you've closed yourself off and you've got this sort of inner battle going on, that's not the person that other people want to be friends with or think that they can be friends with. Yeah, you have to figure out self-compassion, especially if you want to be the recipient of compassion from other people. Right. And also going back to stories, that the story that you're telling yourself, is it kind, is it true, and is it useful?

31:39So you want to look at the truth of the story, and you also want to look at the usefulness. How does this serve me to tell this kind of story right now? And is there an equally true version of the story that I can also tell myself? It's the both and that this might be true and this might also be true at the very same time. Sure, sure. Yeah, there's a story about Cleanthes, who's in early Stoke. He's walking the streets of Athens and he hears this man down an alleyway or something sort of talking to himself quite loudly, but beating himself up about something. And he stops him and he says, you know, I just want you to know you're not talking to a bad person.

32:25And I love that so much, right? Because so often, you're right, we talk to ourselves in a way that we would never accept from someone else. And if we heard someone else talking to a third person about it, we would intervene. We'd be like, you're a monster. How could you possibly be bullying this person in this way? And yet we sort of unthinkingly subject ourselves to that. Yeah, it's punishing. And the punishment, you know, where does that come from? That's a story too. Like who taught you to talk to yourself that way? Where did you learn that? And you can unlearn that. I always say that going to therapy, a lot of people say, oh, I want to go to therapy to get to know myself.

33:09And I say, I want you to go to therapy to get to unknow yourself, to let go of those limiting stories that you've been carrying around that hold you back. Unknow what you think you know. I mean, I think about that as a parent, like I'm frustrated about this or that. I'm thinking about this or that. I'm talking to my kids about, hey, I don't want to mess up the countertop with what you're doing. But what I'm really saying is this voice is going to be in your head the rest of your life. You know, like you asked where we learned to talk to ourselves that way. It's probably from the people who have talked to us the most for the first 18 or so years of our life.

33:52And maybe not even on purpose, we're giving us this, this nasty negative bullying voice, but that's so often, unfortunately, where it comes from. Yes. And if your kids hear you talk to yourself that way too, or to your partner that way, that's what they're going to internalize as well. And I think this, this idea about talking to our kids is so important because again, it kind of sets the framework for the stories that we carry around. And one of the things that I notice, and I'm a parent too, so I'm guilty of all of this, is that when our kids come to us as parents, sometimes our instinct is that we have such discomfort with their discomfort that we try to talk them out of how they're truly feeling.

34:35And they never learn to sit with all of their feelings. And feelings are so important because they're like a compass. They tell us what direction to go in. They tell us what we need to do. And if they can't hear themselves and they think that there are, quote, positive feelings and negative feelings, acceptable feelings and unacceptable feelings, then they're not going to learn, how do I use my feelings to my advantage? When I'm anxious, what is that telling me? When I'm angry, is that telling me that maybe a boundary needs to be set? Is when I'm feeling sad, is that telling me that maybe I need to change something about my situation?

35:12I need to talk to somebody about this. And so your kid comes to you with something and they say, I'm really worried about this. And we say, oh, don't be worried about that. There's nothing to worry about. And so we're talking them out of their anxiety instead of saying just three words that are so useful, either in parenting or with your partner or with anyone. And those three words are, tell me more. It's just, oh, curiosity again, tell me more. And if you let your kid talk about it, they're going to hear themselves and understand themselves better and learn that it's okay to feel anxious because I'm learning something.

35:48Or they say, oh, you know, this person didn't sit with me at lunch and I'm so sad about that. And then you say, well, that person's terrible, you know, or you say like, oh, don't be sad. Let's go get ice cream. You won't remember that when you're older. Yes, yes, yes. You know, or like, let's go to Disneyland. Like, look over here, look over here, look over here, look anywhere, but inside your sadness, because we are uncomfortable with their sadness instead of like teaching them. Oh yeah, that makes sense that you'd be sad about that. Let's talk about that. Tell me more. What do you think about that?

36:18And by the end of the conversation, usually they come to some place of, well, maybe I should talk to my friends about that. Or maybe let me see what happens tomorrow. Or let me see if maybe something happened between us and let me talk to my friends. They come up with great solutions on their own if you let them. The version of that a lot of people I know are going through with their parents lately is the version of you go to your, in this case, stopped in boomer parents and you talk to them about something from your childhood like hey i didn't like this or i have feelings about x or i remember it this way and the the defensiveness slash rationalization slash um uh undermining of a person's feelings about their experiences to me is both, it's both really interesting.

37:18And then it's also been helpful to me to go like, this isn't just like a new habit that they picked up. Like this is, this is also happening when I was six and I was trying to say, I'm scared about this, or I don't like Mrs. So-and-so, right? The, the, the inability to just respect, appreciate, empathize. And as you said, say, tell me more about someone else's experience, that's a really, really important skill to cultivate as a parent. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that when we talk about a lot of adult children going to their parents and wanting to talk about these things, the reason that they're going to them is because they want to connect and feel closer.

38:02But what the parent hears is, you were a bad parent. and so it's really important to be able to frame the conversation with I'm talking to you about this because I want to feel closer to you and I love you and I know you did your best and I know you did everything that you thought would be in my best interests but I want it now that we're adults now that we're all adults it's really important for me to have you understand a little bit about my experience so that we can have a better relationship now. This isn't about revising. This isn't about blaming. This is about how can we have a better relationship now?

38:41And all I want is for you to hear this. I don't want you to defend yourself. There's nothing to defend yourself against. I just want you to know me better. Yes. No, there's, I saw a really good example of this. Susan Sarandon's daughter, speaking of this, this trend of Nepo babies was talking about what it was actually like to grow up on these movie sets. And she was saying like, you know, obviously there's way worse places to grow up, but she was like, it was difficult because we'd all go to this place. You'd have these really intense friendships and connection and then everyone would leave and you would never see these people again.

39:19She was like, I had a very circus like childhood. And then Susan, she wasn't complaining. That's just what she said. And then Susan Sarandon was asked about this. And she said, you know, uh, I actually think the circus would be a great place to grow up. You know, it was inspiring and interesting and I was doing the best that I could. And she said something like, you know, I won't apologize, but I will talk to her therapist about it or something like this. Right. And I, I, it was actually so helpful for me to see, cause it sort of matched a script I've experienced personally, and then also witnessed with other people.

39:51Here's this person trying to say, I had this experience. Here's how I think about it. And that's all that they were saying. But to the mom, she was hearing, or the parent, she was hearing, you made the wrong choices. You hurt me. I resent you for it. You're a bad person. I'll never forgive you for it. And their inability to, her inability to see her daughter's experience was her daughter's experience. And no amount of arguing with that experience changes it, but they're actually connecting over it, growing from it, becoming closer through it, is not at all off the table if you're able to stop to tell yourself the right story about what you're hearing.

40:38Well, that's right. And the story is my daughter's trying to get closer to me. That's the story that the parent, and I get that as a parent, I get why it's hard to hear. But if you can understand that the story you're telling yourself, my daughter is blaming me and I did something wrong and I hurt her. And doesn't she realize how lucky she was, right? Yes, yes. Because again, with that perspective, you might have enjoyed that kind of childhood, or you might imagine that you would have enjoyed it. You don't know because you didn't have it. You're different people. And that's a really important thing for parents to understand is that your child is a different person from you and you need to get to know who that person is.

41:18And I think about something that happened in couples therapy once where someone said to her partner, you know what three words I really want to hear? And he said, I love you. And she said, no, I understand you. And I think about that with parents and children too, that, you know, what do we want as humans the most? We just want to be understood. That is a form of love. So if as a parent, you can understand your child saying, that was difficult for me in these ways, and I just want you to understand me, that's how you can show your love. Right. Right? Right. Yeah, even I didn't see it that way.

42:01I wouldn't have thought that. Right? Just any kind of acknowledgement of the validity of that person's experience. Yeah. And you don't have to agree with another person. You just have to understand that that is how they see the world. That is their perspective. People try to argue with other people's feelings. Like they say, well, I don't know why you would find that upsetting. And it's like, you don't have to feel upset about the same things. You don't even have to imagine that you would feel upset about the same things. But what you have to understand is that person felt upset about it. And can you just offer your presence?

42:40That's all people are really asking for is, can you be present with me in this feeling? Don't share my feeling necessarily. You don't have to share the upsetness. You just have to understand that for me, that was difficult in these ways. And also, you were a great parent in these other ways. Like this, this is something that I really, you know, this, this is something I really valued. And these were the things that were really hard for me. And now that, now that I'm an adult, I want to be, have an honest, open relationship with you and I want to feel closer to you. And the way that I can feel closer to you is if you understand all parts of my experience.

43:15Yes. I'm glad you said that. Cause that's something I struggle with. I've been thinking about it more is when, whenever you find yourself trying to argue with someone else's feelings, you fucked up because their feelings aren't based on facts, right? There's that saying, you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. They feel that way because they feel that way, right? And that's the only fact that really matters is that they feel that way. Right. When people say, yes, you shouldn't feel sad about this. You shouldn't feel worried about this. You shouldn't feel hurt by that.

43:50I didn't intend that. But the fact is the person feels that way. And again, really being clear about why you're bringing it up. So if you're bringing it up to get someone to apologize to you or, you know, that's not going to be a good interaction. And if they do genuinely feel remorse and they want to apologize, fine. But you're really doing it so that you can be better understood and that can bring you closer. But so what do you do? This is a hard way to, What do you do when the person is expressing a feeling that is like unhealthy or you don't want to, you don't want to simply accept, right?

44:33In the sense, like if someone says, I feel fat or I am so fat or I feel like a piece of shit, right? When someone says something and I think the immediate, if you're actually paying attention or not, just blowing them off, you go, oh, but you're not. You look like this. Or you say, oh, but everyone loves you. You are arguing with that feeling. But I think it's different than simply saying, hey, I resent you over X and you're trying to argue your way out of being liable for the thing. What do you recommend people do when they're faced with a feeling or a struggle that someone's facing that they don't know how to navigate?

45:21Well, first of all, even in that first situation, I wouldn't be talking them out of their feelings. So if someone says, like, you know, I feel unlovable or I feel unattractive or however they feel, I would be really genuine with them. And it would probably, if I cared about them, the genuine feeling that I would have would be something like, it breaks my heart that you feel that way about yourself. That breaks my heart. Because I feel like you have so much to offer. I feel like you're so lovable. I feel like you're beautiful. I feel, you know, but I know you don't. You know, so I wouldn't try to talk them out of their feeling.

45:58I would say, it breaks my heart that you feel that way. I feel differently, but it breaks my heart that you feel that way. Because I wish that you could see what you had to offer. And then what follows from there? In that conversation, that person, you know, I think that they take that in and they're going to feel how they feel. But they hearing another perspective, it doesn't have to match theirs. And they know that it's really heartbreaking to hear that, you know, they're so hard on themselves in that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, because I think sometimes we reject someone's feelings, not because we're defensive and we, you know, we feel threatened by the feeling, but the feeling alarms us or it overwhelms us when someone else has something.

46:46This is why I think other people being depressed or suicidal or whatever is so difficult to deal with because you're just sort of like, I'm not equipped for this. And also I disagree in this. You know what I mean? Like you're so fun. You're dealing with a person's view on reality that is, although you stipulate that it's their experience, it's so anathema to how you want them to feel and how they deserve to feel that you're just sort of like a deer in the headlights, I think. Well, yes. And a lot of people get so alarmed around somebody who's experiencing depression that they try to talk someone out of their depression.

47:25and you can't do that. You know, I say to people who are depressed, you are not the best person to talk to you about you right now. Sure. Because depression lies. Depression distorts. So it's not that there's not some truth to whatever situation they're in or what they're experiencing, but it also clouds out any other perspective. And you are not going to be able to do that talking to your friend. You're not going to be able to say, oh, you shouldn't be depressed because look at this. And all these people love you and, you know, or whatever it might be, or the situation's not so bad. You know, that's where they really need to get some professional help.

48:04But I think being able to sit with someone who's depressed and say, again, like, I'm so sorry that you're feeling this way. I'm so sorry that you're hurting so much. I'm here. You know, you've got me. I'm here. I'm all in. Right? Just knowing that you're there, just knowing that your presence is there and, you know, making sure that they're getting some professional help. That's much more effective than trying to talk them out of the way that they're feeling. Right. Your bulleted list is not going to be able to undo their years of depression. Right. But I think going back to what you were saying about, you know, when the issue is interpersonal, when the issue is relational, like this happened between us.

48:49and I'm trying to talk to you about it. Yeah. And the other person is not receptive. It is usually because they're feeling blamed. They feel shame. They're feeling like I've let this person down. You know, and so you have to really get that part clear about what is your intention in having this conversation. And a lot of times there's a lot of anger that, you know, the adult child is, I wish there were a better term for that, by the way, I've been an adult child, but the grown up is talking to their parent about something that they want to open up a conversation about. And a lot of times they're not clear about what their intention is.

49:32Like they themselves are not clear and it comes out very angry. Yes. Yes. They're just sort of, they're venting and then the other person is very sensitive. and then it starts the cycle of, you know, the cycle that's been running for 20 or 30 years by this point, which is kind of comfortable. And often it will, the conversation will come up in the middle of a conflict. Like here you go again. You always this, see, this is the reason that I can't be around you as opposed to in a calmer moment. Hey, can we have coffee? Can we, there's something that I want to talk to you about. I want to be able to be around each other in a way that's enjoyable.

50:12And what I'm finding is that when you talk about my appearance, when you talk about my career choices, when you talk about my romantic life, it feels like I'm being criticized and I know you want the best for me and I know that's not why you're doing it. But in order for us to be around each other, I'm going to ask that you not bring those things up. And if you do, I'm going to end the visit or I'm going to end the conversation. and then you know people think with boundaries by the way that boundaries are with other people like that person didn't respect my boundary when the boundary is with yourself you promised yourself that you would end the conversation politely and without you know getting you know changing your tone and without being being you know lashing out at the other person it's just hey mom hey dad um you know i asked you not to do this i i know we're going to have a better time next time so I'm going to leave and, you know, we'll try again next time.

51:09Right. But you have to be consistent. If you're inconsistent, even one time, they're going to think, oh, well, sometimes that person holds the boundary and other times they don't. So you have to be consistent every time. And if that person wants to be in relationship with you, they will start to change their behavior. It might take a lot of sort of training, but they will get there.

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53:35No, I'm going through that a bit myself where I sort of laid a boundary and then the boundary slash offer, I don't think it's an ultimatum, but the sort of boundary slash offer is there and here we are, right? I think you struggle with, hey, you made the boundary, and then the person chooses to head the other direction. That feels like you failed, but actually the boundary worked, and they made a painful choice for both of you, unfortunately, but it is what it is. Right. So a boundary is you're requesting something of another person. It's not an ultimatum. It's not like I told you to do this. It's, I requested this from you in order to improve our relationship.

54:26If you don't honor the request, here's what I'm going to need to do to take care of myself. So what you do is you keep the boundary with yourself. They will do whatever they do with the request. And if they can't meet your request, that's important information. And it can be hard as time or years go by. The boundary can feel very small. small you're like you did this thing like you know you had this thing you said hey I'm not going to come over anymore if you keep doing this and they go well I'm going to keep doing this and then you know or sometimes people do this with their you know hey if you if you keep smoking when we bring the grandkids over you know we're not going to bring the grandkids over and then you catch them smoking a couple times and then they're like well why don't you bring the grandkids over and you know and it can feel like the consequences of that boundary as time goes by, I've found can feel, it's hard.

55:22You're like, did I really, did I blow this up over X? And it's like, you didn't blow this up. You enforced a very clear, reasonable boundary and another person found that untenable or not worth their time. And sometimes you just have to accept that. Right. And the, why didn't you bring the grandkids over is mom, dad, I asked you not to smoke around the kids. I know you don't understand it, but for their health, this is what we are doing to protect them. And I need you to respect that. And if it's so important for you, if it's more important for you to smoke than to see your grandkids, that's okay.

56:00That's your choice. But I want to let you know the grandkids would love to see you, but it has to be when you're not smoking. Yeah. And it's like they're choosing not to see the grandkids, but it feels like to you, a person who apparently cares about this more, that you are choosing not to let them see the grandkids. Like it feels like you are, you are keeping the grandkids when actually nothing's really changed on your end, except for this boundary is now there. And the other person's not willing to, to sort of do what it takes. And also when we talk about boundaries, you know, you want to be as flexible as possible.

56:36So it's, if you smoke around the grandkids, they can't be around you, but maybe you can come over to our house and see the grandkids and not meet at a park. We can meet at a park. We can, you know, there, there, we can, we can, you can come to our house where, you know, you're not going to bring cigarettes into the house, those kinds of things. So it's not that they can't see the grandkids. It's that you can't see the grandkids in this context. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's, that's also how, if you like, if you're feeling guilt that, Hey, I drew this thing and now that's, you know, this impenetrable barrier or whatever.

57:09If you're continuing to reach out and make accommodate, if you're trying to find place, if they're like, I'm not compromising on this and you're like, I'm not compromising here, but then you're willing to find compromises elsewhere that are conducive or productive, that's how you can sleep at night knowing that you're not an asshole and you're not going around giving unfair or unresolvable ultimatums. Right, right. And I think too, sometimes with parents, when you have young kids and your parents grew up with different ideas about raising kids, one thing that I often will suggest to people is blame it on your pediatrician.

57:52So it's like, no,

57:59Jane can't eat this because her pediatrician said, right? Right. And so, you know, because they tend to follow, you know, doctors as authority figures. So there are ways that you can set boundaries. It is kind of, you know, going around a little bit and it would be nice if you could be direct, but sometimes it's just easier if you say, you know, the doctor said this and we need to abide by it. No, I think having rule, like boundaries are hard. And so when you have rules in all facets of your life, people tend to respect those rules. Like I was talking to a friend of mine and I was asking him if he wanted to blurb this project I was doing.

58:39And he said, you know, at the New York Times, we have a rule that we can't blurb publications before publication. We can't blurb things before publication. Now, as you know, the scourge of any writer is the amount of blurbs that you're asked to, books you're asked to blurb. So whether this rule is true or not, I don't know. But I thought it was like, as soon as I heard that, I was like, all right, done. You know what I mean? When you have rules like, hey, I'm taking a six-month break from doing X, or hey, I'm home for my kids' bedtime every night, so that's why I'm saying no to dinner. People seem to respect rules, however arbitrary they are, more than personal boundaries.

59:24And I don't really think there's a problem trading one for the other if it makes it easier for you to have those boundaries. Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think that at the end of the day, you get to decide what works for you and what doesn't work for you. And there are people who take this to an extreme where everything is a boundary and they might find that they don't have a lot of people in their lives because it makes it impossible to be around them. So I think that Instagram is really complicit in this, where on Instagram you see everything is a boundary. Everything is like, just, you know, estrange yourself from that person.

1:00:01They're toxic. They're a narcissist. They're, you know, and everybody's diagnosing everybody as opposed to saying, what can we work out here? What is the thing we're trying to, so in your case, you know, it might be like, you know, how can we get the grandkids and the grandparents together? Okay, the smoking, that's a rule. We can't do that. But are there other ways as opposed to, well, well, let's just disown them. And there's so much of, you know, set the boundary. And if they don't, if they don't do the boundary, then never speak to them again. And that is just wrong. Yes. Yeah. And to be fair, my parents aren't smokers.

1:00:34That's not, that's not my issue. But yeah, I think, I think your point is you have, you have the boundaries where they matter and then you're as flexible as you can be. I think about, I wrote about in my book, Stillness is Key, I was writing about the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy is a great example of this. He says, there will be no missiles in Cuba. End of story. You cannot have missiles 90 miles from the coast of America. National security reasons, we're just never going to allow it. And we'll go to the mattresses defending this. And he says, you got to take them away. And I'm not going to negotiate with you on this period.

1:01:12And then he sends his brother, you know, behind the scenes to go to the Russians and say, by the way, we have missiles in Turkey and we're happy to remove them. They don't really do anything. If you remove them here, we'll wait a little bit and then we'll move those. And we don't want to set a precedent that, hey, if you escalate here, you know, we'll de-escalate over here because that sets a bad precedent. But we have a boundary. And then as you're saying, we're also extremely flexible because the important thing is that we don't die in a nuclear a Holocaust. Yes, absolutely. And I think that that's the piece that people miss is given the boundary, what can we do to get both of our needs met in a way that works for both of us?

1:01:59Yes. Because otherwise you're being a bully. If you're just like, here's my boundary, here's my boundary, here's my boundary. And you're just enforcing how every, as you said, if you're just enforcing how everyone around you is allowed to behave, not only is that really isolating, but that's also kind of bad boundaries. You're trying to dictate the behavior of everyone around you. Right. Well, that's just controlling. That's not having a reasonable boundary. That's just trying to control your environment and to control the people around you and make them do what you want, as opposed to making it relational.

1:02:32See, I think boundaries are really relational, which is, hey, I can't have whatever the thing is, but let's talk about what might work for both of us. So the boundary comes from a place of negotiation from the beginning. Like I can't negotiate on this one thing because this doesn't work, but to get both of our needs met, what can we do around this? And let's kind of problem solve this together. Like, like even the thing about the critical parents, it's, I can't have you criticize my appearance when I'm around you, but I really want to be around you. So can we talk about something else? What are the other things that we can do that we enjoy together.

1:03:10Yes. Right. And it's also like, look, you can think whatever you want. Just keep it yourself. Exactly. Exactly. I'm not trying to do mind control. I'm just trying to say, this makes it an unpleasant visit or phone call for me. So let's not do that. Or, you know, when you criticize, when you say, when you swear around our children, right. Or when you say, when you criticize me in front of them, this is, this is not okay because. So, you know, if you, you, you know, and you can think whatever you want to think, but please don't share that with me. Yeah. I mean, obviously this is the politics thing, right?

1:03:46It's like, I'm not saying you have to agree with me. Just shut the fuck up and don't bring it up at Thanksgiving or I'm not going to come. And, and let's think about how we can make, how we can have a better time together because it's never fun when you criticize me, we always end up in an argument or we end up in this kind of tense place with each other and nobody's having fun. So let's try to make our business work together to make our visits enjoyable. So the last thing I wanted to ask you about, you said you have a word like pinned to the side of your desk. I couldn't, I forget what the word, but what is that word and what does it mean?

1:04:21Oh, ultra crepidarianism. Yes. Tell me about that. Um, it's, it's, it's that we basically that we, we, we don't know what we don't know. And, um, and I think it's, it's really important, um, to really acknowledge that what we think we know about other people is just, it's just, it's like, it's like trying to give advice based on the inability to really be an expert in that area. We are not an expert on other people. We just aren't. Right. And so I wish I had the exact wording of it. If I could look it up from the book, people should look it up from maybe you should talk to someone. It's something about the idea of trying to give advice to people about things which you don't really know.

1:05:20And that was really important for me as a therapist is the sort of sense of, I might know what I would do in a certain situation, but I can't know what's right for you. Like I personally would not want to be in that marriage, for example. But maybe for you, you do want to be in that marriage and you want to figure out a way to be in that marriage. Right. And there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that within Within reason. Within reason, yeah. I mean, it's not, you know. But there are certain things where you think about, you need to understand that everybody gets to live their own life and they get to make their own choices.

1:05:57And you can help them make the clearest choices possible for them by helping them to get curious. Yes. But you can't make the decisions for them. Or you shouldn't make the decisions for them. When I heard you talking about that, what struck me is something I've noticed. like you probably go around and give a lot of talks too, and you do the Q &A at the end. And I find myself in the middle of answering a question that I've thought about for precisely six seconds that I really have no knowledge about. But because someone asked me and I'm the one on stage supposed to answer questions, you can get yourself in a lot of trouble, right?

1:06:39It's inherently puffing up of the ego when you're in a position to judge, observe, talk about things, or you're asked about things, like the muscle that says, I don't know, or whatever works for you, that muscle atrophies quite quickly and that's dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that the best thing you can do in that moment is ask them questions that will help them to get clarity. You might say something like, you know, if I were in this situation, I might start thinking about these questions or I might start asking myself this, which I think is more helpful. It's funny because, you know, I actually do give advice.

1:07:19I have an advice column called Dear Therapist in the Atlantic and I have a podcast called Dear Therapist where we do actual sessions with people and then give them advice at the end of the session that they have a week to actually do and try out and then we get to hear how it went. And when you hear the kind of advice that we give, it's not like you should break up with this person. It's more about, you know, in the session, we've helped them to think about things from a different perspective. Again, going back to story, how can we help you to edit your story in this hour that we have together and then give you some things to do with that edit that might be different from the things you've already tried?

1:08:00And I think that's how we can help people the most in our lives. And I think the same is true just even if you're just listening to a friend or listening to your partner, where I think a lot of us, we don't know how to listen. And so what happens is people come to us with something and we do for them what we would want in that moment if it were us. So maybe we would want someone to tell us what to do or maybe whatever it is that we would want. And I always say to people, when someone comes to you with something, say to them, how can I be helpful right now in this conversation? Do you just want to vent?

1:08:34Do you just want to hug? Do you want to hear my thoughts about this? Do you want some suggestions? And they might say, you know what? I'm just so keyed up about this right now. I just want to tell you what happened. Okay. And then maybe a few days later, they might come back and say, remember that thing I told you about a couple of days ago. I'm curious now that I've been thinking about it, can we talk about maybe what the next steps might be? Or can you help me think this through? So there's different conversations about maybe the same topic even. But if you ask people, how can I be helpful right now?

1:09:08What can I do for you right now? They will tell you what they need. And that's how you really listen. Well, and I think, you know, going back to the ancients, like, you know, almost everything that Socrates said ended with a question mark, not a period. And that is such a better, more open minded, humbler way to go through the world and a way to get people to learn and understand things than by, you know, making pronouncements or statements or judgments or what have you. Yes, absolutely. Well, I loved the books and I love this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and I hope your flight to Texas goes well.

1:09:50Well, thank you so much. And thanks so much for the conversation. I really enjoyed it.

1:09:59Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.

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