Neuroscientist Reveals How Your Mind Blocks Love w/ Caroline Leaf EP 1481

25:18I shut off. I protect coping mechanism. And the realization has transformed and saved a marriage. I mean, I've left a lot of detail on it, but that's the essence of the story. So there's an incident of years of this growing this this is the initial incident as a child growing up but the parent that loved this the child but had a way of dealing that made that child feel not good enough how much has how much does our love as adults in relationships reflect based on what we witnessed our parents love like as kids huge huge news really it's it's really huge having Having said that, if you didn't witness a good relationship, it doesn't mean you can't have one, but it does mean you're going to have to overcome a lot of obstacles.

26:03And that is definitely - It's harder. It's harder. It's definitely harder because it generally leads to a lot of mistrust. As an adult in relationships. And what very often happens is that when you've seen that you haven't had a good model, you don't get into deep enough relationships and then you can get hurt very easily, or you kind of end up maybe sort of almost using people without even consciously using people and you meet people that are also broken so they use so you use each other so it creates a lot of distrust and sort of fear and lack of commitment and you know you look for any things will trigger you much more quickly and that kind of thing so it's really important to you know what you know what I always say when it comes to parenting because I'm a parent of four kids as you know and awful work with us which is quite a miracle too which is amazing if you think of it um but i can't i always tell my kids this i was someone's daughter and someone's and i have a mom and a dad and they were someone's daughter and son and so and each person had baggage so you cannot go into a marriage a relationship and parenting without baggage we know that it's logical so you've got all this come down it's in these networks and it plays out and it's triggered and whatever isn't resolved will triggered badly and whatever is resolved for you'll handle it you'll see oh I could be like that but I'm like this or my mom did that but I'm not going to do that and so in other words that's where you've worked through something so what we need to do as as daughters and sons going into relationships is to say okay I honor what my parents went through they maybe didn't have a great relationship I don't know the ins and outs it's not really a child's responsibility to know all the intimate details of why a marriage broke down to certain you know there's a certain amount that they should know and a superman that they shouldn't know and recognize that sometimes things don't work out.

27:48And to honor these stories, but at the same time, you have the right to honor the impact it had on your life. Right. So it's to kind of... There could be good impact and bad impact at the same time. Yeah. You can hold both in your hands. You can hold both in your hands at the same time. But very often what will either happen is you'll swing to suppressing the negative because you feel you've been disloyal to a parent or to the parents. Really? So yeah, it very often happens. So you'll almost suppress it for years. And act like what it didn't happen or wasn't that bad or... Yes, that it wasn't...

28:18Diminishing it. You deny it, you diminish, you suppress and you don't deal. And then you suddenly something will trigger you one day. And this happened with the conversation that I had with someone in working in clinical practice, where very successful person, um, parents went through a very traumatic marriage and, um, the parent, the one parent said way too much to the children. Job, yeah. Yeah. And it was, it was, there's got to be boundaries. There's got to be a mount that you do say, otherwise the child will think it's their fault. That's another thing we need to realize. Children will immediately, if there's a broken marriage, a child will think it's their fault, that they're the cause.

28:50So it is important to say, hey, listen, this is not you, this is between us. If someone watching or listening has parents who have been divorced, whether it was traumatic or not traumatic as a child with their relationship, watching the relationship, but they went through divorce what how you know what what are the percentages or how does that indicate how successful you will be in a marriage or in a relationship if you don't learn to create new healthy meaning around their their model of love and relationship and and their divorce and if you don't heal and process that like what are we setting ourselves up for if we don't if we're not aware of it and make sure we really work on these things if our parents have been divorced you see yourself up for failure and the the reason I say that it sounds really harsh but the other flip side of the coin is that once you do deal with it you send yourself up for success and then powers in your hands you know and that's really why it's so important that we don't suppress stuff because suppressing stuff not only is it keeping the toxicity and increasing your vulnerability to disease so physically you're suffering and you will suffer more and more over time because it's counted to your natural life love nature being a challenge so your survival is being challenged so your body's trying to find this thing um at the same time you are going to kind of boomerang from one bad relationship into the next because you haven't dealt with the core issue but once you start dealing with it the beauty of you can have look at this example the first example i gave you can have a 50 year marriage and 50 years of a toxic pattern that really was problematic and you can heal that and have the last however many years you've got left in a very healthy relationship it.

30:31So the hope, Lewis, is in the fact that we can change, but there is work involved. There is no pull that's going to fix it. There is the work involved. What happens to the brain then when we see our parents that have harmony at home, they hold hands, they kiss, they dance, they love each other, they show affection, versus what happens in the brain when we see distance, passive-aggressive energy between our parents yelling screaming slamming of doors no affection between each other as a model what happens to the brain with those two instances such a good question so basically observing your parents as a child that's all you know you're modeling that relationship so your relationships are that's your model so you're wiring that in so you're wiring in the fight the slam doors the silent treatment the the moaning the upset the crying the tears the confusion the closed doors and all the noises and sounds and maybe it even gets to the point where there's abuse.

31:29So that becomes your, you build it into your brain and your whole thing is you can't trust people. I can't trust someone else. I can't build a relationship. This is not safe. Is that I can't trust people in intimacy and in romantic relationships or I can't trust friends, colleagues? It could bead over into it depending on how bad, depending on how you see it, depending on your perception, depending on the age, depending on the context, depending on how you're involved, all those factors will influence how it's going to play out into your future. And that's, yeah, so it could, I mean, some people it will just mean that they, it's everything, they just live a life of completely just, and that, sorry, quickly, just, I know you got a question.

32:09A lot of narcissistic type behavior, if you track back, it's complete distrust of all people. And I'm not condoning it because it's very destructive behavior patterns that people really suffer from. But it's trying to control the uncontrollable that they have. So very often if you track back, you'll see that there's been a model that has been very bad at some point. And they may, on the outside, their upbringing may have looked perfect, like they may have had money and good schools and - Put together and dress well and yeah. But the inside wasn't, the end as a person wasn't validated. The ability to, hey, I came home, I was bullied today, I'm sad, they weren't allowed to process emotions.

32:49So their coping mechanism was one of, I'm going to control people. I don't trust anyone, so I am going to drive around the show, and that can lead to narcissistic type behavior. So that's just a side note. And is there a certain attachment style that we will have in relationships based on the model we witness from our parents? For sure. For sure. So attachment styles research has been done with a limited group of people, but its applicability is pretty good. And so if you look in different cultures, it's quite interesting to see that most cultures where you've got sort of more solid relationships, the child's brought up by the community.

33:34So it's not just the mom and dad, it's the whole community. So in the United States and westernized countries, it's very much - Isolated between parents. Yeah, not enough of the support of grants. And sometimes it's just a way that we've gone in this country and in a lot of ways, which is unfortunate because you do get a healthier model and you've got more balance. So if parents need a lot of time, they can get it more because you've got the granny and the family and you've got the community. So a lot of pressure on parents that leads to arguments that could have been probably resolved if they had a bit more time alone, could, you know, and that child maybe wouldn't have missed as much.

34:07So we have got and involved, we have got society now that has needs, if any of you look at our societal structures or work structures and that kind of thing, they put that kind of pressure on families. It's definitely putting pressure that are, then a pressure cooker that people are living in a little bit of a pressure cooker, which I think is leading to problems in relationships that probably wouldn't have been there if they had were of a community. So in terms of how, okay, there's so many questions that are going through my head now. So to bring us back to your question. The attachment styles was the current one.

34:40Yeah, attachment styles. So in the community, we're going to have a slightly more balanced attachment style versus if it's just... If we're raised by a community or aunts and uncles and friends. Yeah. It's more realistic. It's more like, okay, they're all going to give them some time. Then you go sit with granny. Because we're not needing the love and affection from one person. Is that right? We get it from a community, but if you're in this very isolated, insular type environment, Where does the parent explode safely? There's no safe environment for a child. Exactly. There's no safe environment.

35:12There's no safe environment for the parents. And you are going to explode. It's very normal to have those arguments. So that's the idea. It's not what's happening. So what do we do now? How do we deal with that? You have to be honest with your kids. You have to, and what Mac and I tried this and we got it right and we got it wrong, but we got it right. I think a lot of the time was we do have very different opinions about a lot of things. And both of us are Italian and background and explosive. So we did have arguments. I mean, much of us, you know, it's easy when kids are around and the pressures of raising kids and working.

35:43Yeah, four kids, that's a lot. It's a lot. And both of us working and whatever, it's a lot. I mean, we've countries with young kids. And so, but what we did from what we did right, we did it wrong, but what we did right was we, if we had an argument, we would never just leave it. We would go to the kids, we would apologize. us. We gave them permission to tell us when we were upsetting them. So they would say, hey, listen, can you just stop? You know you're going to make up. Can you just resolve this? Or mom reading this or dad that. We gave them permission to actually, from an outside point of view, say, hey, you are impacting us.

36:15This is really upsetting us. And reminding us that, hey, you do that. Okay, so let me go back a step. If you have an argument, you need to tell your kids. Okay, we had an argument about X, obviously language, age appropriate, and also within boundaries. They don't need all the details. We had an argument, we disagreed on this. I didn't like dad's reaction. Dad didn't like my reaction. I did this that bugged him. He did this that bugged me. This is how we resolved it, and this is what we're going to do. That's a neurocycle. We went through all five steps of the neurocycle. Once we'd cooled down and calmed down and we used the neurocycle individually on ourselves and then on each other, then we would...

36:51And I didn't call the neurocycle then because that's a new name but that process we applied and it was a god-saving thing it was a life-saving thing in our marriage because it helped us to stand back calm down evaluate what am I really fighting about what is you know take momentum worry concept what happens if both of us are dead tomorrow one of us is dead what would we do right now and so we would resolve it and you know we would let our kids know we're still trying to resolve it so there may still be a bit of argument or whatever, but this is where we're going. This is our resolution. We still love each other.

37:23Kids need that. Even an adult child needs that. It means an argument. If Mac and I have an argument now, we still do it. We'll still say, hey, you know we love each other. Dad, you're telling me about this. Sorry about that. Sorry. We tell them. So that's what we can do in our insulin environments that we live in in this day and age. We can go through that process of showing, modeling to a child. Listen, it's normal to have arguments. We have bad days. We are a mess. No one's perfect. We're not perfect. We do not expect you to be perfect. But let's talk about a horrible argument. I'm so sorry.

37:53We should not have yelled. It was scary for you. Tell us how you feel. Get it out. And go through the sequence. Don't just blurb it all out. Be ordered. The big thing, nurse, about healing in a relationship to have healthy future relationships is not just get the kids to talk about emotions or mix it all up. Very organized. Let's talk about this is how I felt. This is what my emotions was. This is what I said. This is what I did. four categories of signals very organized i'm going to talk about how how we felt our emotions our behaviors our bodily sensations and our perspectives so we were both mad and irritated we yelled and spoke too loudly and used ugly body language you know her leaning in or whatever our perspective was they were very irritated with each other and our bodies our bodies were very tense our shoulders were raised we spoke with loud voices that's how analytical you get and then you say why well we just or why was we disagreed about this concept that said something that i didn't like he didn't listen to my answer i don't whatever whatever it was so we then you know put the why down then we what you should do is the third step is to then get that out on paper um and write that out or visualize it or something so it's a state as a state where you so once you've gathered awareness and reflected gather awareness of all those signals reflect on them which is the why of those signals.

39:10Very ordered. Your brain, your psychoneurobiology responds to order, sequence. You throw it all at once, it's chaos. And that's what a lot of people do. And that's what a lot of us do in our relationships and arguments. But if you break things down and get in a very, you can get calm, you can get your neurophysiology under wraps, and you can work through. Third thing is what Mac and I will do is if we have an argument is we'll write it down. We'll text each other. we'll get in we'll get all those thoughts out we'll do it on a piece of paper depending on what we're solving how big how small whatever but there's a writing phase we'll be pouring our things out then there's a recheck phase okay you said that i said that that was the trigger this is what we did how can we this is the problem how can we solve it in the future what's our action okay this is what we're going to practice and then we tell that to the kids and then we do it say look we're trying this okay guys this is what we need to do if you see us not doing it just remind us so you give them empowerment to okay they'll they'll resolve it they'll they'll get through this one it's horrible we don't like it but we can end up quicker if we remind them of the active reach interesting which is step five wow and that sounds like a very idealized thing and it's a skill that you're going to learn like you you're in math you have to practice it you have to try it and it'll take you 63 days to set it up in your in your home system because it takes that long to to form a habit not between one not four days not one year cycle you're going to have to consistently practice for at least 63 to 66 days.

40:32And I've done a lot of research. I'm doing another big study at the moment, looking at the time and the pattern of habit, complex habit formation, not just the little things like drink your green juice or wash your hands or make sure you get to the gym, but the complex luck relationships. How long does it take to rewire a pattern so that you can have a change how it impacts your relationship? If someone's in a broken relationship right now, maybe they've been arguing for years or fighting they don't you know maybe they have good weeks and then there's a bad week and it's the cycle of good and bad up and down and it just feels like it's draining or exhausting what can they do to start healing the relationship to start healing individually and the relationship to create harmony in the future what are those steps okay so first thing is if it's an abusive relationship then obviously just get safe that's parity as we all know but let's say that it's not an infusory it's just you're just calling some bad habits both of you are doing bad bad habits both of you are trying to fix the other person both of you are but you're still together because there's love there's there and there's a desire to be together so if it's that so that's the scenario okay so the first thing to do is to get into some good practices that will help calm your neurophysiology down so i call that brain preparation you're kind of your nervous system or calming the entire neurophysiology so that when you when In your mind, you've got a calm, wise mind that's always active and always on your side.

41:55Then we have our messy mind that's in the relationship. It's in the moment. It's the in the moment messy mind. It's a reactive. Reactive learning. It's very normal. It's experimental. And it sometimes goes really messy and other times kind of gets it right and whatever. So it needs a lot of guidance. And that's our wired for love nature is our wise mind. So the first thing is that when we're in that messy mind state, that's sending all this messy energy through the brain and it's triggering all kinds of, I mean, just think of an argument. When you start, some stupid thing gets you going and then you end up arguing, what am I even talking about?

42:28Exactly. What's the point in the first place? Exactly. Well, why did I even bring that stupid thing up? We resolved that years ago. You know, why am I bringing that up now? You know, that's what will happen if we don't calm down on neurophysiology. So it's get your neurophysiology calm first. And you can do that with meditation, breathing with exercise gym workout with it creating space that okay we're both too hot now let's just get some fresh air let's resolve this at the latest let's create mental physical space i mean just there's so many ways of doing that there's so many great sort of meditative breathing yes find something that works for you it may not be the same thing mac and i like to just create space and i like to do um a seven a three ten breathe a three seven breathing thing that gets my neurophysiology under control so you breathe in for three and out for seven so and if you do that seven times you'll feel high but it's great because you push so much oxygen to the front of your brain and it's a very good way of calming down your neurophysiology you can do that in in intensive i call it a 10 second pause you can do it for 60 to 90 seconds so it's 10 seconds that you do six to nine times great little formula for calming down neurophysiology.

43:37That's a fail safe we always use. Really good fail safe. We are a family run business. All of us are involved. It's very easy to argue with family. So when we all get hit up, which we do, because we're all very Italian, we do a 10 second pause and we will go out the room, grab a cup of coffee and then come back and reconvene. Those simple things that I know we know, but are we doing them? Or are you trying to push through? I've got to solve this now. I used to be like that at the beginning. You've got to fix this now. And so I had to learn to, hey, no, you don't have to fix it now. Take a pause, yeah.

44:10Okay, so that's first in front. Is it possible to fix something when you're in chaotic thoughts? You can, but it's more difficult and you have to, you know, it's just going to be confusing and messy and harder and not very sustainable. And it's just, it's not a very peaceful way of doing it. It's exhausting, yeah. I wouldn't do it that way. Then the next thing that's very practical is you can focus on good stuff. So it may just be good stuff about yourself. So you can, part of what I work, part of mental health is not just detoxing stuff. It's also building healthy stuff. So I love talking to you.

44:42We have great conversations. Every time I talk to you, I have great memories of our conversations. So if I want to get myself into a good state, I can think of, I can recall a good moment, like maybe a conversation with you. I love my research. We just published a paper and I mean, I look at those results and I get like high, literally. so get yourself so this is two silly examples but they're very powerful so if you've now calmed down your neurophysiology and you now go and focus on something that you know makes you feel great that means you're pulling this up when you pull this up amazing things happen in your brain you change all the delta theta alpha beta gamma frequencies you calm down think of the waves of the sea you want you know they build they're deep and big and then they build on the beach crash make little waves go back we want that kind of energy going through our brain which activates good neurochemical flow the endocrine all that stuff immune system so by the brain prep that i explained the breathing whatever and then these you have put yourself into a really good brain state mind brain body state not just brain state but you've got a very good flow happening now you're still as irritated as still would like to go and do something physical like you know whatever i'm just joking but I mean you might throw a plate at the wall or you still, I'm so mad about work.

45:58It's okay. It's okay to be messy. So third thing, tell yourself it's okay to be a mess. It's okay, I can be a mess. It's okay for us, it's normal, but how am I going to manage the mess? Give yourself permission to be the mess, feel the mess, analyze the mess. I'm frustrated, what's my emotion? What's my body feeling? What's my perspective in this moment? What am I doing? So you go through, it's okay to be a mess and do a little mini-neuracycle, go through all five, why am I feeling like this? Write a few things down. Do a recheck. Okay, this is happening, what can I do? Action. Okay, I'm ready to talk.

46:31See what I've just done? So step one is brain prep. Step two is think of something good. This has activated our natural resilience. We are not fragile, we are resilient. We are much more resilient than we realize. But if we take on the current zeitgeist that we break and almost wreck us for life, we're to become fragile, which we're not. We're gonna mask our natural resilience. We are pretty amazing as humans. Look at the stories of people surviving and getting through stuff. And then we need to draw on that. We need to unmask our resilience. So these steps, the brain prep, focusing on something about yourself.

47:04And then you could also add up to this, not just focusing on your own good stuff. You could think of something great about your partner. You could think of whatever, think of a great memory, which is a really good addition. And that people hear before, but I'm sure you've that. Sure. But it's doing this great stuff in your brain. Then do it in your cycle in yourself. You can do this in three minutes, in 10 minutes, in an hour, whatever. Then reconvene. Okay, now we're going to do this as a neuro cycle. I have a whole relationship podcast where I went into detail of how to actually, what to say, the guidelines of what to say at each step.

47:36And I mean, we can talk about some of those. Right, right. I'm curious. I love all this. and the thing that came up for me is what happens if we want love we want to be in a relationship we want connection we want intimacy but we don't believe we're deserving of love what will happen then such a great great question and it just reminds me as you're talking you're just you know prompting all these clinical experiences i've had um very successful incredible person and just could one of those people that could get anything in their life okay and just wonderful in every single way. Thank you. And just not keep a relationship going.

48:18We start off well and everything. And at the end of the day, the core issue once this person had worked through was that they didn't deserve love. And it came, unfortunately, a lot of it comes from childhood. Really? And it's not everything because you can have a great childhood and really trust in love and then go into a really bad first marriage or first relationship. And a person can break you. And I can give you an example. So it could be, you could have a great childhood, great parents, great model of love, but you get into a relationship, you fully trust and accept and love someone. Because that's what you've seen.

48:51You throw everything. And so you expect they're going to do the same for you. And then it doesn't go your way. Exactly. And then you don't, and then that could potentially set you up to think I'm not deserving of love. Yes. Especially if it happens in your adolescent years, 12 to 18 is the most difficult part of the entire human life cycle. so and that's where we are interested in forming our relationships that's where romantic relationships are what we desire up until then it's more friendship based you know it could be earlier 10 11 you can have little boyfriend girlfriend things but it's more just community connection deep friendship something starting but those years are and and you you're at that age your relationship with your friends and um potential partners are more a lot more important but are more important than your parenting.

49:37Wow. They, they supersede. In terms of relationships. In terms of the formation of who I am. Wow. So at that stage that's, you know, so you can have this great foundation and then you - Amazing parents, no trauma. Yeah. Fun all the time, peace, harmony, and home. Sorted it out, did the real thing. Just great parents, had their own messed up lives, but took responsibility, said, sorry, did all that stuff. Right. And then you get into a relationship where someone who's broken is attracted to you and you're attracted to them and you swept off your feet either way and their brokenness is put onto you in your informative years and you get told you're not good enough oh what happens when we believe that you and yeah and and at that stage where you are so like you you're forming yourself you're you're forming your twist to identity in terms of others relationships me in the world you know in in terms of um that that drive for love so if you told you not you're never going to get or you get rejected or you get dumped or you get cheated on as a teen how does that how does how does someone overcome that feeling of i'm not deserving of love so that is is a hard one so that to start all of it's hard but is to find um the source so what you what you very often is as an adult and it's very often in the 20s and 30s where you start doing this work and it can happen i'm not saying always i'm not generalizing but Very often because that's when you kind of get through school and whatever you do and you get into the workspace and you start actually really forming deeper relationships.

51:05And then you start getting to the point where you're thinking, okay, well, why are friends getting married? You know, everyone around me is in relationships and I'm the only one who's not in a relationship. I can't seem to keep a relationship. What's wrong with me? that's when you start seeing those signals patterns that's when you need to sit down and do the work over 63 days and multiple cycles of 63 days and then you could you'll get to the point where you'll see okay what is the root the root was either a childhood issue or an adolescent issue maybe it was you with a new kid in town and everyone laughed at you because you wore glasses and they just you know said you never you know what you are not so you were too scared to actually show that guy or that girl that you like them.

51:47And you were too scared because you were so quiet, whatever. And that was the source of this many reasons. I can tell a story of someone else who was one of four kids and it was the only girl, three boys, kind of almost like seemingly perfect. I mean, there's never any perfect whatever. It kind of got it more or less okay. Yes. A bit of religious stuff going on then, but still. But the boys were very sporty and very, you know, and the father just, you know, like always, that was totally sports. It was like a big deal, but this was not a sporty little girl. But to get the father's recognition, this little girl had to be like one of the boys or so she thought.

52:29And so purposefully, like almost made herself mirror with the hat on backwards and baggy clothes. Tomboy. Yeah, yeah. Tomboy. Didn't want to feminize and that kind of stuff and didn't want to, not that there's anything wrong with that, but her objective was not a healthy one. It was trying to fit in to be accepted. And her perception, once we got to the root, was, well, I was never accepted, but I never accepted by my, I thought that I had to be like a boy for my father to love me. And that was a huge thing. But it was so interesting, what really triggered that, this kid was about five or six already doing this, already reading the roman, thinking this was the answer.

53:03and they were sitting and some stranger came up. They were sitting at some restaurant and this kid was dressed up like one of the boys. And someone said, oh, what a cute little boy. And that broke her. Wow, she remembered that. Because it was confirmation that that was, that she's not good enough as a female. That even outside people are saying, oh, I accept you because you're a cute little boy. Wow. So that led to years of self-abuse, self-hurt, sexual promiscuity. Isn't it crazy that one thing we hear from a friend, a sibling, a parent, an outsider, a schoolmate, a teacher, it could stick with us for decades, forever.

53:46Forever. Now imagine, Luster, if that person could have, and this is what triggered me to write the current book that I have on children with all these stories that I can tell, that person, I remember saying to me, if only I had known how to say to my parents, am I only loved if I'm a boy? I feel sad because you don't seem to love me unless I'm like a boy. Or that man made me sad because that man made me say, I've got to be a boy. Daddy, do you love me even though I'm a girl? That child didn't know how to say that, didn't have the language, didn't have the tools. So what I'm trying to create, and we know that the mental health situation is a multitude of reasons.

54:27We know the individualist society, social media, AI. I mean, there's our generations facing our problems. Every generation faces their issues. Every generation thinks what we were in the previous one. No, we're not. We're just facing our unique problems. What we need in this generation with our kids so that they have decent relationships is, and it starts with having a decent relationship with themselves, is we have to have a way of them being able to process and express their feelings. So that five-year-old needs to be able to say, hey, I feel sad, or have a point of contact, something. So you can teach a child as a young person too how to do this, Lewis.

55:03My youngest patients in my practice were two and three years of age, and you can teach them how to identify their signals, detox, and to make it really easy. That's what I've done in the latest book, this one, how to help your child clean up their mental mess. But we created this character. I actually created this character 25 years ago. had a Disney artist create this character and we had it all updated. So the book, if you flip through, you'll see there's multiple images of Brainy. This is a character we've created called Brainy. Brainy goes through all these different scenarios and it's how you understand how you can teach a child as young as two that these trees in the brain and how you could change your brain and how to express and identify your signals.

55:42All these hard things that we battle with as adults, you can teach children very basically as a child so we created a toy so for example let's say you have a two-year-old who is sitting at let's say let's take a five or six-year-old and they're at school day key or whatever I mean and someone constantly comes up and knocks their toy tower over that they're building and then next day pull for heel the plate but this is a series of teasing going on and that child most likely has and I'm talking of another clinical case has been abused at home by a terribly terrible physical abuse, but it's taking it out on the most vulnerable person in the playground.

56:19Then that child comes home and takes it out on the most vulnerable person in the family, which is the younger brother, who's maybe two or three years of age. And so now we see a perfect home environment with all the love and dealing with all the issues and stuff, but this child's now starting to bully the younger child, and quite badly, so that there's this terrible sibling rivalry. Where does bullying come from? Like why do most people start to bully other kids? It's a coping mechanism from abuse. Really? It could be verbal or emotional or sexual or physical abuse? Yes. So it's coming from any level of 8, 9, 10 traumas.

56:52If you think of a scale of 1 to 10, 8, 9, 10 would be your extreme traumas. And persistent bullying that's breaking a person down would fall under that category. Any kind of abuse would fall under that sort of category. So when bullying is one behavior in amongst those four signals I keep talking about, that is an energy that's built up, that's self-hatred. And self-hatred, therefore, is now blasting out. And they're repeating a pattern. So, a bully has been bullied. And so, it's a persistent pattern that goes through generations. They don't know how to process their emotions in a healthy way.

57:24So, this is how they get it out. Exactly. That's how they're getting it out. So, a bully has been abused in some way. Yes. And they've been bullied, or have been bullied, or are being bullied. And so, they're just taking it out. So, you can't treat the bully by punishing the bully. You've got to actually help resolve why the bully's doing the bullying in the first place and so you'd start with the child in your home that's bullying the little brother and find out okay well let's now you know i and this is key you need to make a person feel validated because you need to say to that child whether or an adult this is not who you are these behaviors that i'm seeing that are impacting us the rest of the family yourself your friends or whatever this is not who you are i can i know that because i know you are at your i know who you are i love you so in other words you don't you divorce the behavior from the person and that's really critical to create that safe space so look we're gonna i'm gonna help you work through this this is no judgment but let's talk about this let's talk about how let's you can't hurt your brother or sister or whatever that's so but at the same time i recognize that this is not who you are so you're doing this for a reason so you've got to stop hurting and we've been have the boundaries in place for that but i'm also going to help you understand what's going on and you're going to help me understand and then you take them through a process of a neurocycle.

58:38You have a contact point. So I've created things like toys, coloring books, that character, that if a child is not able to verbalize, which they're not until they're old enough to have the language. And even then they don't have the words often. But if you have a key contact point or a point in your house where, you know, like you have a sitting room and you watch TV and that's your place of relaxation. You need a mind management place in your home. You've got a gym, you've got a whatever. You need a mind management center in your home, which could be a beautiful little couch that you wore a little beanbag and next to a pretty plant.

59:09Something that you as a family create and choose. You feel safe. Whenever you go there, there's no judgment, there's only safety. And if someone's sitting there, they're needing support. To creating that environment and then having a toy like this. A young child, it's often easier to say, oh, Shane, Brainy was bullied today and he's so sad. And so they, I see that brain is angry. And so you transfer that over to the toy, then the child can then act and carry it out and show you what's happening. And then it divorces it from them directly and it enables them to try and enact it without feeling threatened or scared or externalizing.

59:46And you can also model for yourself, oh, mommy, I feel sad today and this happened. And so you model and you actually walk through the five steps without saying them, but you do that and you model. So that allows them to have the space. Oh, mommy also sometimes gets mad or dad also sometimes gets mad or uncle also but you in that space now that idea of creating a mind management space um or a neuro cycle space whatever you want or a brainy space whatever you want to call it and i've got these examples in the book came from a study done in zimbabwe years ago where i was actually born called bench therapy and it was a granny on a bench in a tribe in a country that has no money for current modern mental health and actually has better mental health than any westernized country because our current model doesn't make things better it actually makes things worse and the science is there to prove that and all that this granny did Lewis will sit on a bench create a safe space for people to listen it was so successful that King King's University in Harvard did a study on it and I heard about this years ago when I was in early early in my research and I started adapting and applying it in my practice and working with families and sort of setting this up or whatever and so now you don't have to have a bench you can And if anything, it could be a bench in the flowers, whatever.

1:00:54Create that space. As a family, find it. When you've got very young kids, you can get little boxes, fill them up with pictures that you cut out of all of emotions, behaviors, perspectives, bodily sensations. So when a child comes from school and they can't verbalize or they're just so overwhelmed, they go to that corner, they pick up Brainy or other toys and they can act it out. It's safe. It doesn't matter what they do there. No judgment. That's a cry for help. Pull out the picture. They can use pictures to show. So you create a sense of communication. So that little girl whose friend said, oh, what a cute little boy, could have gone to that neuropsychal corner, whatever you want to call it, mind management, mental health, whatever you want to call it, picked up a toy and maybe demonstrated and made Brainy cry.

1:01:40And then mommy says, well, why is Brainy crying? You see what I'm saying? Sure, yeah. And you start there at two and three. By the time you've got a 10-year-old, they're going to adolescence prepared for the terrors of adolescence. Right. And the challenges. Yeah, I just think learning to process emotions at an early age can help you immensely as an adult. I never learned how to process emotions until I was 30. The emotions I processed was anger, right? And that came out in sports or physical contact or reactions. Yeah, all your energy transferred, it never transferred. 100%. Yeah. And once I lost the safe environment of sports to do that, then it was just like, oh, what do I do with this?

1:02:21So I had to learn over the last decade how to process and really create a safe space for me to process with me and then with others. Or a relationship with yourself. Exactly. If someone feels broken in an intimate relationship, are they usually more reactive to the partner if they're not feeling like the partner's helping fix them definitely could be they can either be more reactive in that they are verbally more reactive and you know maybe make demands like that are seem crazy or they seem possessive or whatever um or they could withdraw you know they could go silent and give you the silent treatment and with whole sort of sexual intimacy and all kinds of things to get some level of control.

1:03:07Right. You know, there's those aspects. So yes, and as a partner, do you feel your partner has some kind of weird behaviors towards you? Well, that's time to talk and it's time to say, hey, listen, let's go to that safe space. And I noticed this, I know this is not you. Is there something I'm doing or saying? Is there something that you have triggered or is there something in your life, Maybe it's not me. Maybe something's happening at work or with your mom or your dad or your best friend and you just don't feel that I'm here enough to listen to you. Yeah, we are in our talking space or safe space or mind management corner, in your cycle corner, whatever you want to call it.

1:03:44Let's talk and I see you doing this. Have I understood you correctly? So it's show, tell a person what you see lovingly, kindly in the safe space and say, am I correct? Have I read the situation correctly? am I said, correct me if I'm wrong. And I see you doing this and I know it's not you. So you always validate, always acknowledge, always listen, always compassion, kindness, in love. You talk about why it's for love. We have got to immerse in love. Yes. And what about, where do you believe that the root of insecurity or jealousy comes from in relationships? Is that a wound from the past that makes us insecure or jealous in our current relationship or where does that come from everything that we do that is impacting us negatively is coming from something we've experienced everything and so we need to live lifestyles of managing by our reactions so we are very capable of standing back and observing ourselves 24 7 little you're sleeping when you sleep at night but then if you do this during the day or night time when you sleep our mind and brain are doing housekeeping and so when we manage our mind well during the day, we get really good advice when we sleep, we get really good cleaning, a good cleaner.

1:05:01So it's essential that we live lifestyles of mind management so that we can observe ourselves. So if I, for example, I've trained myself to do this, if I start noticing a certain pattern in my behaviors, and I notice that there's maybe some jealousy emerging or some envy, I'm very quick to observe it. No, I'm not saying I'm a saint at all, far from it. I'm just saying I've trained myself and I'm proud that I've trained myself and I'm saying it because you can do this. And it's not just me, there's millions of people now that we reach and I hear this all the time and I saw this in my practice. So I'll observe myself.

1:05:35I'll watch maybe a snap at Matt because he does something that irritates me and I've got so used to being around him because we're together 24-7 that I may just, and I'll find myself getting irritated or being sarcastic and I'll catch myself and say, I'm sorry, I was sarcastically, you said something in a way I didn't really listen to you, you didn't, you know. So you can train yourself to live lifestyle. In other words, if I did have felt that urge of jealousy, I will, let's say, and interact with someone else, let's say maybe it's social media and I see something going on, or someone with friends, jealousy comes wanting what someone else has got.

1:06:10We as humans, and I've got to get this right, we as humans, when I support you and I love you and I lift you up and I am building you and I'm excited, extensively and genuinely excited for every element of your success. Without one moment of wishing I had that, I am going to function at my highest intellectual level. I am going to be the healthiest I am. So loving and supporting and lifting you is actually increasing my own intelligence and mind and brain health. However, we are in a zeitgeist of, what can I get out of you? And if you've got more than me, how did you get? I need that. They may not be saying that to you, but that's what's going on in the head.

1:06:45That is slowly creating toxic thoughts that are slowly creating a disruption of those microtubule things I spoke about and setting you up for disease and dementias. Big link between and a sense of loneliness, which is pretty much a guarantee for bleeding towards dementias and things. So envy, jealousy, bitterness, anger, those things hit you from the inside out. So lifting someone up makes you healthier, being jealous of someone also if you all have a twinge of jealousy which is first thing it's okay to be a mess it's okay okay i feel jealousy so what okay i feel it now what why and then go through the neuropsycho find the source and fix it i love this um i feel like we've gone for a long time about this stuff is there anything else that you think people should know about how to end toxic thoughts to get into healthy relationships or relationships in general any other i think what's so important is that we try and reconnect as communities again and create, you know, there's a big move and there has been for about 40 years saying that, yeah, it's great.

1:07:50We're talking about mental health, we're lifting the stigma, but if you look at how we've done it, the research shows we've created a worse stigma. And we've actually created environments where people are talking about mental health in a certain way that leads towards seeing it as an illness. In other words, seeing you as a broken person. Now, if I go to a dinner party and I walk in and say, oh, I've just had this another label I'm now bipolar and this and schizophrenia and blah blah blah everyone at the dinner table is going to kind of be weary and you're not going to you're going to job interview and say that but if you go to that dinner and you say you know I just had like such a rough few weeks and I've just seen these patterns in my life and I you know went through this whole sort of exploration and I found out hey these patterns are coming from something and whatever how much you want to share, but another story, everyone will lean in and everyone will say, hey, wow, you know, they have, this happened to you and everyone will start sharing stories in this community and support and advice and interaction.

1:08:47That's healthy mental health talk, whether it's among an adult, a child, a baby, an adolescent, two year old, whatever. We need, that for me is huge, that we need to create genuine safe spaces, not this, oh, I haven't, It's okay to say it's an illness like diabetes and that makes the stigma go away. And if we can talk about diabetes, no one criticizes you if you've got diabetes. Why do they criticize you if you've got bipolar? Bipolar doesn't even exist. And now please, I'm not dishonoring the fact that people have mood swings, but if I just say you have bipolar, all I've done is reduce something massive in your life.

1:09:24That's absolutely huge, bigger than this room into just a little day. I totally invalidated you. But if I say, oh, okay, tell me about this bipolar that you say you've got a diagnosis. What do you mean? And then you describe a set of behaviors. Then I would say, okay, so what you're describing is that you have certain behaviors going on in your life with these emotions, self-fuls in your body. So if that's the case, what's going on? Let's find out why. What's your story? What has happened? Then I've actually tuned in and I've listened to you. That's what I'm talking about. That's validating a person.

1:09:59That's recognizing that person who can't get out of bed for three weeks or four weeks or two years or listening to them. What I spoke about earlier on, that's the validation we need. So I'm in a nutshell saying that all these mental health labels reduce something that's massive into something that's not massive and put it into a disease label. That's not good. We've got to come back to our humanity. We've got to see it's huge. If someone's in a panic attack or someone's depressed or someone's got these mood swings or someone's battling to focus or battling to function in, we need to listen to these stories.

1:10:33We need to sit down and connect and communicate and create safe spaces for extreme trauma which has created extreme behavior changes that they can't really sit back in society very well and they need a couple of weeks or months or whatever to just talk safely in a safe space. Talk it out, process it. Yeah. Exactly. That for me would be critical. That'll lead to very healthy partnerships between people. Yeah. Caroline, I love you. I love your message. I love everything you're doing to help people. If you've enjoyed this, make sure to leave a comment of the biggest moment takeaway on YouTube or over on audio as well.

1:11:08Leave us a comment there. If you want more about how to master your mind in relationships and intimacy, then leave a comment on YouTube that you want another part two of this episode. If you've got kids or you're about to have kids. Make sure you get this book, How to Help Your Child Clean Up Their Mental Mess, A Guide to Building Resilience and Managing Mental Health. This will be a game changer for the future of our humanity. And if you just feel like you want to overcome stress, anxiety, or toxic thinking, then make sure to get this book as well, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, Five Simple Scientifically Proven Steps to Do Those Things.

1:11:44So make sure you get a copy of both of these. We'll have it linked up. follow caroline everywhere on social media your podcast is amazing your youtube all these different places that you have where can we best support and serve you is it drleaf.com or where should we all connect with you my social media platform is dr caroline leith and my podcast as you mentioned is the same name as the book cleaning up so thank you i love you i love your content you're amazing you spoke at our our summit of greatness last year and it was incredible um and you're just doing so much good for the world. So we're so grateful for you, your research, science you do, everything that you're finding online, and really just giving it in practical terms that we can understand.

1:12:26So I always love the analogies. I love the props. I love everything that just shows us how to simplify the challenges, the stresses, the overwhelm that we feel, whether it be in life or money or relationships. But again, if you guys enjoyed this, make sure to comment below if you want a part two on mastering your mind in relationships. I've asked you this question before, but I'm going to ask it again. It's a three truths question. See if it's got a different answer for you this time. Imagine it's your last day on earth many years away. And for whatever reason, you, you can't take, you can't leave behind any content or this book or any message you've ever put out there.

1:13:04It's got to go with you to the next place. And you only get to share three pieces of advice, three lessons that you would leave with the world. But none of this interview is gone, this book is gone, but you get to share three final things with the world. After all the success you have, what would you share with those three truths? I would share the same thing that I said a moment ago, is work, start maybe with the first one, accept that you can be a mess, and it's okay to work on your relationship with yourself, be kindness, compassion to yourself, then give the same to others, listen to others, work through that process of really listening and supporting.

1:13:42and that's kind of those two kind of wind into each other, into, I think those two kind of encapsulate kind of everything. Yeah. So that would then be to love. So it's work on yourself and work on others and that leads to love. Yeah, that's beautiful. I want to acknowledge you, Caroline. I always do. You're so committed to service and I'm so grateful for you for how you show up. You know, you have a, it's rare to find someone who has had a healthy long-term relationship, who's got four kids that are also working with them and, you know, have a healthy relationship with them and have a career in service to humanity the way you do.

1:14:22So I'm just grateful for you. And I know it's not, you're messy in all the areas, but the way you show up consistently is beautiful. And I'm really grateful for you. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Thank you, Jess. It's beautiful. Back at you too. You're amazing. And really, I have so much high regard for you. I appreciate it. Love everything you do. And you touch all our lives. I appreciate it. So many ways. I appreciate it. Again, final question. What's your definition of greatness? I love this question. You always ask me. Someone who actually has a good relationship with himself. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

1:14:57Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

1:15:41And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.