The Psychology of Healthy Relationships | Dr Thema Bryant

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From your past dating relationships, pull the wisdom out of the wounds, right? Look at yourself. Is there any way that I contributed to the problem? And then I can bring that wisdom and that lived experience. So like, I know I would do things differently.

Dr. Tamar Bryant, former president of the American Psychological Association,

director of The Culture and Trauma Research Laboratory and author of Matters of the Heart: Healing Your Relationship with Yourself and Those You Love.

A professor of psychology at Pepperdine University and is the host of the popular The Homecoming podcast.

What do people maybe misunderstand about the importance of investing in yourself so that you can have great relationships with others?

You can keep doing what you've been doing and achieving what you've been achieving, but you are worthy of the joy that comes from fully being in tune with yourself. And I want to invite you to not neglect yourself and not erase yourself.

So once trauma happens, how does that impact our relationships with others?

Trauma often creates shame. And so then when people are living with shame, they often shrink. This gets to relationships. It can shift our expectations. So you can believe that this is what love looks like. They love me and they beat me, or they love me and they did these other things to me.

What do healthy relationships look like?

Healthy relationships are authentic. For your folks who are watching who aren't yet married but maybe want to be married, when you're dating, they must pay attention to—

That's cool. First of all, I'm so excited to sit with you because you hold a space about relationships that's really important for me, for our community. And so thank you for all your research and your commitment to really understanding how relationships work. So thank you for being here.

Oh, you are welcome. And thank you so much for having me and cultivating this space and this dynamic audience.

Yeah, I wish that we had more live experiences so that we could hear from them. And when And when we do have them, like, the questions are on point. All right, leading question here. You have spent much of your professional life understanding how relationships work, what makes them, what breaks them. What do you hope people will learn from this conversation today?

That one of the biggest predictors of their wellness, their mental state, will be their relationships. We often think it's our accomplishments, our achievements, our degree, our bank account, our home. All of those things. But what really shapes your life are the people you spend the time with, and it can make it or break it.

Yeah. Is the bulk of your research or the bulk of that finding from the longevity study at Harvard, or is it from other resources as well?

Right. Other resources as well. A big part of my work is also with trauma survivors. And so when people are going through hard life events, you know, whether we think about death or grief or loss or a medical issue, it makes a difference if you're going through it by yourself or if you feel like you have a dream team of sorts, not just like a medical dream team, but like family and friends that are processing it with you. I also work with trauma survivors in terms of people who have experienced interpersonal trauma like community violence, gun violence, assault, domestic violence. really hard things. And a big part of what shapes their recovery process is, do I have people who treat me sacredly, who care about my healing and my recovery? Or do I feel like abandoned by the world and that no one cares?

Love that you introduced the word sacred. I'm going to put a pin on that because I want to come back to it. Let's start upstream with your working definition of trauma. Because it's a unique way into the power of relationships.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, so let's start with, help us understand your understanding of trauma.

Yeah, so a traumatic stressor is an experience that overwhelms your usual capacity to cope. So we have regular stress, daily stress, and those are usually experiences related to our different roles. So you might have a role in your family or a role at work, Role in the community, and we kind of figure out how to handle that stress of like, oh, I'm the parent, I have to do this, or I'm the CEO, I have to do this, and, and we kind of make it work. And then there are life events that happen that are disruptive. We think about traumas as disrupting our sense of ourselves, disrupting our ability to trust other people, disrupting our ability to manage our emotions. And so they are experiences where we can feel hopeless or helpless or unsafe or powerless. And so sometimes people will misuse the word and will say things like, oh, there was a lot of traffic. It was traumatic. Well, no, it was stressful, right? And so traumas can come in different categories. They can be interpersonal, which means somebody did something to you or a group of people did something to you. There can be a medical trauma. There can be a traumatic death. So if you had a loved one die by suicide or homicide or suddenly in some very intense way, that could be traumatic. Natural disasters can be traumas. And when you're dealing with a natural disaster, often you're not going through it alone. It's like everybody around you is going through it. And then a trauma that not everybody talks about too, that not everyone talks about, one is intergenerational trauma. So the impact on you if your parents survive trauma, it affects the way they raised you. It affects the way you look at life or look at the world. And their nervous system was shifted by what they experienced, and they can pass that down to you. And then we think of something called societal trauma or the trauma of oppression, which is basically if you are a member of any group that experiences being marginalized, that can be traumatic. So members of your community who grew up in poverty, people can say that poverty can be traumatic. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism. So a discrimination based on a group you're a part of could also traumatize the nervous system.

Okay, so I think I just watched you work. You work in grids, don't you?

Yeah.

Yeah. So what I mean by that is you went down the 7 or 8 different types of trauma. You went across 3 lanes, self, others, and emotions. You walked us through the dysregulation component of it. And then, but the whole time you were also connected to the honesty of it for you, right? Meaning that this is not just an academic exercise while you've trained or studied relationships. I imagine you put yourself, because of that, you put yourself in your work.

Okay.

That's tricky to do. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of recovery from the intensity of that vulnerability. That's probably why you're so good at it.

Oh, thank you. And I like to tell our students that I teach at Pepperdine University and to let people know their lived experience is a source of wisdom, right? There are some things you get from the book and that's wonderful and please study the books. And then there are some things you know 'cause you lived it. So if I'm with a client who isn't really breathing, I notice that not 'cause I learned it in a book, but I know what it's like to hold yourself tightly.

Yeah.

And to not be breathing. So when I say to someone, Do you wanna take a breath? And they kind of laugh and they're like, how'd you know I wasn't breathing? It's like, oh, I know what that looks like.

Yeah. Yeah. Because you know what it feels like. Right. Or just because you know what it looks like.

Yeah. Both.

Yeah.

Both.

So I did a bunch of research on what I think is the greatest constrictor of human potential, of one's potential, which is this slippery little, nearly, Undetectable fear of other people's opinions. And for fun, we called it FOPO, fear of people's opinions. And I wrote about it and did the research because I needed to understand it.

Yeah.

It was my way of working out what is this thing I have? What is this thing that kept me back? And so with all sensitivity, what is the reason you studied trauma?

To know that it's possible to heal. I needed to know that for me. And I described these different types of trauma. So I've experienced multiple ones. I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, which I always like to give a shout out to Baltimore that has many beautiful things.

I was going to say, are you about to say the source of my trauma?

But yeah. Right. Yeah. Some of it. Especially growing up at very high rates of community violence. One of the things that struck me as interesting, because sometimes you don't know what you've been exposed to until you're out of it. And so I have 2 kids, and I remember picking up my daughter from 8th grade and she looked kind of stressed. And I was like, what's going on? And in 8th grade, she had just witnessed her first fight. And that was mind-blowing to me because I don't know the first time I saw a fight.

It was early.

Yeah. People were fighting all the time. So it was like—

In your living room?

In Baltimore. In your living room? Yeah. No. And then the community and in school.

Yeah. Okay.

And so it was like, oh wow, like you've never seen a fight before. That's amazing. That's how great for you. But so that, and then I lived in, as a teenager, my family moved to Liberia, West Africa. Amazing. Which again was amazing 'cause for the first time I saw everyone in a position of power look like me. Right? The head of the university, the head of the bank, the head of the government. So when people say you could be anything you want to be, like, I saw that. I saw that, like, I could be anything I want to be. So that was the beautiful part of my time there. During my second year there, there was a civil war. So we ended up being evacuated, and it was like a whole experience. And so whether we say community violence or, like, national wars, that traumatic things can happen and can you still live a good life?

Did it dysregulate you?

Oh, certainly.

Yeah.

When we were evacuated, one of the things that's disorienting is I came back to the States where not only did people not know a war was going on, but most people couldn't tell you where Liberia was on a map. So it's very disorienting when you're worried about people's safety. Like, you know, the communication system wasn't great, so you don't know where people are. or how they're doing. And then, you know, as I said, I was a teen. So I come back and people wanna go to the mall, right? And do like very frivolous things. So that, it took a moment, like to get back into myself. Yeah.

Yeah. For survivors, not survivors, but folks that come back from war.

Yeah.

There's a reacclimation phase and it's heavy. Some people, no problems. They slide right back in and you know, kind of worked for them. We actually thought it was a high neuropeptide Y was a differentiator. I don't think that's held up, but trying— the research was really trying to understand, why do some people slide back into kind of an ease into their family or whatever, and why do some have such a hard time? It was jarring for you or traumatic?

I would say both, because in addition to the shifting of environments, there's also the grief. People died. And I think it's important for us also to name that being impacted is actually a sign of wellness.

Meaning that?

That if I experience war and death—

Like your daughter.

Right. Yeah. If there's war and death all around me and I'm like, I'm good, I'm ready to do my 2 o'clock, my 3 o'clock, my 4 o'clock, then there's a disconnect that we are—

Yeah. That's not natural.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

That would be, what's the saying? Like an unreasonable response to an unreasonable—

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So that was, I don't know, decades ago.

Yes.

And is it still in your body or is it—

No, it's not. And that's a beautiful thing. I appreciate the question because some people, when they talk about events, they're talking about it like it was last night and it was decades ago.

Right.

Right? That it's— that they're stuck in some ways. And so I'm grateful that I can have compassion for my younger self, compassion for, you know, families that were devastated, but I don't live in that.

Does Bessel van der Kolk have it right that the body keeps the score, that trauma is a somatic experience and a cognitive and psychological and behavioral? Is it all of that or is it primarily somatic?

It is all of that. And I'm so glad that the field is getting back to, I'm going to call it cultural wisdom, that our bodies and our spirits are affected. We're not just floating brains, floating cognitions, especially if the body was the site of the violation. It shows up. And so I would say, especially for our high performers, that it shows up in migraines, it shows up in nausea, it shows up in backache. But they would say, I'm not depressed. I'm not anxious. But your body won't let you sleep at night. So there's something else going on, like all is not well.

What do you do with folks that are seemingly operating on all cylinders, but they report that they're not rested in the morning? And you ask them, how'd you sleep? And they say, oh, I slept 7 hours or 6 and a half. Ideally, you'd want them to sleep somewhere around 8. And then they're sophisticated enough to say, well, here, do you want to look at my biometrics?

And they have the data.

They're measured some kind of way.

Yes.

And they show you the Oura Ring or whatever, and it's, let's call it like 5% to 7% is in REM sleep, or 5 to 7% only is in deep sleep. How do you work with that?

Yeah, I like to help people to think about the invisible labor, right? Like our body and minds are working, Even when we're sleeping, and so then there can be this restlessness. When we talk about soul fatigue or that someone's bone tired, like when your soul is tired, when your bones are tired, that's the kind of fatigue that a nap won't fix. That you're not just physically exhausted; there's a deeper piece there. And so, as you say, like someone who's performing at this level, sometimes. That is someone who is driven. And what can drive us is the fear of scarcity and the fear of unworthiness, right? So if that's what's behind this constant motion, I like to let people know, I see you beyond your doing. Because busyness is a masterful trickster. Right. When you see someone very productive, you're like, oh man, they're doing it. They must be great. And you can be very productive and very busy and very miserable.

Yeah. Well said. It used to be a badge of honor, and I think people are no longer appreciating that badge, meaning that I'm busy is code for like, I don't really have direction and I am unoptimized. And like my soul and my spirit are not part of my work, but my emotion and motor are really big.

It's running.

Yeah. So when people say to you like, oh, you busy, right? It's like, well, wait, hold on.

Right. What is going on here?

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All right, okay, now I understand why you wanted to do this work. What do people maybe misunderstand about the importance of investing in yourself so that you can have great relationships with others? Can you talk about that dynamic?

Yeah. I think what often happens is we are raised, many of us are raised to be very outward focused. So instead of people kind of interrogating themselves or developing themselves, What people have often done is studied other people's reactions to figure out how I need to be in this space.

This, this was a big part of my work.

Right. Hear people's opinions was like— That's exactly—

A made-up story or an actual story. Yeah. Like, how am I bouncing off of what I think they're thinking?

Yes. What I think they think and what I think they want. And let me say, for some people, it's a safety issue. Of like, I'm trying to figure out how to make people happy because then I'll be safe, then I'll be rewarded, then I'll be chosen, then I'll be loved.

Were those 4 or 5 words purposeful?

Yes.

Can you say 'em again?

Yes. Then I'll be safe, then I'll be chosen, then I'll be promoted, then I'll be loved.

Is there an order there?

People often think about the safety first. I'll be loved.

Yeah.

And so for that, I would say, You talked about, was there violence in the home? If someone grows up with domestic violence, then they have described for me learning to study people's footsteps. They could tell by the way the parent is walking down the hall whether or not it's about to be trouble. And so when you live, or even if you're in an abusive relationship or with an abusive boss, to survive, you study them. to figure out how to please them so that you can be safe or try to maximize your safety.

What do you think? When you think of 100 people in a room, what percentage of folks are still trying to sort out if they're safe?

The majority.

I think you're right.

Yeah. 'Cause not just physical, but also emotional safety.

Is that an earned guess or is there research behind that?

Yeah. Well, unfortunately, you know, when we look at these rates, Here's the thing with trauma, going back to trauma, when we first— and I'm not gonna say we, this is before my time. When they first looked at— I do the same thing. Right? The field, the we, the we.

Yeah, but I've never done this research, but we looked at it, yeah.

So when they first looked at defining it, the word rare was in the definition

of

trauma. Trauma was defined as a rare event. And then they had to take the word out because it's not rare. Right? The number of people who have experienced molestation, the number of people—

Do you know any of these numbers off the top of—

Yeah. So we would say like 1 in 4, 1 in 3.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yep.

So—

And surprisingly, that number, there's a difference between genders and a surprisingly high number for little boys.

Yes, absolutely. You would say, some would say like 1 in 6.

That's right. Which, that's a surprising number. Surprisingly high number.

Yes, it's huge. And even, I'll tell you, when I did some work in the military, I came in looking at military sexual assault and the experience of women who were enlisted. But once I started doing the work, found out that the higher number is men who have been sexually assaulted by other enlisted people. And that doesn't get talked about. There is that loyalty and that silence Or get dismissed along the lines of like hazing. But numerically it makes sense, 'cause of course there are many more men in the military than women, but those stories don't get told.

Yeah. So when you think about the safety, for just the sake of not having the research at our fingertips, like would you be as bold to say as 2/3 of a room of 100 are sorting out safety still?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

More or less?

I would give it 2/3, yeah, to focus on physical and emotional. Yes. Which actually, that definitely makes sense when we think about even around resources, right? Absolutely. Who are the people with the major resources and what are the number of our nation that is struggling financially, that experiences housing instability, food insecurity, and the reality that we don't live in a meritocracy. And I think that's what messes some people up is they come in and just say, I'm going to work hard and be promoted. And you can work hard and not get promoted because a part of it becomes relational. And if they say— there are some companies where by the time you get an interview, you could do the job. They don't interview people who couldn't perform. So then a big part of their decision-making is who they want to be with. It's like if the majority of people coming in for this position could do the job, now it's about something else. And so the relationship is important, relationship building. And for some people that's very hard.

Yeah, there is a bunch of research on likability, and I'm not bringing this up because that's the only variable, but there is a variable. You're competent. The person maybe feels like, oh, I could see myself working with you. But you're not likable, then what are the characteristics of likability and unlikability? I'm not exactly sure, but I know that there is good research there if someone wants to understand that.

Right. Part of it is this warmth, approachable, flexible, like your ability to communicate, to connect.

Did you just describe likability? Yeah. I think you just did, didn't you? Yeah. Well done. Thank you for cleaning me up. Yeah. Because when you said warmth, I was like, oh, that's right. That is actually one of the core criteria. So what are they?

Right. Warmth, communication skills, ability to connect, and flexibility, which comes with engagement. Do I feel like I'm interacting with a wall or someone who can be shifted or affected by me?

Yeah. Okay. All right. This is great. There's so many places I want to go here. Are you more interested in the healing process or are you more interested in building relationships from wherever a person is? Meaning somebody is doing well in their marriage or teammates or coworkers, whatever? What is your orientation?

I would say both and, but I usually do start with the healing of the self just because— I'm going to give a double, a contradictory answer.

We can hold complexity. We can hold it.

We can hold it. Thank you. One is when I'm not in a good place myself, it's going to affect who I choose and it's going to affect how I show up in relationship. So that could sabotage it to begin with because I'm not in a good place. So that's on one hand. On the other hand, I push back on the notion that you have to be all healed and all wonderful in order to be worthy of love or in order to have a loving relationship. One of the things I've discovered with clients is people can get to a good place single, But once they start dating again, it's going to trigger some of that old stuff because it's just easier to be well by yourself, right? Like, you don't have somebody up in your face trying to, like, connect with you. So people can say, like, oh, I worked on myself. Very good. And I feel like I'm ready to date again. Beautiful. And then once they start, you know, now we're going to have more work to do. And that's okay.

I remember kind of my first experiences in therapy. I was like, oh, there's no one else here to verify what I'm saying. Like, okay, now hold on, I got to be really honest. So I really appreciated that, that moment. Like, okay, this is on me. And then fast forward a handful of years, my wife and I were doing some work, and when she entered the picture into the, into the— I was like, oh man, this is way better. Because like, I'm this and I'm trying to do this. Right. And she's like, What world are you living in that you think that that is how you are showing up? Right. Well, what do you mean? Right. And so now we are in the honest— like there is a mirror being held up in witness of another

highly

interested person that is working from frameworks. Listen, I know you are going to double down on this, but I am going to say, if you have not done work on yourself and have not done work with your partner, There's a whole world in front of you where things can be so much more dynamic and better. And there's deeper intimacy, there's more fun, but you gotta earn it.

Yeah.

Yes.

And that is so important. One, I love the piece of like another perspective because we are like narrative. We are telling the story from our vantage point. And sometimes, most of the time, like we can't see the other side of that. Some clients will try to do it and will say things like, well, if my partner was here, they would probably say this. Or to try to kind of even it out some. But yeah, it's very helpful, even family therapy, because there are different tellings of the same story.

Can you speak right to somebody that is absolutely, like, they're doing great in life? Why do they need to invest in the things that you have come to understand? Speak right to a high performer.

Yes.

Like, why? Why do this work?

Yeah. Can I speak right to them?

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Okay.

They've been waiting for it.

All right. They've been waiting.

Yeah.

Very good. It is not that you need to, it's that you deserve to. You can get through life without it. You can keep doing what you've been doing and achieving what you've been achieving, but you are worthy of the joy that comes and the clarity that comes and the rest that comes from fully being in tuned with yourself, from telling yourself the truth and then living based on that truth. To know that after all of the external doing, there is a part of you that has not been tended to. And I want to invite you to not neglect yourself and not erase yourself.

There's some words in there I don't usually use.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I self-neglect.

Yeah. And erase.

Mm-hmm.

Deserve.

Right.

All right. Now the framing is set.

Right.

For those of you who don't think you need the work, the stage has been set. Yes. And I think that— I do think, like, if you think about potential, this is an investment in your potential because nobody does the extraordinary alone. You need a relationship with yourself that is rad, is awesome, and From that place, develop relationships with other people. And when you come together for a shared vision, a shared mission, a shared purpose, the relationship is what carries it with yourself and with others. So, all right, now let's get into your framework just because I'm putting 2 asterisks, truth-telling, which you just said, and being sacred or the sacredness.

Yes. Let's do that.

Yeah. From, from earlier. Yeah.

Sacredness from earlier. Sacredness.

Yeah. So go into your theoretical framework first. Okay.

Yes. Yes. So with liberation psychology, the criticism that liberation psychology gives traditional psychology is that there has been an overemphasis on the individual and a lack of attention to context.

Well done. Yeah. Okay.

So that we are affected by our environment, and that's not only our family environment, but it's also our political environment. And I think most people could connect, right?

God help us right now. Oh my God.

With political stress. And some people say political trauma. So we're affected by these policies, we're affected by government, we're affected by all of those things. And so to come into therapy and think that it's just about your cognitions, absent of all of that, is problematic. It's just not accurate. So it allows us to invite people to think about and to talk about how the larger world, including the political environment, has affected their mental health.

So you're working in context.

Yes.

So full stop.

Right. And that's going to be the same for feminist womanist, is pay attention to context. An example from that would be if I'm working with a woman who has body image issues, it would be really shortsighted if I thought she was the root of that alone. Or, you know, or just her mother. Like, your mother dieted a lot, so like you and your mother are the reason you have body image issues. As if we are not bombarded with all of these images as soon as we can perceive that present this very narrow idea of what is beauty. So it's like you're having to push through all of that. And also it's affecting men as well now too, of like, How you're— what does the leading man look like, right? And as far as I am from that, that it is a struggle to see my beauty or my worthiness when all of these messages say like, I'm not that guy or I'm not that woman.

Yeah. Okay. I just need to preamble. I'm not adopting this, but I wanna push so that I can hear it from a multidimensional way. Okay, that sounds great. You see, hear my tone here?

Like, great. Doesn't sound great.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

That sounds terrible. Yes.

Wouldn't you think that? It's such a leading kind of— Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. However, it is the responsibility of the person. So great that you understand their context. How does that help?

Because when we talk about creating healthy lives, it is not just about individual change, but individuals change systems.

Okay. So you're doing a pebble in the pond. You start with the person and there's a ripple effect outwards.

Yes. Okay, great. So let's say, for example, let me say this. If you say, yes, working in corporate is very stressful and there's nothing to be done about that, so you just got to focus on you. That's usually how it gets presented.

That's how, yeah.

But if we're talking to leaders, these systems don't just have to be like this. We don't have to maintain systems in the ways in which we inherited them. So there are some toxic things, there are some dysfunctional things. We would talk about it as industrial organizational psychology. So now you have the power, you have some power. So are you going to continue to sustain an unhealthy system? Are you going to do to newcomers what was done to you because you think that's the way for companies to thrive?

Yeah.

And so we see some shifting in that. Where, you know, I had a friend, I won't name the company, but a friend who worked at a company where they brought in like the gym and brought in the yoga and, you know, did the various things, you know, for happier workers. It changes the environment. So that is the kind of thing we can do when we pay attention to context.

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Yeah, cool. I thought you were going to go a different direction. That's why I wanted to push on it. I thought you were going to say, no, look, if you're trying to understand a person, because that's kind of the major potency of a relationship with a therapist or psychologist, is like, No, you go into a sacred space, you create this environment where you could fall into 1,000 pieces because it's in that liminal space, that in-between space that ahas happen and realizations happen and healing takes place. If you're trying to do that, you need to understand the context of their thoughts and the context of their behaviors. So it is—

It's both/and.

Yeah. Okay.

So you can do some things about your environment, but also a way of knowing because Here's a thing that is very suspicious, right? So when psychologists do, or therapists, social workers do an intake, so that's like in your first meeting, they ask you questions. We'll ask you questions about your sex life. We'll ask you questions about drug use. We'll ask you questions about your work, about your family, all these things that we have deemed important. We'll even ask you questions about your trauma history. But when I say, we should ask people questions of if they've ever experienced discrimination, the pushback I get is, Taima, that sounds political and we don't want to be political.

Ooh.

Yeah. Right? So then it is, which question is— so you can ask someone about their sex life and their drug use, but you don't want to know if they have been mistreated based on their identity? Right? So that's very revealing.

I don't understand. Right. And I'm thinking like, yeah, it's like, it's not on an intake I was ever introduced to. And matter of fact, like, it's an interesting question on intakes is, have you ever been in a lawsuit? Like, that's even more kind of off.

Right. It's random. Like, that someone has decided this is important for me to know this. Yeah. Right.

Discrimination as well.

Right. Yeah. Yes.

We will ask about abuse.

Right. Yes.

Yeah.

We'll ask in detail. We feel like it's our business. But not to ask that. And another category, just like we've been doing more attention to the body, I'm glad people are giving more attention to spirituality. Going back to our sacredness, the majority of people in the US and the majority of people in the world think that their spiritual beliefs are important to them. And so then to go routinely working through human beings and never ask them about their spiritual or religious traditions It's like we're missing it. For people who it's not important to, then it didn't matter so much that you didn't ask. But there are people for whom that is a very core part of their identity and the ways in which they cope and make meaning. And so it's important that we not leave out the body and not leave out people's spirituality.

I'm blanking on the researcher right now that points to a person's sense of religiosity and spirituality is the number one protective factor for mental health. Not a nice-to-have, but the most significant. And I'll put a link in there, but it's Dr. Lisa Miller that did that research, and it was phenomenal. We had her on the podcast. She was amazing.

Oh, great. I love that.

Yeah, she was great on that. Okay, let's move into trauma and microtrauma for just a minute. There's a difference in my mind between the two. Do you separate the two, or do you—

Oh, I don't use microtrauma.

Yeah.

So I usually say traumatic stress and stress.

Okay. And stress means chronic or acute? You're just opening that space up there. It could be, yeah. But is your stress traumatic or not?

Yeah, it's, is the stress traumatic or not?

And who makes it so? Or what makes it so?

Right. So it goes back to our definition about things that are disruptive, that create a sense of hopelessness or helplessness or overwhelm, or that disorient you. So it is a more intensive process than stress. The reason I'm hesitating is when we look at the definition for PTSD, there's something called Criteria A. And the Criteria A would be events like a shooting or sexual assault, things like that.

Car crash, sexual assault.

People do now also talk about emotional traumas. So if I'm not going strictly by this PTSD definition, then I would include that in that, meaning For example, harassment that wasn't physical, but that was emotionally overwhelming, I would say could be traumatizing.

So once trauma happens, it enters our sense of self. And there's lots of ways that we could kind of open that question up. How does that impact our relationship with ourselves? How does that impact our relationships with others? And I think you're gonna go, you could go to lots of places, but if you could make it as simple for somebody like me to understand.

Okay, sure. So trauma often creates shame, and I want to distinguish shame from guilt. So guilt is, I feel bad about something I did, and so now I could not do that again. I'm sorry and I won't do it again. Shame is, I feel bad about who I am. And so then when people are living with shame, they often shrink. they often hide, or on the other side, some people overcompensate, right? They're— underneath is the shame, but outside, I'm like, I'm amazing, right? Very grandiose and—

Welcome narcissism.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So—

Welcome hubris.

That shame can keep us in a box. It can also feed the depression and the anxiety. It can cause us to try to overcompensate because we're trying to earn love. And earn value. It also, if the trauma happened early enough, this gets to relationships, it can shift our expectations. So you can believe that this is what love looks like, right? They love me and they beat me, or they love me and they did these other things to me.

They embarrassed me.

Right, yes, yes.

They ignored me.

Yes. They marginalized me. So we're like, you know, this is what love looks like. So it can set us up in that way, it can create an anxiety. So there's these different attachment styles. With anxious attachment, no matter how much people express that they love you, it's hard for you to believe it. So you're always feeling afraid they're gonna leave or that you're not gonna be enough, that fear of abandonment. And that can be very frustrating 'cause to the partner, they're like, you know, I told you I love you. Why are we coming back to this now? Right, yeah, you know, I need the reassurance, you know? So it can make you anxious. And then for some people, it makes them avoidant. And so avoidant, usually people have given them the feedback that they're emotionally unavailable.

Which one intrigues you the most, avoidant or anxious attachment?

Here it is. It's like with a caveat. Avoidant when they desire relationships. Because if they're avoidant— because some people are avoidant and they're clear they don't want to be bothered. Then there's really nothing interesting there. They've already decided and they're—

This is my safety base level of relationship. Right.

I'm living my life and I'm not bothering anybody. I let people know, no, I'm not interested in relationships. So, okay. It's more, let me see, interesting or intriguing or challenging. I have people who are married and avoidant. I have people who desire connection and relationship and they're avoidant. And it can be confusing to them, as well as, of course, confusing to their partners. Sometimes these are people who are not really in tune with themselves, so they don't understand what their partners want from them. It's like, they want me to open up, but like, open up and say what? Right? Because they're like, they're not checked in. So they're not intentionally not letting people in. They haven't cultivated that space. So they can tell somebody wants something from them and they don't know how to do it.

I don't spend a lot of time in relationship work with people. I really enjoy it when I used to do it, but I don't spend a whole lot of time in that now. I think that that numbing or disconnection would be growing in kind of modern therapy. Is that the case?

Yes, very much so. For multiple factors. One, the pandemic. People, you know, spent time disconnected, and some of our young people grew of age where they, like, have gaps. Like, they missed a socializing time or a dating time where now people prefer text than to talk to people. And then we have, like, the whole social media dynamic where you can feel like you have a lot of friends, But like aren't really known. So there is a real reality of loneliness. And I like to say to people, loneliness is not something to be ashamed of. It simply means I want deeper connections than I currently have, which is a beautiful thing to want.

Yeah, you've done that twice. You've destigmatized in a very eloquent way, moving from the symptom, the label, to the craving.

Right.

Or the desire that sits underneath of it.

Yes.

Yeah. And so I want to be in a great relationship with my wife. I want to be in, like, great relationships with people. What do healthy relationships look like?

Yeah. So healthy relationships are authentic. So it's— and that's an act of trust, and it's a risk. Of like, will I let them in to actually know me? Because as long you know those early stages, if they're knowing my representative, like we haven't built relationship yet, right?

My representative. Yeah, right. My my kind of public facing. Yes.

What I think I'm supposed to say, blah blah blah. And it's like, wait, have have they met you yet? So authenticity. And then there's mutuality and reciprocity. So being both a giver, being a generous person, and also able to receive. Because sometimes some people are givers and it's hard for them to receive. So trying to study within myself, you know, where do I lean and how can I, you know, show up more authentically? And here it is.

So I've got a model of trust that has been really good for me. It helps me a lot. It helps me for self-scouting, self-analysis, and it helps me in conversations with other people. And it's also helped me for selection when I'm asked for a professional organization to pick talent that's going to be a good fit, like for the NFL. Yeah. And it rests on 3 legs to the trust triangle, if you will. Integrity. Am I the same person that over a glass of wine and a cup of tea or high stress, do I hold up of who I say I'm going to be?

Okay.

Benevolence is the second, which is like, can I convey how this is good for both of us? Not just good for me. And then the third is like, do I have the ability? Do you trust my logic, my skillset? So do you trust my benevolence, my ability, and my integrity? And if I'm ever in a place where somebody's pulling away from me or something, but I want to have the relationship, I check in. I'm like, what's up? And no one ever says, I don't trust you. They don't say that. But then if I can poke around a little bit, like, hey, is this something that I said? Is this something I didn't say? And I'm trying to figure out, is it benevolence, integrity, or ability? How do you think about developing trust? And do you use a similar model or do you have another framework?

Yeah.

Because trust is kind of the— it's the water table for the whole thing.

Yes, absolutely. One would be honesty, right? If— because some people either say what they think you want to hear or they're saying what would ensure they don't get in trouble or face a consequence. So then we can't have trust if we don't have honesty. Right? The second part of it is honoring the agreed-upon covenant.

What does that mean?

It means couples have different rules, or even if they're other kind of relationship, our friendship has different rules or expectations. So what have we decided works for us, and are we honoring that? And people do that very differently. Some couples have rules about social media that you don't follow random people or you don't follow your ex. And some people are like, I don't care. They follow their ex, they're friends. So whatever that agreement is, especially as a therapist, it's not for me to give you all your agreement. What is your agreement? Right?

I love that you say that. And I'm laughing, not because of the example you just gave. I'm in my own head laughing, thinking about my wife right now. We were going through, it was some tension that we're going through. I can't remember. I'm blessed with being able to forget quickly some stuff.

You're like, something happened.

And I like a clean bed before I leave my bedroom. You pull the sheets back up or whatever. And so I pulled my side up. I left hers. And it was a moment. And so I'm downstairs and she goes, so that's how it's going to be? This was not our agreement. So my wife is an extraordinary truth teller. Can you go back to truth telling? Yeah. There's a difference between just saying what's on your mind and like conveying truth.

Yes.

So can you, can you help the viewer listener on how to be a better truth teller?

Yes. A part of being a truth teller. Well, one thing I think that gets misunderstood about truth is some people take truth telling to be an excuse for being mean or harsh. Right?

I think it's so lame.

It's so terrible. They're like, well, I'm a truth teller. They just can't handle it. And it's like. It's not only like what we say, but how we say it.

Yeah.

Right? I can tell the truth in love. I could tell the truth with care. And my intention when I tell the truth is I'm not trying to be hurtful. Right? I'm trying to be honoring, even if it's a hard truth that I need to say.

Yeah.

Right?

And when you say hard truth, the way I convert that is that it's hard for me to say it. Not hard for you necessarily to hear, but first and foremost, it's hard for me to say this because I don't wanna hurt you. I don't.

Yeah.

But what I do want more is I want more togetherness. more something.

Yes.

And so this is hard.

Right.

And sometimes it is hard for, for the other person.

Yeah.

No matter what. Yeah. That's true. So, but I first wanna use the filter first. Like, this is hard for me to say.

Yeah.

This is not easy.

You know? Uh-huh.

And that, what that does is it helps me be more tender. Right. It helps me be more caring and thoughtful if I go that. Yeah. So,

so, so that's one.

Coach us. Keep going.

Um, the way in which I deliver my honesty. Another one is, and why we often recommend for couples to do like kind of weekly meetings or whatever you wanna call it, to not let things accumulate. Because sometimes they're like, well, I didn't get a chance to say it. Or they wait till you bring up something else to bring up their thing. And they're like, well, now that we're on that, I have 5 things I've been holding. Right, yeah. So it's not only—

From 6 years ago. Right, exactly.

The way I say it and the when of, so it, To be honest, I try not to hold it, right? I want to express it as soon as possible as a part of the honesty.

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You got to be on your game.

Yeah.

Because you have a full life.

Yeah.

Our listener has a full life.

Yeah.

You got to be on your game. This is why it's so important that you eat right, you sleep right. You know, you do your internal work, because it is so easy just to kind of push some of this under the carpet. Oh, yeah. And for me too, like, right. And I want a great relationship with, with everybody as different contexts and shapes, because it's so easy to be like, It's so hard in some respects to actually create a disruption in the flow when the aggression or microaggression or the ignoring or something that happened, like, okay, that was yesterday. Well-intended. Sometimes you gotta,

I

do think you roll over things just

fine.

But do you agree with that?

I agree that it is like, pick your battles and like, if you're really affected by it, You want to say it. Can I really release it? Was it kind of like, uh, that was weird, but okay?

Yeah, right.

Or if I'm still holding it, then me not saying it is going to create a problem because now they don't know what it is. There can be no repair because I'm operating on the surface like things are fine, but I'm accumulating resentment underneath. And also you're going to keep doing it if you don't know it bothers me.

Yeah, that's right. In some respects you owe it to yourself to say.

Right. And that's another part of the honesty is be honest about how you feel, which is, you use that word tender. It is a more tender thing than to just name the behavior. It's like, I felt what about that? Right? It made me feel—

So how do you start a truth-telling conversation?

Well, one, it is helpful if you go ahead and do like a regular time to say like, whether it's gonna be on the date nights or it's a different night than the date night, 'cause we want date night to be drama-free. Date night is not the time to get into it.

Yeah, yeah. Right, okay.

Okay, date night is fun night. Okay, now we're in our meeting. And so I would say a good way to start is for both people to give an appreciation of something this person did this week that you appreciated. And then, you know, we can go into anything that happened this week that bothered me or didn't sit right with me. And as they're sharing theirs, part of honesty also requires us to breathe and release the defense and the explanation so that I can actually hear.

Yeah. You said something in your book that, by the way, I love how you write.

Oh, thank you.

You said something in your book that was cool, which was at some point you need to make a decision. I can't remember how you said it, but at some point, You need to make a decision. Are you going to be the lone soldier fighting the war of what— you said it better than I just said, but at some point, are you going to allow yourself to be part of rather than always defending or protecting yourself?

Right. Yeah. To be able to get to the we. If I want to build this up in a strong way, then I'm not just looking to defend my ego or my intentions. Is I'm trying to build the us. And so then that removes the winning or losing. I won the argument, the argument with the person you're trying to cultivate this harvest with.

I love when— I'll go back to my most important relationships are at home for me. And when my wife says to me or to my son, hold on, hold on, we're on the same team.

I'm

like,

That's right.

Hold on.

Right.

Yeah. Thank you for the pause.

Yes. You know, so good.

And then another thing that we use to de-escalate is like, not a code, but like, hey, panda bear is her code to me. Like, hey, I know you. I love panda bears.

Okay.

I think panda bears, like, they're apex predator because nobody bothers them. And so they get to roll around and have a great time in life. Like, you know, hey, panda bear, which is like a fun little jab. Yeah. And there's always a wink and a little spark behind the eye like, hey, you are not who you think you are right now. So give us another maybe best practice that we can be better in relationships.

Yeah. Not taking each other for granted. You're talking about family life or marital life, to be intentional of, I don't want us to slip into being roommates.

Yeah. You mentioned that a lot in your writing. Okay. So how do we do that?

Right. It means bring the romance back, bring the care back, bring spontaneity back. 'Cause you already know your person, unless, you know, you're new. But if you know each other, so often it's not a mystery. Like, you know what they like. You know what's gonna bring a smile to their day. That for most people, it doesn't require some big grand thing. I know there are some people, and you see those little videos where someone planned a surprise for them, and they're just like, you know. But most people, It's simple pleasures. Instead of the word triggers, which is a reminder of traumas, there's something called glimmers. So what are—

This is new to me too. Yeah.

The glimmer.

The glimmer.

So things that pull out the joy, like mini joy bringers. It's like, oh, I want to give my spouse, my partner a glimmer today.

Really cool.

Yeah.

I would love for our, our Finding Mastery community to go on like a little glimmer training. One act of glimmer a day.

Yeah.

Post about it. I don't know if we'll actually do this because I don't know how to get that going, but that would be a really fun, quote unquote, competition or accountability. Right.

To see that. Yeah.

Imagine the ripple effect that you just inspired the—

Right.

Yeah, that's true.

It's true. And especially I'll say for people to see leaders or successful people Doing like these simple joy bringers, right?

Yeah. You know, one of the things that I, I do with coaches in sport is I would do this with the Seattle Seahawks, is that we would compete with each other.

Mm-hmm.

Quote unquote compete. Mm-hmm. It's, this is meant to be more fun.

Yeah.

Is that, you know, the days are long in pro sport and the commitment away from family needs to be thoughtful. And oftentimes it's actually quite selfish.

Mm-hmm.

And so there's this conflict. Like, I love doing this thing, call it coaching in this case. I love my family.

Yeah.

And I go, well, okay, how are you going to resolve that? And they're kind of caught. So one of the things that sounds super simple, but we'll both grab 14 postcards and somebody will take care of the postcard. Once you write it, they'll put a stamp on it for us. And we're competing. And like every day we're going to send a thoughtful note to someone at home, spouse or otherwise. Yeah. And come to find out, if you grab 14 and you know that somebody else also grabbed 14, I haven't had an experience yet with a coach that I'm competing. Yeah, they write 14. Can't write them. You have to write them one day at a time.

Right.

But it's a small little thing. If you grab 14 and you— 14 postcards.

Right.

And then you mail them.

Yes.

And somebody else in your community, you're like, okay, let's see who's got it.

Right, right.

Can you, can you step up and do 14?

Yeah.

Like, We both end up doing it, which—

That's good.

Yes.

I like that.

It's an easy one.

Because it creates that culture of like—

Appreciating your people that are probably sacrificing way more than you are.

Yep. Yeah. And I will say along the lines of, for your folks who are watching who aren't yet married, but maybe want to be married, when you're dating, to pay attention to what people's love language is. Because a person whose love language is time, this arrangement probably won't work.

Yeah, good point.

Right?

Yeah, really good point.

So there are other people who are like, as long as they get the words or the cards or the affection or whatever it is. But if someone is very much like kind of needs to be up with you every day, it's not personal.

The letter's actually not going to work. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Good point. And for folks that are not sure, you know, how to do the relationship, the dating slash marriage, they're still kind of bouncing around in between. I've been fortunate. I've been married 31 years. So all that being said, for those folks who, you know, don't quite have like their bearings, like anything other that you would add to that for that community?

Yeah, I would say recognizing What you value, what's important to you, because sometimes we're choosing based on things that aren't really significant or don't have the sustainability, right, or the staying power. And also recognizing— I like to say, from your past dating relationships, pull the wisdom out of the wounds, right? Look at yourself in terms of, like, the fact that These situations didn't work. And yes, it could be that, oh, they were just a terrible person. But is there anything that I would want to shift about me? Is there any way that I contributed to the problem? And then I can bring that wisdom and that lived experience. So I know I would do things differently.

If a version of you is not something outside of you, and a version of you does not require set experiences to happen. But the versions of you are things that happen inside of you that are predominantly required for some insight and some truth-telling to yourself and some commitments to yourself to grow into the next version. But it's already inside you. You're just not it as much as you would hope to be. How many versions have you been through?

Countless. It's an ongoing— I was actually having a conversation with someone earlier today, and what I was saying is, Many of the lessons I've learned at a certain point, it's a deepening as opposed to a brand new. You know?

Yeah.

It's like as life shows up, the truth is revealed in a deeper way. But it's been an interesting stretching. So I'll share that a little over a year ago, my mom passed from breast cancer. And I was super, super close, am super close to my mom. Still. Yeah, still very much so. Very much so. One of my biggest, most appreciated compliments is people who know her, who see me and are like, you remind me so much of your mom. And I'm like, yay. But I'll tell you an interesting shift in terms of identities. So I have one older brother, and so I've always been like the little sister. And even though you're grown, you're an adult, but you're the little sister. And so After my mom passed, someone called to ask my brother something, and he had them call me. And they said, quoting him, he said, we had to check with you because you're the matriarch now. I was like, how does the little sister become the matriarch? That's different.

Mm.

So that's been a— but I'm embracing it, the evolution. So maybe that's my newest self.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

Very cool.

Okay.

There's something to be said about the path of wisdom.

Yeah.

And it is not for age. It is for time under tension.

Yeah.

And internal discernment to get to that place. And it's not a function of age. It's like you have to earn it. Yeah. So it sounds like you're earning it or have earned it. Definitely. Yeah. Well done.

Yeah.

If we knew what you knew, How would we lead better?

If you knew what I knew, you would not leave yourself behind. You would show up in the truth of who you are and recognize that anything less is tokenism. So tokenism is like when your face is in the place, but not your spirit, not your wisdom, It's just, you got it. You got the spot. You're holding the spot, but you're not really there. You're just filling in. So I would encourage us to refuse to be tokens and to be transformational leaders, which means the change has to start with us.

What you just shared and how you shared it, I wanted to ask you another question, and then I thought I'm kind of running over what I'm feeling to ask that question, which is, There's so much heartfelt care in what you just said. And so it probably touches what you just said more people than look like they are the token. And more people look like they're the representation of something. But what you just said is like, are you really bringing you forward?

Yes.

No matter what race, gender, color.

Like, are you there?

Are you really there?

Are you present? Yeah. Or dialing it in.

I love that. It's almost a mic drop for me to stop talking, Mike, because that, you know, that is the great calling, I think, that you are making for other people.

Yes.

Well, and thank you.

Oh, you are welcome. Thank you.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah. It's really good. What did we not hit that's important for you?

That you're not stuck. And sometimes, you know, it's that sunk cost. So sunk cost is this idea in social psychology, the more you've invested, the harder it is to walk away. And especially in this day and time when people have like 3 and 4 careers, or when you said the new version of yourself, that if it's not fulfilling, don't say, as one client said to me as they were complaining about their job, they were like, I said, have you thought about looking at other jobs? And she goes, I only have 10 more years till retirement. Oh my God. Oh my God. A decade? A decade? No, don't do that. Don't do that. So if it doesn't speak to you anymore, if it's not fulfilling, or maybe it never was, give yourself permission to consider turning the page.

Radical. It all comes down to—

To collective liberation. For you to be free and to be intentional about freeing others.

You're calling on what is broken about self-help. Self-help, 1980 phrase, probably earlier, but it's like, invest in yourself so you'll live a better life. Come on.

Yeah.

Ignore the coral reef of humanity, please, is what that's saying. It is. Just take what you can from whatever. The whole purpose to invest in yourself is to invest in so that you are a great teammate, a great partner, a great person in this ecosystem. Yeah. So

I love that.

Yeah. If we knew what you knew, how would we parent better?

If you knew what I knew, you would dance with your kids. Yes.

Is that—

is that— yes. Yes. That's a real thing. That, that just symbolically or metaphorically dance with them. Have your children seen you joyful? And is the only time they see you joyful is when you're doing something that doesn't involve them?

That's cool.

Okay? Let them see you enjoying their company.

That's cool.

Yeah.

What a fun conversation. Thank you for the commitment to relationships. Thank you for what you're doing for our community by being here. And one final question for you is, when you're in a conversation, this conversation or other conversations that are more natural, I guess, in some respects. What's happening for you? What are you attending to that we wouldn't know that you're attending to?

I am listening for what is being said to make sure I grasp that, but I'm also trying to hear what's not being said. So the understory, the unspoken, and trying to tap into that.

Are you paying attention to the emotionality under the narrative? Yes. Or you're paying attention to the empty space that has not been filled yet?

Right. Both. I'm paying attention to the pauses and silence. When you caught yourself and said, I'm about to go over my emotion, let me slow down. So the emotion, the silence, and I'm going to say a third part is spirit. Yeah.

You've said that 4 times.

Yeah. And I enjoy your spirit, which is a— it's a different thing than your words, which I enjoy. Great questions, but I enjoy your spirit. To me is a deeper—

Oh, that, that, that was actually for me.

Yeah.

That was a compliment. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. That was an observation.

Yes.

And when you say spirit, what does that mean to you?

Some people think of it as a, as your heart. And I would say, you know, even a deeper place than your heart.

It's funny that you say that because I was going to ask you, and I didn't, what is happening behind your eyes? And I didn't. I didn't find the right kind of moment to, but you have something that's happening behind your eyes.

Mm-hmm.

And the exact opposite would be the death stare of the 1,000-mile stare, or whatever the saying is, where it's just flat and there's nothing. And then most people are so tired that they can't get that spark.

Yeah.

To shine through. And then some people, they've got this thing.

Yeah.

That's behind their eyes. And yours is not like this piercing spark. It's this warm care is like what it feels like. Like you've got stuff in there that you understand and that you are not judging and critiquing. You are not trying to solve. You are being present and there's a warmth behind it. But I, that was me trying to, But what is happening behind your eyes?

Yeah. As you were talking, I thought the matriarch is here.

The matriarch. Yeah. She arrived. Yeah. Where did the adolescent go? Wait, hold on. Yeah, right. Yeah, right.

That. And I would say soul food, or I encourage people to do morning rituals or morning devotions so that when you— morning sacred practice. So when you go out in the world, you're not showing up empty. You've tended to the fire.

What is that practice for you?

It, for me, can be reading, meditation, prayer, drinking tea, watering my plants, journaling. What the morning looks like varies, but the most consistent part would be reading and prayer.

The mechanism is to fill your cup.

Yeah.

The mechanism is not to check the box that I did these 6 things before I could leave the house.

Yeah. Funny story. My son's now 13, but when he was younger, once they're teenagers, they sleep in a little more. But when he was little, he'd wake up early. And I had the unfortunate experience of— I told y'all I'm from Baltimore. So I had the unfortunate experience of being asleep in the room and feeling a presence standing over me. And I open my eyes and it's my son. And he goes, you forgot my breakfast. Oh, hello. It's still dark outside. I'm like, what in the world? And I made a commitment, this is not how I want to start my day. So I would get up before he gets up so that I can nourish myself. So that I can start my day with something in my tank.

That's really cool. Yeah. That idea to feel something scary like that and then say, wait, I don't want this anymore, so I'm going to make some changes. Because he was trying to take care of his needs. And then there's this exceptional ability, let's call it, or skill for people that are really intentional but do amazing things in their life, whether it's at home or in the boardroom, wherever it might be, on the pitch, is that they do cast forward. They use their imagination to think about, okay, let's say for you, he's 13 and he's going to be out of the house in 5 more years. Okay, in 5 more years, yeah, you know what would be fun is to know that I made him breakfast 9 out of 10 times or whatever. So casting forward in a way that— and you can use a little bit of like, ooh, I don't want that. You can play the negative movie out.

Like,

no, I don't want to be the mom that was sleeping to get her extra 12 minutes of sleep in. So casting forward is—

Appreciating the moment. Because as everyone tells you, it goes fast. And it does. Because I have a daughter now, I shared, about to be a senior in college. And we're like, oh my gosh, where did the time go? But also teaching him how to—

Short years, long days.

Yes. Yes. And he does now know how to make a bowl of cereal. He can even make an omelet.

That's pretty good for 13. Yeah. Well done. Okay. Thank you again. This has been a real treat. Where can we find you?

drtama.com is my website, and that will connect you to my social media, which is Dr. Tama. And then my podcast is the Homecoming Podcast. The video version's on YouTube, and then the audio is on the other major platforms. And the book that you were talking about is Matters of the Heart: Healing Your Relationship with Yourself and Those You Love.

Awesome. Well done. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next time on Finding Mastery, we're going back into the vault for a conversation with Mikaela Shiffrin we first released back in 2024. Mikaela is one of the most successful alpine skiers of all time who has continued making history with Olympic gold in 2026. In this conversation, Mikaela reveals how she manages extraordinary pressure, learns to trust her own voice, and finds freedom in the process of becoming great rather than simply winning. So join us Wednesday, October 21st at 9:00 AM Pacific, only on Finding Mastery.

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