How To Turn Suffering Into Purpose, Strength & Healing

28:27And if you don't see it, then it's on you to figure it out. Because every single effect has a cause. Okay. And so just to sit here and say, I don't like reality. Right. It's a little, uh, it's what we're doing in those moments. I don't like reality. Yeah. Um, and you got to differentiate the person from their behavior as well. I think that's where things get really messy. You had a guest on recently that was talking about this as well. I can't, I told you I'm horrible with names. I can't remember who it was. Um, but you know, I don't have to agree with what someone does or even their thought process, but that doesn't mean that I think they are a fundamentally bad person.

29:09Like, don't confine people to the crappy things they've said or done. Right, right. See it as part of them, but not all of them. Right, right. Yeah, okay. You don't have to agree with that thing, but you don't mean to make their, they are horrible. Yeah, and you know, I think I'm able to say this from like, I have a little bit of a different perspective, which is, again, that I've worked with folks with some pretty egregious kind of obnoxious behavioral and cognitive problems. And I've seen them change. Wow. And so I think from that vantage point, a lot of these quirks and other people, they feel a lot less threatening to me, I guess.

29:45I see them, I can see them as more transient and less like this is their character, you know? Like it's like, oh, they're experimenting with that. Even if it's been 20 years, I still have a perspective that they can change. Yeah. Which helps. So during, you know, how long was this process for you going through cancer and chemotherapy? How long was the whole journey from getting the news to being on the other side of it? I just, honestly, I just had a hysterectomy in December. Wow. So almost two years. Yeah. Well, about a year and a half. It's a long run. Have you been able to find kind of peace or like calm through the two plus years of?

30:33Well, as if that wasn't bad enough, I also already had multiple sclerosis. Oh my gosh. So the combo and then the chemo did quite a number on my system. So I ended up with like a bit of arthritis afterwards and just pain, just more pain. And I've had a lot of, you know, to the contrary, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I've had a lot of like these why me type of moments, right? You've had that. I have. Oh, yeah. Of course. MS, depression, cancer, like, give me a break. How do you find meaning through the suffering or the pain or the sad things that are happening? Yeah, it's back to one, I can't hate myself for thinking, why me?

31:21All right. There's validity to feeling exhausted and destroyed by so much of this. There are so many things in my life that I have missed out on that I cannot do, that I probably will never be able to do. Oh, man. That's just reality. And that sucks. Okay. And I'm not living in Gaza. Okay. There's both of these things can be true. It can be true that I'm suffering and my life has been compromised in some ways. It's also true that it's not the greatest hardship ever experienced. More importantly, I am in a position or it's on me to find a way to use this suffering, whatever it is, as a gift. And that is my responsibility.

32:08Nobody else can do that for me. Because if you don't see the suffering as a gift, then what happens? Then it's just an anchor. It's just a dead weight. Like, you know, a picture like the old prisons, right? These people carrying around this ball. Like that is what it is. So what I'm hearing you say, not only as a clinical psychologist, but also as a human being, that the only way to get out of suffering is to find a way to serve something else greater than you and find meaning in the gift of your suffering. Yes, yes. Use it to validate others. It is gold in that sense, like that experience that you described of being able to just be like, come here, I get it.

33:02Hugging somebody who has just barely found the strength to kind of whisper hint at this thing. Like there's only one reason why you can provide that. Yeah. All right. Because I've been through an experience. Yeah. Because I can validate it. in a way that nobody else can. And that is an extreme superpower. So it's not, it's not your shame. It's not, you know, dark place. It is your superpower. Gosh, that's so interesting that I never really thought about it that way that you can really turn your shame and your biggest insecurity into your greatest superpower. I never really thought about it that way.

33:41I mean, I've, I've been using it in service, but it's not, I didn't think of it as like, it could be one day, maybe not in the middle of the suffering right now, but one day. And it's so hard to think that way when you're going through it. I know. So the thing you have to think about is like, it's not going to remove yourself. Give up on the idea that this is going to make you feel better. Put that aside. You have to do it with the sole intent of helping somebody. Reducing something. These cats have no idea that I have cancer. They have no idea. They don't care. right but and and maybe i'll feel better maybe i won't i don't know what chemo is going to do to me it could be horrible but this will have done some good in the world that's why you have to do it just for the sake of improving something removing something suffering and if you have suffered yourself you are in a unique position to do that because again i said i think validation invalidation is at the core of so much of our pain and struggling.

34:40And so if you've got insight and you can communicate that in a way that speaks to another person that helps them feel seen when they have felt lost for so long, that is your superpower, right? Like, I don't know. Cheesy. And I'm not saying suffering is great, but yeah. It's not great. No, it's not. But you say on page 65 of your book, your suffering is a gift. Don't squander it. But I think it's really hard when we're in the middle of it. That's what, you know, what I've experienced. I mean, for most of my life, I suffered internally. Externally, it looked like things were fine, but internally I suffered, right?

35:22And it was a number of different instances, sexual trauma and abuse when I was five by a man that I didn't know that I've talked about openly often on the show, but just a lot of different scenarios in childhood that caused me to feel like, what's the point? But on the outside, I was a good athlete and this and that. It was like, okay, it didn't look like that. But inside, I was suffering. And without those experiences, I would not care about... I would not be doing what I'm doing trying to serve people. I would not be creating the show. I would not be curious about understanding people. I would not be trying to make a difference or an impact in the way that I'm doing it.

36:01And looking back, I can appreciate those moments, even though it felt like there's no way out. It feels like, when is this going to leave, this pain? It can't. And you just like, it goes on for so long, you don't think it can. And it feels like I'll never, you can't think in a day that it'll ever leave you. Right. Right. You're like, I felt this my whole life. How am I going to start to feel some type of relief? It seems like daunting. Yeah, and incomprehensible and unattainable, like all of it. All of it. And, you know, I don't remember. No one opened up. I never saw anyone that opened up about sexual abuse.

36:42Oh, yeah. As a boy. Yes, exactly. I never saw another athlete open up on TV like, oh, this happened to me. Right. So I felt I was the only one. Yeah. And I never saw validation. No, you didn't. In fact, sexual trauma is the epitome of invalidation. Oh, yeah. You're worthless. You're worthless. I don't care what you feel. No. You deserve this. You want this. You're causing this. And we know that sexual trauma as a form of invalidation correlates highly with some of the most devastating mental health problems, including borderline personality disorder, self-harm, suicidality, PTSD, narcissism, depression, you name it.

37:21Yeah. Right? Because in those situations, you don't learn to trust your emotions or your read of the situation because you're being told that it's wrong. You're getting competing messages of like, you're good here. No, now you're bad. And it's like, wait, what's okay? And so you defer to the environment to try and figure that out. But the sense of self-worth can be really deeply fractured. Oh man, mine was broken my whole life. So how, if you don't mind me asking, like what turned for you? 12 years ago, uh, right before, well, right after I launched this show, I went to, my life was kind of falling apart.

38:08I hit 30 and on the outside things looked good. Like I had a successful business and I, you know, I was in a relationship and I, you know, it was like, I was physically fit. I was attracted, what all these things looked okay. But all my relationships were falling apart. And I just had a lot of anger inside of me that was starting to come out. And I was reacting in situations and just like very easily triggered. And... And that was a change? Like did that build over time? I think it just amplified. Okay. It amplified. And I thought that making it would solve some problems or something, you know, about having money or like whatever, having like an audience or something would start to, I'd start to feel more validated.

38:54Sure. I don't know, I guess. Yeah. But it didn't feel, I just felt more angry. It was still inside of me. It was never released. It was never seen. I would release it, you know, not in helpful ways. Yeah. It would just like come out, but it was still inside of me. I never transformed it and healed it. I would just react.

39:15and my my best friend Matt who's you met when you're coming in here he was like I got in a fight on a basketball court not with him but we he was there and he was just like man I don't want to be around you anymore if you keep acting this way it was a big wake-up call for me it was you heard it though because that's like it's a big way it was like not in the moment it was like the next couple days he was like you know you're not fun to be around when you're getting into fights like this and um good friend yeah he's great friend and it was just it was a big moment i mean this was a big moment for me because yeah i just i think i could have done some really bad things you know oh my god yeah i could have done some bad like i got in a fight and i realized like i really hurt this guy oh my god i mean listen the guy was bigger than me and he hit me first but so i'm not like defending myself he was fine yeah but like being what i could do like he was fine afterwards.

40:08Like he wasn't, but he was, but seeing what I could do in just a moment, it was just like, Oh man, there's a fricking tiger inside of me. Did you feel out of control? No, I felt extremely powerful. Like I felt empowered. Oh wow. Because I was like taking back control because it felt like someone was attacking me and abusing me. Yes. It felt like it was a, it was like a, it was another form of abuse. It was on a basketball court. So it was a guy cheap shotting me. It was a guy saying nasty things. It was like, he was crossing a boundary. He wasn't playing within the game. Right. He was breaking the rules.

40:45Yep. And he was, and it felt personal. And he head butted me at one point. And so I just kind of like reacted and it was just like exploded. Right. And so it was like, it was a crossing of a boundary that he did. And then I responded from that. But then it was like, they had to like ripped me off of him. It was like, it was a moment where I was like, I feel no pain. I can destroy anything. So you were like your own protector in that situation. Yeah. And it felt very empowering because I was like, I'm not going to let anyone hurt me. And I'm strong enough to prevent that. But then when I saw the aftermath, I was like shaking.

41:20I was like, I went back to my apartment. I looked myself in the mirror. I had like, you know, bloody knuckles and I was just shaking, trembling, looking in the mirror. And I was just like, I didn't recognize myself. And I was just like, who are you? I was just looking at myself. I was like, what are you doing? He said this the next couple of days. And that was like a wake up call. It was like, okay, like I need to reflect. I get to do some, get some coaching, get some therapy, go to some workshops. And it was a process of all these things that really supported me over the next 12 months. I finally opened up about the sexual abuse for the first time in 25 years.

41:59How did that feel? Terrifying, originally. Yeah. Then freeing. Yeah. Right. Terrifying, like my world was gonna, I was like, I was gonna die. That's how it felt. And I was like, no one is ever gonna talk to me. That was the fear? Like you would just be rejected, ostracized? Yeah, I was like, because at this point, this was 12 years ago, I had never seen a man talk about sexual abuse, like being sexually, I never seen someone that looked like me, sports background business guy. I never seen it. It wasn't something that people talked about on TV or social media. And if you didn't see it, that means it doesn't exist.

42:33Like those two things I thought I was the only one. Like I didn't ever heard another person say that there was sexual abuse except for women. Like I'd heard that, but I'd never heard men. So I was like, I'm even that much more unlovable because I'm the only man. Right. And it was just, I never saw it. Sure. So it was just terrifying to talk about. And now I can be grateful for that suffering, even though it was not enjoyable in the moment, 25 years of it. But I can be grateful now because I truly believe I can empathize and understand what someone has experienced emotionally and psychologically who's gone through some type of similar experience.

43:17You can validate in a way that I can't. I can validate the one in six women in a certain way. Yes. And the one, excuse me, one in four women and one in six men who've had some type of sexual misconduct, sexual abuse, or sexual trauma. I can feel it without them even saying it. People come up to me all the time and they say, I appreciate your story. I really appreciate it. I listen to the podcast. I read the books. and you know i i can just i have a similar backstory that's all they have to say and i know what they're saying like it's not all the other like feeling dumb in school and dealing with all this other stuff it's like i know it's like a shift in their body when they say it that i'm like just give me a hug and they start trembling it's like a tremble because they haven't spoken it i know they haven't spoken it and they're probably just barely saying it to me momentarily.

44:15Just like this little whisper. Little like, I'm letting you know that, hey, I have a similar backstory and I can just feel it. And I'm like, you're going to be okay. Allow yourself to heal. Right. And just the hug, it's just give me a hug. I think it's kickstarting the process for them to start that healing journey. I never got that. I never got that. Yeah. And it was terrifying. And I thought no one's going to like accept me or love me or care. You know, I was like, I'm done. Like my life is over, but that's when life began because I started to heal. And in chapter four, page 55, you write about finding meaning in suffering.

44:53But I guess the challenge is when, when, when I'm trying to reflect back when I was in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't even seem feasible because it doesn't, for me, it didn't feel like anyone could understand me. Like when I was in school, the teachers didn't get me, the principals didn't get me, the coach, like parents weren't understanding me. They were going through their stuff. It was like peers didn't understand me. So if no one's going to understand me, no one's able to validate me. Yeah, screw you. It's not about you getting your validation. It's about you paying it forward. Ah, so get out of needing someone else to validate me and just add value.

45:27Find a cat, find a plant, like whatever you are in your season of life, give to where you can give. Yes, yes. The more desperate you are in kind of trying to get what you need. Validate. For others. Yeah, right. you're it's it's a it's a fool's quest you're not going to get there suffering yeah that is it so like in that moment that's what i'm saying like if you're hearing this and you're suffering like don't do this just to feel better because you're not going to feel better right away you may not even feel better like you might 10 years from now be like well that was crap um yeah i saved a couple cats but totally not worth it fine like you might not feel better but at the world will be better in some way, shape or form because you suffered.

46:11If you make that the case, then that's full stop. That's all that needs to happen. And I guess if you look, if you ask yourself at the end of my life, was it worth carrying the weight of sadness and suffering and depression and never feeling good, but no one validated me and I died a suffering, sad person. Or if you can look forward to your future self and say, I don't know if anyone's going to ever validate me. I don't know if I'm ever going to get out of this suffering or if I'm ever going to do anything good in life, but I'm going to do my best to make a difference with a dog, a plant, a friend and give and contribute in some way.

46:47And it's, I'd rather suffer my whole life and be someone that contributes than suffer and just be sad. Absolutely. It's like, if you're going to choose one or the other, it's like at least be a contribution. Yeah. And then side note, I'm pretty sure that service stuff that you do is going to make you feel better, but don't count on it. But you're right. It pretty much will. But like Loki, no. But that's true. I mean, at the end of the day, are you going to live a life that leaned into your values or are you going to have tantrumed for 80 years about the fact that people didn't validate you? Yeah, and played victim your whole life.

47:26It's like that's not an empowering place to live from. No, that's letting, it's just re-traumatizing, re-traumatizing, re-traumatizing. When you're doing clinical psychology work and you're working with either elite executives or clients who are dealing with extreme suicidal thoughts, what is typically the turning point for each one of them to start getting out of suffering? Once you validate them, once they feel seen and acknowledged, like you understand the pain that they're going through and you can sit with them and they feel heard. When do you see people starting to shift to taking action, to creating new thinking, new behaviors, new routines, and therefore a better life?

48:13It's interesting. We were talking about this a little bit earlier. I see a real difference between the folks that I'm coaching as an executive coach, right? Folks in corporate or startups or whatever, and my mental health patients. Now, in part, it's because the suffering over here is so, so heavy. there's also this belief that becomes a truth which is that i can't get better i can't do better um and there can be a real sensitivity around me suggesting that they do different things because then it's like well then are you saying that i'm you know bringing this on myself that i'm bad whatever my executive coaching clients they're like all right we've got 50 minutes i have a notepad and can I record this?

48:56Right? Like they are, they're so much more receptive and open. And that in my experience is the best predictor of who will succeed in either situation. So you need a willingness or receptiveness to try something new. Yes. I'll often say, please, you don't think this will work? Please prove me wrong. Please collect some data and prove me wrong. All right. And plenty of people have come back and said it didn't work. Here's why. And I said, oh yeah, because you did this thing. Try it again. But like that willingness, that is the predictor of who succeeds and who doesn't in either scenario. Yes. How do you get someone who is suffering and doesn't believe they can change to be willing to try something new?

49:39Well, one, I help them validate, make sure they know that I understand where they are at. Because if I don't understand that, then why the hell should they trust me when I say go this way? It's like, you don't even know where I'm at, right? Once they do, then I need to project a level of we're in this together. Because that feeling of I'm alone with this, that is a cancer. That's scary. So I need to target that and say like, all right, we're going to do this together. Text me when you use this skill. Let me know how it goes. You know, text me a picture of when you're outside just to show me the beautiful day.

50:15Like, let's do this together. Yeah. That's pretty critical. Yeah. Okay. So having some accountability, having them check in, trying stuff. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a couple of final questions for you. We're talking about your book, Validation. Dr. Caroline Fleck. Make sure you guys pick up a copy. If you're looking to improve the quality of your life, a lot of beautiful skills, science in here, research that show you how to connect in an influential, empowering way with anyone in your life to validate them and to show them you understand them. Because that is the key to unlocking more vulnerability, more connection, more openness, more love.

50:55And you said earlier that love is not enough in a relationship. We also need validation to feel a deeper connection. To feel a real connection. A real connection. So would you say love is kind of like a surface level emotion and validation is like a... No, I would say that love is contingent upon validation. and so i mean you can love a facade but like in order for one to experience love they need to have first felt seen and accepted yeah because otherwise like what does the other person love you some version of you that you like you know manufactured that doesn't feel like connection i think that's why so many of us feel lonely in our relationships is because like we are, we're not seen for, for our weaknesses or our strengths in the way that we, we want to be, or we need to be.

51:47Um, when we come to our partner with a problem, they try and solve it. They try and resolve it. They don't say like, Oh my God, that makes total sense that you, whatever. How do you know when to validate versus solve when a partner comes to you with stress, overwhelm, or a problem. So one of the single greatest pieces of advice I got when I was in graduate school was when someone comes to you with an issue, you've got to decide, do I respond with problem solving or validation? Ask yourself that every single time because in any given moment, you can only do one or the other. Now, if I open with problem solving and that doesn't work, I can go back to validation.

52:29If I validate and that works well, I can switch to problem solving. But at any given moment, ask yourself, like, how should I respond here? Because nine times out of 10, we respond with problem solving. We fix. Nine times out of 10, people are seeking validation. Oh, man. And so we're doing this. So even if you validate for a few moments, a few minutes, start there, and then you can... Yeah. I mean, so there's some caveats to that, actually. So like my executive coaching folks, like they come in, they're ready to go. And if I'm like, oh, it makes so sense that you were like frustrated at that meeting because so-and-so is.

53:04And they're like, yeah, great. Let's go. Tell me what to do. Yeah. Right. And so there is that. Know when to go into action, problem solving versus validation. Yeah. And so I screw that up all the time and then I just switch to the other, but I'm clear in my head. There's like intention behind what I'm doing. I'm not just like shooting from the hip, like letting my emotion dictate how I respond. And would you even say we should ask our partner are you looking for validation right now or are you looking for a solution? Yes. I asked my daughter this. She didn't get the teacher she wanted a couple of years ago now.

53:39And my response is, do you want validation or problem solving? Problem solving would be me calling the school or us trying to figure, like set up some play dates with new kids because none of your friends are in the class. Validation would be, and she said validation. All right. That sucks. There is nothing worse than looking at the year ahead of you and seeing, you know, just this hellscape of no friends, a bad teacher. Yeah. Uncertainty, the daunting uncertainty of middle school. Yeah. So this should be language we use. You can't expect people to like know what you need in any given moment. You don't know.

54:15Right. And so you should also be able to say, like, I'm just I got a lot going on. Could you just validate me right now? like Matt my husband and I have these conversations all the time and we're constantly reorienting each other and it's not like a contentious like why aren't you validating me type of feeling it's more just like oh no you're in the wrong lane like this is what I yeah yeah or even if you don't want to use the word validate maybe just say can you just listen to me yeah yeah you just hear me for a moment yeah I just need to feel heard yeah not respond yeah what's the solution but this is Powerful, Caroline.

54:48A couple of final questions. This question is called the three truths. So imagine hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want to live in this life and you get to accomplish everything you want to accomplish or experience everything you want to experience. But it gets to the last day in your life, many years away. And for whatever reason on this last day, you have to take all of your work with you. This book, we don't get to have content, this interview, it's gone. Hypothetical. But on the last day, you get to leave behind three lessons with the world. Three things you've experienced to be true in your life that you would leave behind.

55:28Three messages. What would be those three truths for you? Don't squander your suffering.

55:37Validation is the path to love. You are enough as you are. Those would probably be the three. It's beautiful. I want to acknowledge you, Caroline, for the journey you've been on. Oh, thank you. It's been a wild one. But I want to acknowledge you for taking the journey when you're in your teens and in college to say, how can I find a solution for me, yourself, to get out of this pain and suffering, to create more sense of peace and order inside of me so I can help others around me. And for the last 15 plus years, you've been in service researching and helping others find validation and peace within them.

56:16So I want to acknowledge you for the journey you've been on, for helping so many people, for saving lives, literally, for creating this book so that others can have the skills and the tools to validate themselves and others and create that sense of peace in a world that might be suffering for them. So I acknowledge you for this journey. Yeah, of course. my final question Caroline what's your definition of greatness greatness in my opinion is always striving for greatness I think in a non-judgmental way just always striving to do better the next day for the world and for yourself like if that is your north star if that's the god you worship I think you'll be great.

57:06There you go. Carolyn, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Amazing. I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier. You want to make it flow. You want to feel abundant. Then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward.

58:02Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. Bye.