The Toxic Effects of Isolation & How to Improve Your Connectability- With Anna Runkle

28:55And this is what creates a lot of conflicts in relationships is that everybody thinks they're right. And so having these skills built over time, as you just mentioned, good modeling to be able to have healthy boundaries, but also be able to perspective take, to be able to, you know, to, to, to re-regulate when you become dysregulated, right? These things that we pick up and this is part of the healing process is awareness is a big part of this. And knowing that we can develop these skills because in conventional modalities of psychology, psychiatry, which can be greatly effective for a certain percentage of the population, we know today that for many people, simply going through and talking about the trauma, talking about the thing that hurt you, can keep you in that stuck state, can just continuously hurt you in new ways.

29:51Can you talk about that a little bit? I was one of the pioneers to figure that out the hard way back in the day. So this is in the nineties. I'd been to a lot of therapy. It was just what you do because I struggled a lot with depression. I struggled with relationships. I often felt overlooked. I never had enough money to go to as much therapy as I wanted, but I would have gone to it like all the time if I could have afforded it. But I grew up in a family with a lot of alcoholism and addiction. My older brother died from heroin. My mom died of alcoholism. And there was a lot of, in our house, there was a lot of violence.

30:32We were very neglected. And so I had a lot of the problems that go with that, just kind of normal. And I insist it's normal. It's normal to have this set of symptoms with that. I don't think that was totally well understood when I was younger. And I was a pretty high functioning kid. Like in my family, everybody had their little coping mechanisms. You know, my brother turned to drugs. I turned to like, I'm going to be the best straight A student. And I'm going to, I'm going to hide from the whole world, how bad things are at home. Like you could not bring people over to our house unless they were from similar families.

31:06And, uh, but it was a hoarder house and the drugs and alcohol were on full display, often sold there. It was, it was pretty, pretty weird. There was, it wasn't always, not everything about it was horrible. There were, I had a nice stepdad. Thank goodness. That's a blessing. He kept things somewhat stable. He had a sort of an expectation that you didn't stay out all night, but nobody was really paying attention. So I was high functioning as it goes. I got straight A's. I got out a year early. I got the heck out of Dodge. I moved to California, got a job in a pizza place, went to community college.

31:44You know, it's sort of a success story from there, even though I come from a family with a great education and every opportunity because of the drugs and alcohol, you know, we were just like forever downwardly mobile to the very bottom. And it was really more like in my 20s that I started to see what the what the damage was, but I still didn't know what it was. It wasn't common knowledge then. This book came out. It will never happen to me. It was like the first book about adult children of alcoholics. And the first time I saw a therapist when I was 21, it was presented to me. And I don't remember it very well.

32:17It was it was an important book in that it introduced this concept to the idea that, hey, the kids are affected too. And they're a certain way. And I I was sort of a classic case. I was really perfectionistic and anxious and at the same, like getting straight A's and making terrible choices of men. And so my life was always just like really high drama, really struggly, you know, having to couch surf with friends because I had moved in with somebody and it didn't work out when I was young. And so that's, those were things that I always thought like, why am I some sort of fuck up here? You know, why?

32:54Now it's just totally makes sense. It's just total normal trauma behavior, totally normal. There were just red, it was, I had no red flag detector. I could see it later, but not when it was coming. And that brain tidbit about like your brain goes dark. It's like, that's the only thing that makes sense. I was never trying to recreate a problem. I really didn't. I wanted to get out of that family with all their problems. And so it was when I was 30, I was doing okay. I had some good things happen. I finished college. I, I had, I did comedy. I had a nice boyfriend for about six years. It ended naturally, you know, it wasn't such a terrible thing, but right about when I was turning 30, this thing was happening where my symptoms were getting, they were making me selfish.

33:40I would say. I want to clap to that. I was, I had started out like this very nice girl, but there was something about the way that I had to harden my heart to the world that I was harsh with people. I was selfish and pushy and had to have my way about everything. I think today they would be like, what a narcissist. You know, we didn't use that word so much then, but they were narcissistic traits. And I had a relationship that I really wanted that didn't work out. Then my mom had cancer and died. She was just about to die. And right before she died, I went out to coffee with a male friend and we got randomly attacked on the street by this, these four guys who I realized later were gang members because there was graffiti on the sidewalk where it happened afterwards.

34:29So that's the only thing I could put together. They didn't say anything. They didn't take anything. They just like with this full force of sheer intent to harm, you know, they, they, uh, beat us both unconscious and they kicked my face and my jaw, my ear, my teeth as hard as they could four guys at the same time. And I don't know exactly how long I was unconscious. And I think then this is kind of the spiritual thing about that moment is around that time. I was pretty depressed. And in those depressed thoughts, I would think everybody would be better off if I weren't here. I was starting to go there with that thought.

35:12And if I had just not screamed, maybe they would have taken me there for me. Maybe they would have done the job for me of get me out of this world. And I had a choice, but actually I wanted to live. I wanted very much to live. And that instinct came up. And it's funny if anybody's ever been unconscious, you don't necessarily know who you are or where you are or what's happening, but there's this will to live, this will to become conscious. And it just came up. And I thought, I thought that if I screamed, it would be like in a dream when you have to scream, but you're like, you can't get a voice.

35:46So I thought I better really try hard. And I got this scream out and the scream was strong and it stopped it. And, and I was very injured, but I was okay. And this changed my whole life. This event put me into no longer any ability at all to look good on the outside. I was a wreck after this. I had a broken jaw. I had, I'm sure, PTSD, though they didn't, they didn't call it that. Back then they knew about PTSD, but they thought it was just soldiers or something. But I had PTSD and I had all the classic symptoms. And this is what happens for people who had a traumatic childhood. You might do a great job of compartmentalizing all that shit for a long time, but something happens or like three things happen and you just can't anymore.

36:30And you didn't even know it was there, but there's just all this grief and anger that comes out and anxiety about everything. It's very strong and you cannot manage it. It's like, I call it a trauma storm. You just can't get it together. I could not get it together and I needed to take time off from work, but I was at the stage of life when I couldn't. There was no such thing as paid time off in my job. And so I had to go back after a week. And I was saying really inappropriate stuff on the job, threatening things that made everybody's eyes get big. I'm always tuned in. I'm like, your eyes got big.

37:08What are you thinking? Well, I was so disconnected from people. I could only like look at expressions and be like, they must be shocked. Did I do something shocking? That was my only way of knowing it. I was so disconnected. And that's what complex PTSD and PTSD both, they really like, they sever this nonverbal communication. See, I know now, and I think the science is coming. This is partly theoretical, but it's partly showing up as it's real. But our nervous systems like, you know, your crew in this room and you and me, we're feeling each other. And if one of us walks in the room, we feel the vibe of the room.

37:44We're not always thinking consciously about it, but we're such evolved beings. We feel who's in the room. We know where we are. We know when we're safe. we know when something's off we know when people are being dishonest you know you think somebody's deceiving you or things are not as they seem or nowadays when i'm reading people are talking to me and sometimes i'm like did you memorize this from ai i have this distinct feeling like it's not organic thought you know that's starting to appear on my in my experience it's like are you wait, are you a robot? Not really. But, but I can tell when people are talking from their heart, I can tell when somebody has imposter syndrome.

38:29You know, I can see that on TV when they have imposter syndrome. I'm like, they're, they feel worried that we don't believe them. That's my nervous system, being able to read signs visually, but also like the vibe. And I've heard one theory that our nervous systems are basically just one little node in a great vast nervous a system that is consciousness. I'm like, I don't know how you measure that, but I'm pretty sure it's true. That sounds right. And that's why we have collective consciousness. Mm-hmm, and this is measurable. Yeah. Measurable. So with this, again, a series of traumatizing events, to say the least, and going in and talking about them repeatedly, what kind of experience did you have there?

39:13Well, so it's natural to feel connected to your environment and other people. So we may have had an injury. We also may have been raised wrong where people didn't teach us appropriate ways to deal with anger, that sort of thing. But then there's this thing where the nervous system dysregulation cuts off your nonverbal communication. So little did they know that asking me to talk about my, I mean, literally after I was assaulted, I went to therapy three times a week and we talked about it three times a week. And it would just like destroy me every time. And it really like, it was bad, but it wasn't that bad.

39:43I got through it. You know, I got through it. It was nothing personal. It hurt, it healed. But the talking about it was taking me back into this bad thing. And then we talk about my mom and we talk about all the bad things that happened to me. And it would, again, it would like, it's like a force field that cuts off your communication with the, with everybody else, like a total disconnection. And the, I think, I think that's, that's one of the ways we co, co-regulate, we can feel each other. We know like a dad who's regulated has a regulating effect on the children. And a dad who's dysregulated has a dysregulating effect on the children.

40:19Co-regulation is something everybody's learning about now. So when you can't connect with other people, nobody's helping you regulate. Your nervous system is just kind of spinning into space. There's no place to kind of ground down into. And that was what therapy was like for me. very, you know, really like cut me off. I get very dissociated. I couldn't feel my hands. In those days, I used to have to write a check after each visit and I couldn't use my, my hands didn't work well enough to write the check. And I couldn't remember how to write a check. And I look back and I know that feeling so well, but I know what it is now.

40:54And it wasn't, it wasn't anything they could detect. And I know many, this is, you know, a lot of people know about this now. I wish that the curriculum for new therapists coming up would be a little more rigorous with it and make it entirely central. Because if people aren't regulated, they can't listen, they can't remember, they can't process information. So everything that happens in a therapy appointment, it's gone and you come back next week. And I remember disappointing one therapist after another with the way I never made progress. And I never seemed to like respect what we had figured out last week, you know, but it wasn't there.

41:29My brain was not in a condition I could take it in. So I figured out that didn't work for me. And still me saying this here, you're going to get hateful comments from people going, she's saying, don't ever go to therapy. And I'm not saying that. I'm saying that until you can regulate, you can't benefit from almost anything. And that talking about trauma can be very, very dysregulating. I've seen one study showed like 30 % of traumatized people can't really benefit. You know, talking about trauma is, you got to do it sometimes, and there's ways to do it. You want to know what the great earth-shaking innovation is?

42:04You can write it. You can write about it, and it doesn't do the same pathway. It doesn't re-trigger. Maybe it does for people I haven't met them yet, but you can write about it. You can even read what you wrote, and you can bypass that circuit, and now you can communicate what it was. And there's other things. There's other modalities that haven't proven that great for me. I get dysregulated very easily. I get dysregulated if people are even like sympathetic about something that was hard for me. If I tell you really factually, yeah, this thing happened in my family and you put a hand on my shoulder and you go, that must've been really hard.

42:37I'll just like, I'll just dysregulate. I'm like, why'd you do that to me? That's why I just, people with complex PTSD can be a real pain in the ass because of that. And if we're in it, when we're in the, when we're having that sort of emotional flashback and dysregulated. We believe that you did that to us. We believe that you caused it and you can fix it. And then we get very like, come on, do what you have to do so that I feel better. And that just kills relationships. Because it turns out the other person, no matter how much they want to, they cannot fix this like wave of unprocessed emotion that's just like pulling you down right now.

43:14They didn't cause it. They might've, you know, we hurt each other's feelings, of course, but, but that's what it is. So, so talking about trauma is, um, can be actually can make things worse. In my case, it pushed me to the brink of taking my own life, talking about it. And just, just before it went that far, somebody showed me about how I could write about it. And she taught me kind of a prayerful format that she had learned in AA that I guess hardly anybody in AA does it. Um, but she was with a group of people who were doing this like twice a day. They write their fears and resentments on paper.

43:49They ask God to remove them. And then they do transcendental meditation. It's not that wacky or anything, but it's not, it's not that common. But it worked. There were a lot of people who had been homeless before, dual diagnosis, you know, hard cases. And interestingly enough, like I had great affinity with that. I was, by that time with my head injury and everything, I was a hard case. And she showed me how to do this writing. and within two weeks, I didn't have PTSD or depression anymore. And my therapist thought that I had had some sort of like, um, breakdown because I was like happy. And I was saying, I pray now.

44:28She was just like, Oh boy, you know, here she goes. I'm worried about her now. She was literally worried about me, but I think it's natural to be worried about somebody who dramatically changes that much. Like it must be delusional. Right. But it's been 31 years now. And I've had ups and downs in my life, but that fundamental like change in my understanding of reality never, never, never went away. Yeah. Wow. There's so much there. One of the things should be Captain Obvious, which there isn't a one size fits all approach to therapy and, you know, to encourage everybody to continue to explore and to be honest too, if like something's not working for you, it's okay to move on.

45:07And this is one of the great things about you too, is what you're sharing with people, you're providing all these different frameworks basically and different possible perspectives to take on and different things to try. But you also have your tried and true methods, which again involves this writing process and this meditation. And that is a powerful collaboration. And we're gonna talk more about that in a moment. This episode is brought to you by the incredible team at Organifi and their phenomenal superfood blends. Not only does their best-selling green juice blend have the most powerful green superfoods, it also has a therapeutic amount of ashwagandha.

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46:57Plus, you'll also receive their 60-day money-back guarantee. So you have nothing to lose and better health to gain. Head over to Organifi.com forward slash model. Check out their variety of superfood blends, their green juice blend, their red juice blend, their phenomenal collagen that we use all the time. Again, 20 % off at Organifi.com forward slash model. And now back to the show. One of the things that I want to circle back to that as I was reading your book, I'm just like, I feel connected. I don't let's dive in for the people. Let me let me just dive in here. But once you talked about covert avoidance, one of the things that happened to reading your book was like it got me to analyze, like to go back in the DeLorean and like go and look at my past and like see like where was I because crappy childhood like that resonated with me but I just feel like I'm good now and you know that covert avoidance was something that and I've said this it wasn't until like a couple years ago that I was able to say it because I don't see myself as that person but I became very self-centered yeah for a phase of my life because I come from an environment where it's you know violent and And it's very uncertain.

48:13And, you know, something else I connected with you on was like, people don't come to our house. Like, I would spend the night in my friends' houses all the time. I'm talking like maybe 50 or 100 times, like my various friends. But the one time, one time that I was having a friend stay over, shout out to Daman. All right. So he was staying over. and we were hanging out in our kitchen and my stepfather was drinking, you know, which again, he's, he passed away a little over two years ago, drugs and alcohol put him into assisted living and he changed his life and, you know, got devoted to his church.

48:55But, you know, the, the damage and the epilepsy really kind of took hold, but, you know, a lot of years of hard drinking and drugs and he was drinking, but, you know, for us it's normal for demand, not too normal. So my little brother was sitting over by like basically where Dante is sitting right there in the corner. All right. My little brother's sitting there and I'm sitting there with Daman, right? Daman's like sitting, you know, at the table and I'm like standing up by our counter and Glenn came in, you know, he said something, whatever. And we were just laughing about something else, but he thought we were laughing at him.

49:28So we came back, we'll just say a minute or two later with a bat my brother was sitting where dante is sitting right we had a plastic trash can like one of those big like oversized ones and he went after my brother and swung that bat so hard to split this plastic massive trash can like just cracked it right in half and thank god my brother dove out of the wake he could have killed his son you know but again he would have been mortified once he comes to this process and he realizes like what happened but But at the time, he didn't care. And so when that happened, DeMond was already outside. He's down the block, ran away, right?

50:08And I'm just trying to grab Glenn, like, calm down. You know, my stepdad, just like, what are you doing? Like, what are you, you know, trying to like get him to calm down. But he was going after my brother. And so he goes outside because my little brother went outside as well. And he's trying to get to him where I'm trying to hold him back. And my mom's now trying to hold him back. And he crawls over. we have a porch that's, we'll say 12 feet up in the air, 10 feet. He crawls over the porch and lands face first on the ground. All right. And I see Demand is down the block, just standing there like a deer in headlights, like just what is going on here.

50:39This was the one time I had a friend to stay over in my house and this mayhem, this chaos took place and I almost lost my brother. Right. So do you think I'm going to want to have people around? It's just like, it becomes this like, it becomes this like shadow life you know like this different life that i have and i became that person like all the check marks in school right i'm doing all those things to try to quote make it out but it's very unconscious because i love my family and i want everything to be okay in a workout but i became so self-centered and so guarded yeah and so i just didn't connect with people.

51:20And the way that my life is today, I have these very rich relationships. And it's because of what you said, and I'm going to read this direct quote from your book. You said the best chances to overcome any symptom of trauma, the depression, the dysregulation, the increased risk of health problems, and yes, isolation is to strengthen your ability to connect. My connections helped to heal me. And I didn't know that I was possible because I didn't know that this was holding me back from connection. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad you told me that. Yeah. And the last part, just to fast forward a little bit.

51:54So, you know, I get into college and I, cause I took the DeLorean, I went into the future a little bit and just to see like, did I have friendships? Like I would basically model with my stepdad. He would have like one drinking buddy per, you know, cycle, the number of years, but he really didn't mess with people. And so I just was like, that's why I'm like this. So I would have one friend, but I never, I never talked about anything with my friends. Nothing, none of the stuff I was struggling with. I didn't struggle. I'm just, I'm chilling. I'm Sean, I'm chilling. I'm making things happen. But there was so many things going on in my life, but I never talked about any of that stuff and kept everybody at arm's length.

52:32I had lots of different girlfriends, different relationships, a lot, which I was using that to stay covert with my avoidance. You know, I just never let anybody get too close to me, you know, and I'm even me saying that I've never said that out loud before, you know, but I just never let anybody get too close to me. And I didn't know that I was just it was this covert avoidance because I didn't see myself like that. I saw myself as like I've got all these relationships. Right. But I didn't feel connected. And that's the difference with your work. It's it's about connectability. Yeah. Yeah. You're actually a great success story, every step of that story, because what you did to become guarded like you did and to put on the good front out there, I'm Mr.

53:16Normal, I'm Mr. Social, is good. That protected your spirit. you did you you put you put on a shield like a superhero thing that would protect you for a space journey until you could get to the planet where you could breathe and now that's the hard part you know that we face as we become adults is like now how do we take this thing off and so it's very good that you did that I think you know some of our siblings and friends who didn't make it that's what it was they they just they weren't able to do that they weren't able to put on that thing. So it's a, it's a, it's a blessed survival strategy, but it's complicated to end, to end it and, and start to start again and learn all these things you never knew how to do before.

53:58And I don't know about you, but it, I didn't, it wasn't like this very, like, I think I'll change my life now. It's like, everything was such a mess. And I, in, in this, this book, I opened with a story. It wasn't that long ago. It was well into my healing. I was a divorced mom. I was in and out of the hospital for four years because there was a medical mistake on a surgery. And I ended up needing 14 major surgeries. And I had to go to the emergency room 44 times. And I was like alone with kids. It was this incredibly difficult, complicated time. Their dad was around, but he wasn't in the house.

54:34He lived nearby. Again and again in the middle of the night, I'd have to just like get neighbors. Can you help? I've got to drive myself to the emergency room. It was this really tough time. and when you get out of the hospital you can't just like take a taxi home they won't let you they um they make it be somebody who knows you and 14 surgeries was about 11 more than I had people who would help me in that situation and that was a reckoning for me I'm like what what the hell I'm like I'm I've I mean I have all these friends but you know they were just kind of like fairweather friends I guess you call them we were friends we were friends when things were fun when I put the email out, I really need food, everybody.

55:13I can't, I just, I had to have like, I had to donate muscles to, to the rest of my body from my leg. They, you know, so I was, my whole leg was cut open. I couldn't walk. And I was like, Hey, can somebody like pick up my kids at preschool and bring up some McDonald's or anything at all? And then, you know, just pick up a little bit here and help me out. Cause I could, it was all I could do to get to the bathroom really. And a couple of people said they would, but they, whatever they brought, they would just make a big mess and leave. They weren't the kind of people who get it, you know, like help me out.

55:46I really need it. And I didn't, I didn't have parents. I didn't have, I had siblings, but not the kind who were going to be there or could be there. And my husband was gone. So that's, that was just like the reckoning I had. And I think a lot of people are in that situation there. When, when, when everything hits the fan and you really need help is when you can really see, and people like to talk about, you find out who your friends are, but what if it's like none of them, you know, what if it's none of them? And so that's, that was, that was this huge, I would call it like another spiritual awakening where I just realized that I, I didn't even know how to do this.

56:26And I, I did try going to a therapist again and I got that tidbit, like, this is the problem, but actually changing it was a very spiritual job actually to, to heal in a way that, uh, when you don't even know, how can anybody get in there and change your connectability? How can anybody get in there and change that wound that you have that your brain didn't develop properly? Cause your mom, my mom like split when I was a month old, she'd come and go, she'd meet some guy. I think my dad and maybe my grandmother, there was a lady who would come in and care for me to. They all sort of cobbled it together.

57:01As often is the case, right? It's not uncommon. But everybody was really anxious all the time. Like, is she ever going to come back? Is she alive? Why'd she do this? And then the fighting, you know, where have you been? And, and all of that. So I'm pretty sure I, that part of my development was disrupted. And it may just be an organic thing that it was hard for me to feel connection. And I decided to go on faith that if, like if a person who has lost a leg can get a prosthesis and carry on and have a great life I'm going to find a way that even though I struggle with this I'm going to find a way to learn it you know who's had to do that is like people on the on the autism spectrum where just the way they were made they they don't feel the same level of connection with other people and can't always read the room on things so they learn social skills and they learn to have a mask and they, you know, how to, how to conduct themselves.

57:56So I like studied that, like, and what do they teach, teach you? I know that I'm not autistic, but I have the same challenge. Basically, I have to learn how to do people and how to connect. And so in the book, I lay out as a self-help book, because that's kind of, you know, I've just ended up, I took all my experience. I'm like, all right, everybody, here's how I did it. And it's part, it's got worksheets to look at, but I figured out about nine things that really get in the way of being able to connect. And one of them is avoidance and covert avoidance. One of them is not having boundaries. We talked about that.

58:27One of them is like your life. If you grew up like you did and I did, I don't know. It sounds like you might've skated out a little faster than I did, but my life was really populated with fuck ups and people who were, you know, negative to be around and who brought trouble into my life and who, if anybody, you know, decent came along, if they saw who I hung out with, they'd be like, oh, it's like a barrier. It's another barrier to being able to connect with absolutely anybody at all. And I would, I also would tolerate quite a lot of people who mistreated me. I had a really, the crap fit phenomenon.

59:00I let them stay and had a lot of ways of, I don't know, like I would read books. I would somehow misuse self-help literature to believe like they are cruel to me, but I rise above it and just put up with it. could just, I could stay with the boyfriend if I had to, you know, cause I was afraid to leave. And just, even though he was cheating, I'd be like, but he's been through a lot. And after all, I'm very modern. And I don't know, you can always come up with a rationalization to, to just be treated really badly. And, but I was in pain all the time. And so you have to stop, you have to start being honest with yourself about what is mistreatment and stop letting it happen to you.

59:39And to do that means you're going to let people leave your life and it's lonely and it's scary. And that means you're going to have to start doing little things to have new connections. That is lonely and scary. And some other things, I think a lot of traumatized people, maybe you relate to this, have damaged perception, where you're always, every time something's weird, you're like, is it me? Am I being weird or are they? Am I being weird or are they? And it's very paralyzing because if you didn't have damaged perception, you're feeling, what the hell are you doing? You can't do this with me.

1:00:11I'm leaving. Or you'd go, I guess I'm just feeling paranoid or jealous. Jealousy is a good example. I'm feeling jealous, but I have full information to trust that I have no reason to be. Like that's a judgment call we all have to make at some time or another, right? But with trauma, you don't have it. You can't trust your judgment. And all that normal people advice, like always trust your gut, you know, always express your feelings. It's like, not so much for me. That's, is a dangerous piece of advice because sometimes my gut is trauma informed. It's going off of some old information. No, you can't trust anybody.

1:00:48Can't trust that feeling or, um, always express your feelings. Well, my trauma comes out as emotional dysregulation under stress. So my feelings will be like, um, you know, I think you don't like me anymore. I've got to pack up my suitcase and just like leave you right this minute. That's emotional dysregulation. So I can't trust my feelings. So there's this uncertainty we're walking around with all the time. So there's a fantasy though, that we're going to get all healed and then we'll try to deal with people, but it won't work because the only way that you can work on this stuff, you can do a little bit all by yourself, but then you have to like go outside.

1:01:24Yeah. You have to train. Yeah, you do. And you, and you're going to sometimes like bump into things and make mistakes and feel embarrassed. But this is why I teach everybody the daily practice as the first order of business. It's a way to let those feelings out. You don't have to carry them for the rest of your life. Just like, yes, I'm ashamed. Okay. Release it, meditate, get up the next day and get ready to try again, you know, and that's, that is the object of the game. The daily practice. Can you share that for everybody? Yeah. I can tell you a little bit what it's like, but I encourage people.

1:01:58I have a free course on my website that anybody can take a short course. It takes a little while to teach the right way to do it. And it's important to do it correctly, but it's a writing technique where you basically are just noticing the distress thoughts and feelings that you've got. We lump them into fears and resentments. You could, you could come up with many more nuances about feelings, but it's, it's good just to be simple. It's the anxious kind of thought and feeling. It's the angry kind. And you name them and write them out. If you're inclined toward God or a higher power, it's a prayer.

1:02:30It's given up. The whole spirit of it is that we're writing it so that we can release it, so that we can have it removed. And if it is a prayer, you can ask for guidance about it. Like, take this, take this mess. Now show me what am I to do and give me the power to do that. I had a friend recently tell me her prayer was, if there's a door that needs to be open to me, open it and make it obvious. If there's a door that needs to be closed, just shut it in my face. Don't worry about my nose, but stop me from going through that door. And so there's a, it's a spiritual approach that was very much a part of how I did it.

1:03:04And I want to be open about that because I think we're often discouraged from going that way, or we think it can't work, but it was tremendously helpful for me, made a huge difference, changed my life. even if you don't believe in that this still works and it's still you there's science to it writing is therapeutic meditation is therapeutic my book has deep studies you know to show you why we know this so so it can help so twice a day you sit down and you write these things and sign off the sign off is important until you feel better and so on a hard day that could be an hour on a easy day that could be five minutes if you don't write enough you will still be kind of jammed up in the head.

1:03:44We know that trauma makes it hard to process thoughts and feelings. So process means it stops being this thing as if it's happening right now and is charged with emotion and adrenaline, and it becomes a memory that's inert over there. You can recall it, but it doesn't get you all upset every time you think about it. So we're trying to process it. I do think this, I believe that this is an assist, it assists in processing thoughts and feelings. So you get more space. Your mind is meant to be mostly space. You got a couple things on your mind, but mostly you're open to ideas. You're open to observations.

1:04:18You're open to new things happening. An opportunity like, oh, look at that beautiful park over there. Let me go see what's going on. When you have a head full of negative stuff and unprocessed thoughts and feelings that you haven't been able to get over into the memory bucket, it's very hard to be attuned. There it is. I think that's in a nutshell what's going on of why it's so difficult to notice, to read, to see the red flag, to feel the intentions of another person, to connect up to the group nervous system, the collective consciousness that you can't receive those downloads that when you're in good condition, you do.

1:04:58You wake up in the morning and you're like, you know what? I think I solved that problem overnight. I know what to do. That just doesn't happen for you. It's just trouble, trouble, trouble, just piling up in your mind all the time. That's really hard. Then you're trying to relate to somebody and you're in some little conversational difficulty and you're like, I don't understand why we're not understanding each other. And when you have a head full of unprocessed thoughts and feelings, they're from all sorts of things. And so how can you help but project it and be like, well, I think you don't understand me because you don't care.

1:05:29Because, you know, there are people in the past who didn't. But that's not what's going on here. We end up doing it to the boss. We parentify the boss. We familyify the co-workers. Like nobody, well, I'm the black sheep here. Now, it is possible to be the black sheep at an office. But you bring your own past to the office. It's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It just ends up that way. so what you have not yet faced that's in here will have a way of coming out again and in your experience and there's a lot of ways of saying that that show up in different philosophies but i think it's very practical so the really good thing so you do this twice a day you write you meditate for 20 minutes and people go oh half an hour that's like crazy i can't do that and it's like you don't have time not to do it you don't have time to go through your whole life completely cluttered in the head and unable to connect with anybody or have new ideas you don't have time You can't be present.

1:06:23And I did it with two little kids divorced. And it was the best thing I did. Very comforting to the kids. If they were very good, they could sit on my lap while I meditated. We had a special blanket for that. We just worked it into our lives. When I was a video producer and I had my own production company, it was always like in the contract. Oh, and Anna meditates at five o 'clock. And I thought that people would think I was a prima donna. No, they thought I was amazing. And people would be like, how do you meditate? Where could I find out how to meditate? People thought it was cool. when you just kind of own what you need, it has a way of communicating self-respect to other people and they respect it back.

1:06:57That's been a hard one lesson for me. So you can make this work if you really want it. It's worth giving a try to see if it works for you and it's worth changing your life for. But even if you just do it once, that's something. But you do it twice and you start to detach from this old idea that all my anxiety, all my anger, everything that's happening to me is this big unlucky curse that everybody just dumps on me and nobody gives me a break and life isn't fair. That's the reality I used to live in. Oh, here it comes. You know, the mistreat, here it comes. You know, I just know everybody's going to be this way.

1:07:32I started to have a new experience. I started to feel that I had some agency in what happened to me and who I was around. And you could not tell me this. There was nobody could tell me anything. I had to experience it. And I had to be free to make my mistakes and go, no, I have to date that guy. I know everybody thinks it's a bad idea, but I just know it's right. I have to do it. It would all turn out like everybody else knew it was going to. And I'd be right back that evening with my paper, you know, I have fear I did it again. Fear everybody could see it coming. I had somewhere for those feelings to go and I could quickly move through it.

1:08:07And that's what I never used to be able to do before I had this technique. Talking about it didn't help me move through it. Sitting with it didn't help me move through it. That's another philosophy that works for some people is sit with your feelings. I'm like, oh boy, that's like sitting in a car that's like going under the river. Get out of the car. It's a different thing when you have trauma, but there is a way to process your emotions that then this is the ultimate level playing field in life is when you can be regulated, then you can participate in what other people do. You're not cut out anymore.

1:08:41and most times people are not against your participation there's there are cases of this but i mean i really used to think i used to think because i grew up poor that like everywhere i went people were like oh there's the poor girl trash they weren't it wasn't like that it was can't sit here no have you had that so it fades it's not that nothing like that ever happens but you don't have to wear it like it's your very soul. It's your soul is this beautiful intact thing and it communicates to the world who you are. And I did notice that people started to treat me with a lot more kindness and respect when I had that going on on the inside.

1:09:22Yeah, it's powerful, powerful. Wow. You know, one of the things that you said was about how we rationalize things. Yeah. And earlier I mentioned, like, we don't know that we're doing this. That's the thing. Like we're just automatically doing this to frame it so that we're right. And so what I would encourage people to do is, because it's one thing to be honest with yourself, right? How do you do that? Look at the results. Just get honest about the results in your life, right? And that can be like an inroads. But that rationalizing, it's perfectly natural. It's perfectly normal human behavior.

1:09:58And it can be extreme when we have experienced trauma. And so you offer so many different insights into like, okay, how am I showing up? How am I disconnecting myself? Like, what are these signs and symptoms and practical ways of helping us to re-regulate and for us to, dare I even say, feel empowered? Because that was one of the things I was going to ask you about. Like, how do some people make it out of those situations? And, you know, not just make it out, but like thrive in life. And because I, I know that it is, it's a unique recipe, you know, for each person, of course, but there are some similarities.

1:10:39Like when you said about putting on that superhero, like suit of armor, like I almost just broke down in tears even hearing that because like that was in a way what I did. And I'm just like, but still, that's kind of like, not fake it till you make it per se, but like really embodying something until I became it. But that didn't negate all the coping mechanisms and rationalizing that I was doing. But for me, it was, and this could be another inroads, but back to connectability. I went through those conditions. Yes, I went, I was in college, first person in my family to do it, like checking these boxes.

1:11:19but then I lost my health, right? Just like everything was just terrible. Health, relationships, and the process of me getting well. And also it was through relationships that I had, once I decided to get well, that directed me to certain resources, right? It was these relationships, right? And once I started feeling better and I transformed my health, people started asking me for help at the university I was going to, you know, with their health and fitness. and it was through service to other people, right? Because I was so self-centered, but I didn't see myself as ever being that type of person.

1:11:57But once I started to help other people, it like unlocked me to where like, this is who I am. This is how it was. And I felt safe, which I've never said this out loud before as well. Like I felt safe in serving these other people and helping them because I trusted myself and I was helping people that I felt comfortable with as well. And so it was just like this mutual healing relationship, you know, where we're all kind of, you know, getting better together in essence. Yeah, I regard what you're describing there as a very spiritual thing actually, because instead of like trying to like, I'm gonna look out for myself, which we have to when, you know, that's why we were selfish because other people were not focused on us for us.

1:12:45So somebody's got to blow your horn. You know, somebody's got to like, make sure you have everything you need. So that's also, it's a, it's a positive for a period of time that then has to go. But when we move into the service of others, like that's really, I, I, I deeply believe every person has a gift that is meant for the benefit of others. Like we have things that are meant for just us or just our family, but we have things that are for the benefit of, of, of all things. And until we discover them, we're going to feel a little bit like, when do I get to the good part? When do I become fulfilled?

1:13:18It's the most fulfilling thing when you allow yourself to be of service in the unique way that you can be like you did it through fitness. And that's spiritually what we're doing is we're we're entering into the healing power that's already there, but we're, we become like an agent of it. We go into the service of the healing power that's there. And how could you not feel good about yourself when you're, you're in the service of the good. And it makes you forget yourself in a good way. That's a good thing. Not to not to not love yourself or take care of yourself, but forget that self-centered need.

1:13:53Like let the ego go for a while and focus on others. And it's such a pleasure. What I love, and you must see this too in your work, when you get to witness other people having that transformation and you see them have it and you see that sort of love start flowing through them, they become in the service of the good. it's flowing through them and it like changes people's countenance the color comes back to their face there's a light in their eyes they they have something to them they feel good to be around this is part of connectability too like a truly connectable person feels good to be around I used to just envy people like that and I thought it was just oh because they're pretty or you know they didn't grow up on welfare or whatever but it's it's more than that and and uh it's I mean it's not that at all because you could be, you could have connectability under any circumstance.

1:14:44People have demonstrated that to us. We had this guy in Berkeley named Mr. Charles. He's gone now. He was an old man when I moved to Berkeley in the eighties. He was this old black man and he had a giant yellow glove and he would stand out there at commute time and wave at everybody. I get to cry thinking of him. He was just such a good man. and he would say, have a nice day. And everybody would honk and wave. And otherwise we'd have been like, go, you know, he was just, yeah, I'm like teary. I'm always teary when I think about him, but he's one of the people, he was like a person who he planted a seed in my mind because, um, he lived in the house.

1:15:22I saw where he lived. It was just this humble little house on the corner with his wife. He was some retired. I forget what he did. I, you know, when he died, they put, did an obituary and I read it. He had, I think he had a civil service job. It's an honorable job, but nothing fancy. And, um, but you know, he was this giant of service to people. He just completely lifted up everybody every single day. So there's a mural of him out there with a, people come out with yellow gloves. Yeah. That's, I'm very emotional about it. He was very important to me, even though I never talked to him. But when I was at the worst point in my life, I used to see him.

1:15:58I used to see him and he was always there. I'm like, so it's possible. It's possible. Um, to bring good into the world under any circumstances. And I think that it's very important for us to look at what is my role to play in that because I'm positive it's supposed to be everyone. And the troubles that we have in the world right now are the holes of the people who haven't gotten there yet. So if you get there, and I feel like I feel like I'm in it right now, like we're always in progress, I'm there. But my duty is then to help, like, you know, give other people a hand into this thing where they enter into it too.

1:16:33They enter into it too. And when you're in a, when you're in a space where there's a good number of people who are sort of there and there's no competition anymore. There's no, there's no envy. There's no, you know, it's, there's no utopia in this world. I grew up in a commune and I'll tell you, it's never perfect. We're all flawed and it just will always keep falling down, but there need to be enough of us to just keep pulling in the hands up again. And it's not just about money and it's not just about, it's definitely not just about politics. That stuff is just, you know, mostly how things get divided.

1:17:07You know, it's about connecting with people and caring enough about them and using whatever strength you have to help bring other people up into that better consciousness too. That's what you're doing for all of us, you know, and I appreciate that so much. Thank you for making the trip down here to see me and hang out. And if you could, can you share where people can pick up Connectability? Oh, gosh. I think just about anywhere, except if you still have a bookstore in your community. There aren't so many. And if you don't see it in your bookstore, you can always get it at Amazon or online sellers all over the world.

1:17:43Amazing. By the way, the audio books are selling very well of my stuff. Have you found that for you? If people know your voice. Yeah. I mean, you know what's crazy? my first book, Sleep Smarter, which came out, you know, about a decade ago. It was for years, one of the top health books on Audible. I mean, for years afterwards, you know, so yeah, it's pretty special. I love audio books myself. I put my heart into the audio books. So those are nice because a lot of my audience is all over the world because YouTube is all over the world. And they say, I'm in this country where we just don't have this.

1:18:18And I go, get the audio book. Yeah, that's amazing. So, you know, this is right now, as you mentioned, like today we're, I mean, to say that we're disconnected is an understatement, you know, and so just that reminder, and it felt really special for me today, personally, and like the impact on me to even make it more of a mandate to connect, right, to connect with more people. and also just challenging my old thinking and how I've progressed. But like, how much have you really progressed? You know, what can I share? How can I communicate? How can I connect more with the people who are in my life that I love and I value and I cherish?

1:18:56Like, what are the ways that I still might be having my covert, you know, coping mechanisms? And, you know, because the work never stops, you know, but as you mentioned, you had a transformational experience, Like your bar changed, right? And it's very, very difficult to go below that once you have that kind of revelation. Yeah. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Yes. That part. It's a happy thing. Yeah. So again, everybody pick up Connectability right now, everywhere that books are sold. I appreciate you so much. Is there anywhere else people can follow you? Obviously tell them about the YouTube channel again.

1:19:32I'm still crying about Mr. Charles here, but happy tears. Gosh, every time I think of him, he makes me happy. The website is called Crappy Childhood Fairy. And so is the YouTube channel. You can find things there. And, you know, I would love it if people come, come take the free course, learn how to do the daily practice. See if it also helps you feel better. Amazing. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you. Thank you again for coming down to see me. Yeah, thank you. Amazing. The one and only Anna Runkle, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this.

1:20:06Wow. So powerful. You know, if you think that this could be helpful for somebody that you care about, please share the episode. And wow, just another affirmation for us to be proactive about connecting. We need each other. It's a part of our own healing process, let alone the opportunity that we have to support healing and living an extraordinary life, dare I say, for other people. You know, we have a deep psychological need to connect. and to not just have people to be there for us, but to be there for others. And oftentimes, speaking for many of us, we don't grow up with the tools necessary to cultivate those types of relationships.

1:20:51And so wouldn't it be a good idea for us to make it a mandate to learn, for us to make it a priority for us to learn? How do we go about this? How do we heal ourselves that we're easily triggered by different situations and circumstances and end up pushing people away? You know, how do we really heal so that we're showing up better, so that we can have more freedom and we can respond the way that we want to respond, not about being perfect, but about being able to have a higher level of connectability? Because, man, people are triggering, all right? It is often said that it is our relationships through which we really get to do the work, all right, to learn about ourselves and to grow and to find a way, again, to connect.

1:21:45If you got a lot of value out of this, please share it out with your friends and family on social media. It really does mean a lot. And we've got some amazing, amazing masterclasses and world-class guests coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.