The Devil You Don’t Know
In The Devil You Don’t Know, Lindsay, Cleveland, and their guests discuss personal growth and development by taking chances and getting out of your comfort zone. Topics range from whimsical to serious and everything in between but are always relevant to growth and development.
The Devil You Don’t Know
The Breath Reset: Breaking Free From Perfectionism
Self-judgment holds us back from authentic growth by triggering stress responses and reinforcing negative beliefs about ourselves. Perfectionism, deeply rooted in childhood experiences and amplified by social media, creates impossible standards that disconnect us from our true selves.
• Our brains evolved for survival not happiness, making negativity our default mode
• Self-criticism raises cortisol levels by 37%, creating physical stress responses
• Gabor Maté's compassionate inquiry helps identify what unmet needs drive our self-judgment
• Perfectionism in young adults has risen 33% since 1989, linked to anxiety and burnout
• Social media creates unrealistic comparison traps that reinforce negative self-beliefs
• Breathwork reduces cortisol and increases gray matter in the prefrontal cortex
• Practicing self-compassion makes people 30% more likely to stick to their goals
• Meditation isn't always pleasant but creates space for emotions that need processing
• Getting comfortable with "not being okay" is essential for authentic growth
• Small daily rituals like compassionate check-ins help establish healthier self-relationships
For free compassionate inquiry sessions in exchange for recording for certification, email gettoknowthedevi@gmail.com
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
This is Cleveland.
Speaker 2:This is Lindsay.
Speaker 1:And this is another episode of the Devil. You Don't Know, lindsay, what is this one about? What's the title of this one? Embracing Imperfection, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's basically how self-judgment holds us back. Ah okay.
Speaker 1:So in this episode of the Devil you Don't Know, embracing Imperfection, the power of starting over with yourself with compassion, we will explore why self-judgment holds us back, how Gabor Amate's compassionate inquiry helps us heal Lindsay's an expert on that and why science proves self-compassion oh, you are there why science proves self-compassion is essential for growth. And, as always, lindsay, who is our expert in all things. That is why I married her. She said on our first date. She was like, by the way, do you know that I am an expert in all things?
Speaker 2:And I was like, yes, you are, and that's when I knew he was the man for me.
Speaker 1:Even though I've forgotten Chris. Chris, our marriage counselor, slash construction guy, always reminds me hey, man, just shut up. She already got it, she knew what she want, so she will break down the roots of self. She will break down. I'm just laughing to myself because every time we record Lindsay's like I need you to adjust the volume and this is literally set up. We have not changed, but I want to tell you that today you were like I need you to adjust the volume and this is literally set up.
Speaker 2:We have not changed, but I want to tell you that today you were like, before you got the mics and stuff out, you were like okay, so just want you to know. I haven't touched any of the buttons in a long time. And then I go to you, I'm like I can't even hear you, not even a little bit, and you're like oh, I did, I turned it off yeah, I did turn it up, so I'm trying to make me like gaslighting me. You make me think I'm crazy I'm turning it down.
Speaker 1:Is it better? I think so okay, I will make further adjustments if I if need but that's not actually what I wanted you to do. Oh, what was it that you wanted me to do. We might as well just say it.
Speaker 2:I wanted you to push pause for a moment oh, so we'll push, we.
Speaker 1:We will be right back, we are taking a break. All right, sorry about that, we're back. We're back. We had a little bit of a miscommunication. It was actually not the volume.
Speaker 2:But I was laughing because I do that with the volume every single time.
Speaker 1:So what I was going to say is well, lindsay, who is an expert in all things, before I went on that whole tangent, we'll break down the roots of self-criticism. She's going to discuss perfectionism and the modern trap and share a small but powerful rituals that she's learning to help move forward with kindness instead of shame. All right, are we ready?
Speaker 2:I think so, I think so. Well, I can't really hear you that well for real. Okay, so now, because now, when you thought I was saying that you messed with the thing, okay, how about now? So, let me see there, you go there, you go there, you go tell me you love me, I love you. So I think this.
Speaker 1:I think that was all a setup it was?
Speaker 2:it was a setup. I think it was yeah, um, okay, okay so let's just just dive right so let's get into it right.
Speaker 1:So, linz, one of the questions I'm going to ask you is why do we judge ourselves so harshly? I'll throw in a fact there because I'm the fat guy is I can give you an evolutionary insight of it is that our brains are evolved for survival and not happiness, and therefore negativity, or being negative, helps us to dwell on our mistakes, right? That is like our lizard caveman brain, like trying to help us, like you know, work on our mistakes, and so sometimes we get caught up on that.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely. We judge ourselves because our ego is always giving us a job to do something and it's not. We're never enough, right it's. The job is to kind of keep us safe, that chirping voice in your head. But we are always, you know, we're just never satisfied. And so then we judge ourselves and we don't look, as we're, at where we are, as maybe a stone on the path, you know, to the destination.
Speaker 1:Gabor. Is trauma informed Compassionate inquiry, would ask, would ask you or ask the person to ask themselves what question?
Speaker 2:or ask the person to ask themselves what question? Well, the big goal of the compassionate inquiry practice is to bring it back to the actual client and to not have any agenda right. So it's basically the goal is right, like who did you talk to and like what kind of childhood memory does it bring up? Right? But you know that self-judgment comes from our negative core beliefs about you. Know what's happened to us in our lives and why we've kind of developed those beliefs. And so it's kind of like who did you talk to and kind of where did it come from? What kind of memory does it bring up in you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, one question that I think I can think of from what you've taught me about compassion and inquiry might be what unmet need is this self-judgment bringing for you?
Speaker 2:or what do you make that mean about you? Yeah, fear rejection longing failure, all those things right, and that's the thing. We very much live in a very cerebral kind of context and we don't get into the body and into the emotions often enough studies have shown that self-criticism raises a cortisol stress levels by 37 percent.
Speaker 1:So I want to ask you, as a listener next time you self-criticize yourself, ask you what deeper fear or need is this driving? Lindsay, I do have a few questions for you. Why do you think self-judgment feels so automatic for most people?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we live in a pretty angry and negative world Surprise. So I do think people automatically internalize things and so they don't take, you know, things like feedback, for example, even if it's not positive feedback. People don't take that well, they don't use it as an opportunity for growth. They use it as an opportunity to tell themselves something negative about themselves. Right, oh, I'm not good enough, this person doesn't like me, I can't do this, I don't you know anything like that. Something's wrong with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you? What are some personal triggers or what are some triggers that you think bring up self-criticism for folks?
Speaker 2:I think feedback is a huge thing that brings up self-judgment for people. Right as soon as someone tries to tell you something or correct you, you internalize it. I spoke about this Even like the way we're brought up, all the ways that we learn to behave, the things that happen in our households that we think are normal, and then we get out into the real world and we don't know what to do because we don't have a set of tools to adapt to. You know things outside of home and then we start to think there's something wrong with us. We don't fit in, we can't do this. We listen to the voices of other people. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I, I, um, I I spoke with uh, I started out about this one last week, um, about, about an odd self-criticism, that is, a self-sabotage that for for many folks in my community, the black and Hispanic community, that we, that we put upon themselves right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My success is making me not part of my community anymore, and I sat down with someone not too long ago that said that they didn't want to be successful, that they feared success because they felt it would separate them from their blackness, which I was like.
Speaker 1:That's really unusual because, let's look, is Aaron Hernandez not with us today? And for those of you who don't know who Aaron Hernandez was, he was a star player on the New England Patriots, super Bowl winning, and still continued to associate with the people from the hood that he should not have been associating with, murdered somebody that he didn't need to murder and ended up going to jail and killing himself in jail, all because he his self-judgment and his self-criticism was telling him in the movie Monster there's a movie about him called Monster that he was very self-critical and very self-judgmental of himself and that self-judgment led him to a place of self-destruction. That's interesting. Yeah, linz Gabor talks about self-judgment as a reflection of unmet needs. What are you in your personal journey? Or, if you were sitting down, what? What do you think you found is underneath self-criticism?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, when he says that it's that we're constantly striving, you know, for other things to make us ourselves feel better, right? I think he describes his path to becoming a physician. He went and became a doctor so he'd be worthy to people, right? But at the end of the day, if you don't heal those inner wounds you're. The struggle is still there, right? The inner struggle is still there. Yes, people may admire you, but you also have to admire yourself.
Speaker 1:I can think of of of the times that I was very self-critical and self-judging of myself, and I'm not so much anymore. Um, I check myself where I need to get checked Right, um, I tried to. I tried to, um, but growing up a Jehovah's witness, I, I had this belief in, in, in. It's not just singular to me, it's to many other religions that I was special because I was chosen by Jehovah and because and because I was chosen by Jehovah, there was a very there was this unrealistic burden of self-criticism and self-judgment that I put upon myself because this is I had to live up to.
Speaker 2:Well, you had to live up to what other people were telling you you had to live up to, but none of it really aligned with you. Is that where you're going?
Speaker 1:Yeah, None of it aligned with me, none of it aligned with God. I can tell you that because here's the truth about what God wants for you. God wants you to be your own individual, to the best that you can be. The rules and regulations that he has there are not to. The Bible says my commands are not burdensome, so they are not there to weigh down on you, right, they're not there to crush you, but they're there to help you reflect every day of how you can be, or try to be, a better person. But it is not the level of judgment or self-criticism that many religions make you feel.
Speaker 2:We're not always going to be a better person, right, but it's also being able to take accountability when we do things that are out of character for us, right. Right, but it's also being able to take accountability when we do things that are out of character for us, right, or do things that maybe we're not so proud of.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. But if you're judging yourself, you are judging yourself to a harsh extent. Right.
Speaker 2:For those of you who might be judging yourself for religious reasons, jesus in the Bible says there's no one good except for God, everybody judges themselves and everybody judges other people, right, right, I mean we do, and even as therapists, right we have, we are compassionate and we have empathy and we but we still judge, because we grew up right and we're raised thinking life was to be a certain way, and so when people have practices or beliefs that are so vastly different from ours, sometimes we can have difficulty with relating to it, and then that was where the judgment comes from.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So I want to move on to our next segment, which is the breath as a reset button, and I'm going to start off with a science spotlight because I am the fact and figure man. Yes, kristen, I know you agree with Lindsay. When and Kristen and Sam want to be on the podcast, we actually have to hit them up and talk to them a whole episode about being a parent. But I know you get annoyed when I quote facts and figures, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Speaker 2:I don't really think you. I don't think I was. I didn't want to make a judgment. Yeah, I stopped myself. Yeah, thank you, I don't think you listen to most things I say.
Speaker 1:No, this was Kristen too. Kristen was like. I stopped with the facts and figures, but I'm going to continue. Breathwork reduces cortisol by 23%, and mindful breathing increases gray matter.
Speaker 2:I see your eyes squinting and I'm going to tell you what I told you last time we recorded is that every time you hear that beep and make that face, it's the rice cooker. Oh, the rice cooker has finished the rice. It's ready for dinner.
Speaker 1:I was trying to figure out what that was. Let me, let me go back. So, mindful breathing increases gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, improving emotional regulation. I want to steal a quote and then I'm going to let you go in and have the stage. Condemason said this and you, and where do you know, condom? Well, you say the quote because you're the one that brought it to us. So bring, you say it.
Speaker 2:Sure so well. So I'm in my, my, my meditation teacher certification program and one of the prerequisites was a course called the power of awareness and it was really about being present, being present with yourself right, and really coming into your own and something. So condom Mason is one of the instructors in the course and she said it's really important that we drop judgment of where we've been. Just gently allow yourself to come back to the breath, into presence, and all you have to do is begin again. Just begin again. No judgment. You're not going to be perfect every day. It's about turning up the next day and doing it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, with that being said, going back to all those science-y facts and figures, what is good, you love breathwork. Talk to us a little bit about breathwork and how it works. I love breathwork.
Speaker 2:Breathwork helps to control the nervous system. That is what it does. It brings you into the present moment. When you're in the present moment, when you're right here, right now, everything is fine. The problem is is that we rehash events from the past and we rehearse events that haven't yet occurred, and so I mean, what is the meaning of anxiety? It's literally a future trip. It is. I am going to worry about things that have not even happened yet. So guess what? They might never happen, but I've created such a story in my head that now I'm anxious, right, and so the breath work brings you back into the present moment. It's this moment to just be with yourself. Right, there's different types of breath work for different things, but you know, the bottom line is there's relaxing breath work with you. Just learn to regulate the inhalation and the exhalation through your nose and just sit and breathe, and you can put a mantra with it.
Speaker 2:A lot of people say, oh, I can't meditate, I can't be quiet, and do that work Because you know my mind won't let me Right, and so I always challenge people. Well, who said it's supposed to be a pleasant experience all the time? Right, when I do somatic breath work with Trish that 27 years of therapy and 27 minutes guess what. I ain't comfortable. I mean I come, I crying. It brings up a lot of memories for me. I mean lay on your back for 27 minutes and breathe in twice throughout through your mouth and out once. It's very, very activating for the nervous system.
Speaker 1:So I tell you, what do you have? Two to two to two minutes here. For what? This I'm going to give you your dream come true. Do you want to do a small, like guided, maybe two minute session to show folks how it's done With you, with me?
Speaker 2:No, I don't, Because I asked you to meditate yesterday and today and you said no. Well, this is for the benefit this is for the benefit of the audience.
Speaker 1:Would you like to at least give us a method of a brief example?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, I mean you can do it if you want, but I mean you know you should really do it when you have the time for the practice, not just because you want to do it for the benefit of other people. You should want to do it.
Speaker 1:I want to do it for me.
Speaker 2:But what I would say is to do one thing that I do is just breathing in and out. Every time I breathe in, I just say breathing in, the mind is calm, breathing out, my body is relaxed. I supposed to breathe in and out through the nose, if you can. The mouth. Breath activates the nervous system. You're very funny.
Speaker 2:When you do the breathing I always say you're not a good breather because your shoulders get all raised up and you look like you're trying to force something that's not happening, naturally. Right, but that's one thing I do. And then there's a um, like a relaxation breath which I learned many years ago in a yoga class, which is just breathing in and out through the nose. So you just breathe in for a count and then hold it and then breathe out. So it could be like you breathe in for four, hold for two, breathe out for four and it just goes up in increments. Um, but you know it's breath work can really regulate the nervous system. I mean, if you know Ram Dass, the spiritual teacher may he rest in peace. He I think he was worked at Harvard, but he did a lot of work about with psychedelics and the, the relatedness between psychedelics and like very deep meditation work, because he said that with psychedelics you could achieve the same state of mind as you could with deep meditation.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Interesting, but solid facts. So let me ask you a couple of personal questions here. How personal, we'll find out when I ask that's how personal. So have you ever, have you ever, ever, no, have you ever used breathwork or mindfulness practices to help yourself navigate self-judgment?
Speaker 2:um, did you see me sitting next to you this morning doing breath work and meditation while you were typing away feverishly on your computer?
Speaker 2:you, were judging me way in that moment. Oh so you weren't even focused on yourself. You didn't hear me doing breath work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I sure do. I do it all the time. Every time I'm stressed out, like even if I cause, I meditate almost every morning very religiously, and during the day, if I have a really stressful day and I could feel, because I'm very aware of what happens to me in my body physically when I start to feel certain emotions, and so when I feel that way, I always check in with myself and do a little practice in the middle of the day too. As soon as I feel like that, I just close my eyes for 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah, it's kind of like you ground yourself right, and part of what we do as therapists is I try to teach folks grounding techniques and tell them to bring them back to the present. That gives you a segue. So a lot of folks like me struggle with meditation.
Speaker 2:Because you think it's supposed to be a pleasant experience all the time.
Speaker 1:So that's something I spoke about earlier. You already answered my next part of my question, so what advice?
Speaker 2:would you get to someone who finds it hard to sit with their thoughts? You just have to power through and sit with them, because often what my meditation teacher, sarah Swati, would say is that what comes up is probably what you got to work on, right? I mean, it's on your mind for a reason, but you know it's not always pleasant and it's not supposed to be pleasant all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you share a moment or aha moment, or maybe maybe somebody you've worked with in the past where stopping, pausing and taking a breath help shift your mindset?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I do it all the time and I've started to do it with clients too, when they get really emotional is to just sit and make space for that emotion, and I often have them kind of just breathe into it and see what comes up. Because it's, it's the acknowledgement, right? Because if you think about meditation and this breath work, if you keep avoiding it, do any of the stuff that's coming up in your head, any of those thoughts, go away? No, they're still there. So it doesn't right. So it's not the meditation or the breath work that brings them up, but it's that that helps to ground you in those emotions. Right, Emotions are not bad things. We've got to feel it to heal it. If you don't sit and feel it, you're never going to free yourself from the pain that it causes you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely Right, I want to. I'm going to use that to segue to our next section, which is ditching perfectionism with compassion, or maybe self-compassion. I've sat down especially for my more, and this is not just for religious folks. I do think religion has a tendency to make people feel guiltier about themselves than was intended, but perfectionism is something that I've dealt with. My own personal therapist has told me not everything needs to be an A.
Speaker 2:Right, you don't have to get an A in everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of my professors, dr Joseph Avera lovely man, great guy used to always say that perfection is the enemy of good enough. And both of those things, or both of those folks, are saying hey, all sometimes you need to be is good enough, but let's talk about perfectionism and how that hurts.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're constantly striving for something, so you're actually never present, right? Nobody is perfect. There's more than one way to do things, so it's a whole lot of wasted time, if you ask me, yeah, perfectionism in young adults has risen since in 33% since 1989.
Speaker 1:And it has been linked to anxiety and burnout. I think Jonathan Haidt would tell you definitely a hundred percent that it is also linked to the rise of social media.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, and the competitiveness of college, right, and all these things that we talked about in the last episode is that there's so much pressure put on people instead of letting people just be who they want to be. There's pressure because they're listening to the voices of other people telling them who they should be.
Speaker 1:I had somebody I worked with some time ago that said they actually eventually just deleted Instagram off of their phone because every image that was coming up for them was just all these fake, scantily clad internet women and they were like, yeah, I just got to get this off my phone. This is not even what I'm following and this is all what's in my feed. Feed um, and so when you see young girls who are looking at these fake women who probably who are ai generated or or went out and got, uh, augmented, they're holding themselves to an impossible look at their own internal struggle that they're having, that the way that they are isn't good enough, right, right, and there's so much.
Speaker 2:There's got to be so much self-judgment if you're willing to go to those levels right to make a complete, make yourself appear completely different than you do.
Speaker 1:One of the greatest things that I think anybody could ever think about themselves is that they were born wrong. Right, no one is born wrong. Whatever quirks or whatever idiosyncrasies you have, you are wonderfully made. Yet the Internet is a place that is a fictional place, that if you are somebody who thinks they're born wrong, the Internet is the place that confirms it for you.
Speaker 2:Right, well, and it's. It's just even, as you know anybody, that's a like kind of social media. You know what an influencer was that? What they call them right Is. It's like you look at these people and they talk about how mean people are and the kinds of comments and it's just like it's like you know. It's like people are so invested in everybody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to bring this into a compassionate inquiry um context so that we can kick it back to your, to your field. Um, there is a one real life case study that Gabor worked with, with a writer who revised, who revised her novel 20 times and, after sitting down through passionate inquiry, revealed to her that her perfectionism was rooted in childhood praise for achievements and and over effort. Um, gabor says to ask folks, or to ask yourself why am I afraid? What am I afraid will happen if I am not perfect? Lens the floor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, what do you want me to say? Right, it's like you know it's, it's basically, it's what the person is telling themselves will happen. Right, because you also have to realize like, whose voice is it coming from? Is it my voice or the voice of somebody else? And you know and often that is because there is right that we constantly striving for more and more and more, because we're looking for something from somebody.
Speaker 1:So how would you help someone who's been caught up in the, in the trap of perfectionism, somebody sitting across from you?
Speaker 2:Well, typically, what I do with people like that is I talk to them about where that came from and why they are the way that they are, and I often it ties back into the way that they were raised, right, so like, for example, like you know, people that feel like or I have a client who feels like she's a failure because she wants to leave her marriage.
Speaker 2:But she developed, you know, she this is not just a new thing for her, right, this is something that she was able to date back way into her childhood, like you know, with feelings of like, rejection, abandonment from a parent who left, and so, you know, it's like you never see yourself like as being good enough, like you were saying before, and, and you know, I challenged her with her and I said to her why you know, so like, so like you should just stay in the marriage and not like the person because it doesn't align and it doesn't align with you, but because it'll, you know, you'll look better or you'll feel better about yourself. I was like because I was like, you know, maybe you know authentically you shouldn't be in that marriage. So what would that look? Like, like, and it's okay to make the choice that you feel is best for you Right is best for you right, or you believe is best for you right, because there's really no perfect scenario when you think about life and how people are.
Speaker 1:I want to stick with that thought. There's no perfect scenario, right Even when Jesus talks about being good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I said to a couple last week that I was fighting. When, um, I said, I said, oh, I could call my husband in the room right now and if I say everything I don't like about him, I said he could find at least one thing he doesn't like about me. And they started laughing and I said so, like I said, you can keep talking about your husband right here, but I bet he's got a lot to say about you too, and you know, and what were you going to ask me? No, so on that?
Speaker 1:no, and then you can continue is how can we help people let go of unrealistic standards? Right, Because that's one of the look at your own stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, instead of projecting outward like, look at it and say why, why is it that this is bothering me about this person right now? What is it bringing up for me? Right? And with that particular client I said well, you just don't believe that you come first when it comes to your husband. I said and that is what the bottom line is it has nothing to do with what he's doing, like he's sitting here, he loves you, he tells you that. So you know, you have to either believe that or not. But if you don't believe it, stop sucking him into the mess that you're in Right, and so how do we let go of unrealistic standards in ourself?
Speaker 2:Well, you have to do the internal work and you have to look at the root of them. Where does it come from? When was the first time that I felt this way, like what is the actual emotion that I am feeling? Where did it come from? What did I tell myself about it, right? And what did I make it mean about me, right?
Speaker 1:One of the most damaging things about all this iconography and imagery that we see on the Internet, with this related to porn and sexuality, is it creates this negative idea for people and themselves. It makes them hold themselves to an unrealistic standard. Right, and I've worked with both uh, with with all genders who have suffered from sexual dysfunction because of an addiction to pornography, where I've had multiple people tell me that, well, I'm not as good as that person on the, on the video, or I'm not as beautiful as that woman, or I'm not as endowed. And that's the question. And here's how I challenge the unrealistic expectation.
Speaker 1:Hey, you've watched Superman the movie, right, yeah, how do you put out a fire? What do you? How do you put out a fire? Well, he's like hey, you go, you call the fire department, you call them and put out in police. How does Superman put out a fire? Superman puts it out with his super breath. Would you now, because you believe what you see in these movies, or you believe these images, would you believe that you can put out a house fire by blowing on it? Well, absolutely not, thank you. So why do you believe that movie? Why do you hold yourself up to these standards? You know, here's the thing about us when we watch TV. As kids, I knew that the Dukes of Hazzard was not real, loved it.
Speaker 2:I knew that. Oh, I loved it too it was on Friday nights.
Speaker 1:It was on Friday nights against Knight Rider. I liked Knight Rider. I knew that wasn't real, right? You grow up and you realize the things that you watched on TV are not real. I love Dallas. Dallas was not real. Jr did not really get shot. But these kids today, this invasive thing, that that, this thing that that Jonathan Haidt says makes them anxious and makes them nuts and and Gabor would tell you, is also as a toxic society that we live in. This pervades them and makes them self-critical and self-judgmental.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Right, because we don't ever you know, we're never content. People are not content, they're not okay with how they are, and that's from the messages that they've gotten.
Speaker 1:So someone comes and sits down to you and sits down with you and says I am simply not good enough. I know that I'm not good enough. How do you help them navigate that?
Speaker 2:Well, I ask I, well, when that comes up, I would say like to them in that moment, like, well, while you're telling me this, what's happening for you or within you, Right, and then I go from there. And then then I asked to invite them to make space for whatever is coming up.
Speaker 1:Right, so let's jump to our next segment, which is building resilience through rituals. Um, and here's some actionable tips that we can start off with. First, a fact people practicing self-compassion are 30% more likely to stick to goals, according to a 2021 article in the Journal of Personality. Why is that important, lindsay? To stick to goals? Yeah, why do you think? Why do you think that number? Specifically, what is self-compassion have to do with being more likely?
Speaker 2:to stick to your goals. Well, I think you're more content, you're happier with yourself, you accept yourself, you know the way that you are. You look at the parts of yourself that you don't like so much and you, you know. Maybe give them a little bit of love and compassion and just recognize that they're there but it's also okay to have them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jack Canfield, who's a success coach, has some compassionate check-ins that he recommends, which are at the end of the night journal a victory log right Put down everything that you've done during the day that has been successful. Another self-checking he does is he reminds folks that whatever you do for the last 45 minutes of the day is what you will process in your sleep at night.
Speaker 2:That's interesting.
Speaker 1:So sit down and he's typically watched the. Hallmark channel. And then you probably that's why you are so Randy, oh my God, cleveland, randy's a family word. Stop being inappropriate, oh my God. So what do you suppose that? All those Hallmark movies, what was the one we were last night? We just had to totally turn off.
Speaker 2:That was an Amazon one. I've like, I've like, actually watched everything on Hallmark. What was it? It was just, that was a happiness play one. I, I've like, I've like actually watched everything on hallmark.
Speaker 1:What was it?
Speaker 2:it was that was a happiness playbook or something.
Speaker 1:It was on um amazon amazon has like a whole bunch of. It was like love off the leash. Oh I, I fell asleep. I didn't see any of it.
Speaker 2:I told you to put it on and I immediately went to sleep.
Speaker 1:You're like this is like the crazy. Oh, it was really bad. Yeah, I can't finish it, wait a minute, so where we had a segue. Yeah, we super segue there, but oh, the thing that you do for the last 45 minutes. So we'll love off the leash. That's probably why you wake up thinking about all the love.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but before we derail each other, canfield says what you do for the last 45 minutes of the evening, that is what you're going to go into the day, so it is important to do a compassionate check in with yourself at that time. Lindsay, what are any more thoughts that you have on?
Speaker 2:I think you should check in with yourself honestly throughout the day and I do think that you should have some kind of daily routine, whether it's exercise, breathing, meditation, yoga, whatever it is that works for you to help keep the nervous system you know at bay a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like what here? Here's an example. Um, you know you do coffee every day, so why don't you, baby, do breath, work and some coffee?
Speaker 2:I meditate every morning after my coffee, after your coffee.
Speaker 1:Right. Um, I want to take a little part of Conda's quote there and talk about resilience is not perfection. Conda says it's about beginning again and without judgment. Um, what small habits do you think folks can start putting in place that will? That will help them not judge themselves.
Speaker 2:Well it's that you know it's okay to not be okay, I think is the biggest one. I always say that, okay, I messed up, all right, people mess up, everybody makes mistakes, right? So it's just being able to kind of get out of the head of it and just say, All right, well, I'll just. Maybe I'll do it differently next time.
Speaker 1:What's a small habit for you that's had a big impact on your mental wellbeing.
Speaker 2:Well, I meditate, you know. I meditate and I breathe, and I do it If you're sitting here. I do it If I'm alone. Um, I do it every day. I teacher because I know that when I make time for myself, I feel better, and when I start to feel agitated, I need to meditate, because that's what helps to keep my nervous system regulated, my emotions under control better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, For me. I'm trying to practice being more mindful. I fast. I feel like fasting helps me be a lot more clear, a lot more intentional, a lot less impulsive.
Speaker 2:Lindsay, obviously I'm just laughing about yesterday, which was what? Yesterday, what happened? Well, like how you're trying to be more aware. But then it was so funny, like you have every single line of every single document that we've paid something for, for the taxes. Oh yeah, and I'm like, but you like lost my socks and four pair of bike shorts. Yeah, but.
Speaker 1:I know we're all a tax paper. You were like wait, wait, wait, you know where that is.
Speaker 2:I was like you know where everything is and you have it so organized, and I was like, but how is this even possible? Because, like you, literally can't find anything.
Speaker 1:That's from not meditating. That's from being well, yeah, that's from not meditating, we'll get there.
Speaker 1:We'll get there, but that is something that has helped me to try to make a big impact. When I've worked with folks, something as simple as taking their own health, taking themselves to the doctor, has made them feel empowered, and empowered and made them feel less critical. I think it's about making sure that you reassert, control over your life. And so what small habits can you do? Hey, for you guys in the audience, you think of one, lindsay. If someone was sitting across from you, stuck in self-judgment, what is one small step that you would recommend for them to shift towards self-compassion?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's what I said to you earlier, which is, when someone is in that place, I would say to them so, like what is coming up for you while you tell me about it, because that emotion and that somatic reaction is going to be the key to then seeing where it comes from right, like what comes up for you when you say this Okay, let's give it space, right? Is it sadness, anger, frustration, overwhelm, stress? Great, so can we give it some space right now and sit with it? Yeah, and because that helps people to realize when right, and then after that it's like so, is it a familiar feeling? That's what I ask people Like, have you felt it before?
Speaker 2:Right, and that is the key for me, anyway, with clients is to connecting it back to what the memory was in childhood. Is that then they think about it and they're like, oh, because you know, often then they go out on this tangent of like oh, my god, right, and I'm like, oh, very interesting, right. And people go back young. I mean, I have a client who remembers things from like two and three years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you ever seen Gabor work? Why? It's one of the things I like. What he does is when folks go off on a tangent.
Speaker 2:He always he always brings it back to them. Right, it's not about the other person. Yes, we do need a little bit of the. He said, she said the what happened? To bring it up this time Because it gives some clarity to the counselor. But because it gives some clarity to the counselor, but it's, it's like, okay, so I hear your story but you know what are you making that mean for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with that, we're going to move on to a closing and Lindsay is going to have some challenge questions for, for don't you remember?
Speaker 2:So Lindsay's going to have some? No, I was. I was emulating you and I wasn't listening.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't listen Whenever I talk, listen whenever I talk to. I'm going to tell you this Every icebreaker I do with every woman I meet in a business meeting or a customer service person and they say, hey, they're going to give me some instructions and they want to know if I'm listening. I always go listen. I'm married. What do you think my wife would say? The answer to that question is absolutely not, and it always elicits Well, that's because you're busy all the time.
Speaker 2:You're always onto the next thing, right, which is why often you struggle with really just sitting and being in the present moment. That is true, and so you know I I think I said to you a couple of weeks ago that somehow I think that you think that you get a badge of honor for being busy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't. Well, I think you think you do, you just haven't gotten that badge yet I haven't gotten it yet I would have to do some meditation, so how? Is that working out for?
Speaker 1:you.
Speaker 2:I would have to do some meditation.
Speaker 1:That's what I would ask if you were my client, do some meditation and get back to you on it, but we'll do an episode about it. Um, but what are you so, as you're challenging me right now, what are two using compassionate inquiry questions? What are two? What are some challenges or what are some questions that folks can ask themselves when they feel?
Speaker 2:engaged. Yeah Well, what I said earlier, which is like where you know, when I like what is coming up for me, when I feel this way, when this happens, right, if, say, for example, it would be like if you and I had an argument, I would say to myself, like what's coming up for me as I'm thinking about this or talking about it? Right, and then sitting with that and really looking at it and saying like, ah well, like, have I ever felt this way before? When did I feel this way before? Right, and like you know, when I feel this way and this is coming up for me, like what am I making it mean about me?
Speaker 2:Right, because often, right, like with my client who wanted to leave her husband, she was able to say I, I, I think I'm a failure because I couldn't make it work, right, and so you know. And so it's like she took this whole, like this isn't working for me. I don't, I can't, I'm not aligned with this person anymore. He's not doing the work that I'm doing on myself and this isn't working out. And she turned it into instead of, like you know, I want to be more authentic to myself and I don't want to stay somewhere where I don't feel loved and I don't feel like I can give the person the right amount of love, and she turned it around into I'm a failure, right, and that's what people do.
Speaker 1:Yeah it goes back to. In one final thought, is it goes back to what Gabor says? The attempt to escape pain is what creates more pain.
Speaker 2:Well, because you're constantly running and looking for the next thing, because you're looking for contentment and happiness and peace outside of yourself, in the external, instead of seeing how can I resolve this and actually do right, create a life around the things that I love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what Gabor says is if you create the life around the things that you love. So it sounds like what you're saying, lindsay, is let's stop running.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just be in the moment, sit with it. So what if you're not okay? Get comfortable, right. That's my message to everybody. Get comfortable with not being okay, right, like. Often, like if you ask me, right, when I'm in a moment, when I'm like doing a training or something comes up for me and you often it'll be like, are you okay, and what do I do? No, I'm not okay, right, but it's true, it's like, but that's okay, because then at least just be present in that moment and sit with the feelings that are coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know from everybody that I've read and I read. Lindsay will tell you I'm like a repository of facts and I always quote whatever I'm currently reading. But, be it from Canfield to Mate was part of. What will help you in self-criticism is just accepting things are for the way that they are. This is just how it is at the moment. This is what I have to work are. This is just. This is just the. This is just how it is at the moment. This is what I have to work with. This is, realistically who I am and this is what I have and I will, I will. I will be successful, um, and I will, and I will be okay.
Speaker 1:And there's some interest. There's two interesting stories that I won't relay. You can go read the success principles yourself about folks, uh, that were one of the historical the. You ever remember the little, the picture the little girl in vietnam like running down the road, no clothes on, her clothes had been famous picture um. And then another gentleman who was disfigured and how they took those, those things that could have made themselves very critical of themselves and very upset about their experiences, and and they both were very peaceful, calm people who would continue to navigate the world because they had the sympathy and compassion for themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to have that compassion for yourself, all the parts of yourself, not only the parts that are successful or that you deem positive, but you have to have compassion for all those parts that you don't like.
Speaker 1:And with that being said, Lindsay, as we close out, speaking of compassion, if the folks want to do a free session or a CI recording, where can they find you at?
Speaker 2:Get to know the devil at gmailcom and tell us a little bit more about that again. So I'm doing free, compassionate inquiry sessions in exchange for recording for my full certification in the program.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, good. And if you also want to hear more about our musings and what's going on, next, lindsay's probably going to maybe start throwing me some vegan recipes that I can post In all my free time. In all her free time. If you would let me be a housewife, I'd have time for that. I used to say you got to ask Joe Biden, now you got to ask Elon Musk and Donald Trump, but I hear Doge has given out $5,000. So I will sell my-.
Speaker 2:I hardly doubt that I can quit my job on that.
Speaker 1:No, you can't. Maybe 200 years ago, but not in today's America. Okay, with that being said, this you know this has been oh, you can find me on. You can find me. I see you're going to make me close myself out. If you want to hear more of our musings or other things, you can find me on Substack at the Unfinished Life. It is a blog where I talk about musings, mental health, what's on my mind?
Speaker 2:You will see a range of essays from the Economy to Disney Plus's, your Friendly Neighborhood, spider-man, which I wrote a whole essay on mental health on which I wrote a whole essay on mental health on Okay, so We've got to wrap up now, because you promised me that you were going to help me make beefy shredded taco crumbles or something.
Speaker 1:Yes, I did Tofu. Yes, tofu Yay.
Speaker 2:Beefy shredded tofu for our burritos tonight. Beefy shredded tofu.
Speaker 1:But this has been another episode of the Devil. You Don't Know, this has been Cleveland and Lindsay. Sorry, I was drinking more. Devil, you don't know, this has been cleveland and lindsey. Sorry, I was drinking. That's fine and we will see you next time.
