#138: 90 Seconds to a Life You Love with Joan Rosenberg

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Hi, I'm Dr. Tabatha, the Gutsy Gynecologist. I'm a triple board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyn health and your overall And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more Band-Aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome. Hi, ladies. Today is such a fabulous episode. I'm really excited to introduce my guest, Joan Rosenberg. She wrote 90 Seconds to a Life You Love. This is such a good book, but I know Joan personally. She's in a couple masterminds that I'm in also, and so I've gotten to know her heart. And just what a beautiful person she is. And she's doing such incredible work. And honestly, this work is for all of us ladies. Like, she's figured out why we struggle with self-confidence and harsh self-criticism and not being able to take compliments and, you know, why we struggle to make behavioral changes and, and be the person that we want to be. And So she figured it all out. She talks a little bit about her story of growing up as a shy child and how she learned all of this and figured out the methods to develop her self-confidence and to lead an amazing life. And so I know you want the secrets, right? Because we all want it. We all want to be our best amazing selves. And so I just love her book. So the link is in the show notes. Definitely check it out, but stay tuned for this conversation and listen all the way through and stop and pause if you have to and come back to it. That's the beauty of the podcast, right, is it's always here for you. You can go back and listen to old episodes. They're always available right at your fingertips. You can go listen to Joan's podcast. You can, you know, Read her book, all of these things. What, what I love is when something sparks your interest or your brain, or you have an aha moment, you get one of those golden nuggets that I always talk about, like, oh my gosh, yes, I need to do that, I need to incorporate that, I need to figure that out. Go on a search and like do some work digging, reading more, listening more, finding out more. Because life is about the journey, you know, and our quest for wisdom and insight and personal growth. And so I would just encourage you to like really soak all this up and remember that daily self-care practices like listening to podcasts and incorporating new things to help you be your best self Are not selfish. They're actually selfless because the more that you work on you and feel better about yourself and can function as a human being, the better you're going to be able to take care of the people in your lives— your family, your friends, your coworkers, your employees, like whoever you care about. You know, people rely on us as women, and oftentimes we just don't fill our own cup, and we find it really hard to keep giving and giving and giving. So this kind of stuff is all part of that work and filling up your cup and feeling worthy and figuring out how to be the best version of yourself so that you're not just in survival mode. I don't believe for a second God created us to be on this earth in survival mode and just go through the mundane pieces of the day to get through, to get the dishes done, to do the grocery shopping, to Check our 8 hours at work. Like, that's not why we're here, you guys. That's not why we're here. You're created for more. So I really, I encourage you to do some self-reflection. Think about how you handle situations and how you feel, um, with the thoughts that you have and everything that Joan and I talk about today. Like this episode is for you. So I love you. I believe in you. I want you to believe in yourself. So let me just sing Joan's praises so we can get going. Okay. Dr. Joan Rosenberg is a cutting-edge psychologist. She's known as an innovative thinker, speaker, and trainer. She's a 3-time TEDx speaker, member of the Association of Transformational Leaders. She's been recognized for her fellowship and influence in personal development. She's Been on CNN's American Morning Show, OWN, which is Oprah, and PBS stations nationally, along with numerous other appearances across TV, radio, print, you name it. She's currently a professor at Pepperdine University in Southern California, and she wrote this book, 90 Seconds to a Life You Love, which I love because it provides a step-by-step method to free yourself from the tyranny of the unpleasant feelings and discover Your Truly Confident Self. Like, the subtitle is How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience, and Authenticity. You need this, I promise. It's so good. So, all right, here we go for this awesome interview. Well, welcome, Dr. Joan, to the Gutsy Gynecologist Show.

Well, thank you. It's a treat to hang with you.

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited because I feel like every time I'm in your presence, I am just filled up and your energy is so life-giving. And I am just excited for you to share your wisdom with all my ladies because I just feel like you have so much wisdom and energy to give. And you, you know, you've been through a lot and, you know, I got your book, I read your book, and I want everybody to read it. But honestly, when you talked about your childhood, like, I remembered you being there right next to me. I had a friend who was just like you, and I was like, oh my gosh, that was literally Joan. So I would love for you to share with my listeners what drove you to write this book, because your story is really powerful.

Well, thank you.

And thank you for your ever so kind words. I'm— that's a— what a wonderful way to start.

You know, I started out as a super shy, super sensitive child.

And, you know, that if I'm trying to be funny, I would say that I was so shy. If you remember Wallflowers, I like to say I was so shy, I was Velcroed to the wall. It would, it would take a lot to get me out and to, to do stuff.

And as I grew up, I felt— and I felt it early too— I felt like I didn't fit in. I felt like I didn't belong. And I have a history, you know, my background history is in childhood was also that I was bullied.

I was teased and bullied.

And so it wasn't a great combination. And I would look over at my peers and I'd see them laughing and they'd all be hanging together.

And, you know, I was kind of off to the side, just kind of really fumbling and not knowing what to do.

And what that led me to kind of question initially in life was, um, I, I was like, I wanted what they had. And what I figured out that they had later was that they had confidence.

It's like, okay, then, then how does somebody develop confidence?

Yeah, I remember having classmates just like you and feeling like I could understand them. I had empathy for them because I was shy as well, but I was with the it people, right? So I was in the right crowd, but I felt the way you felt on the outside. And I remember studying my friends. I had one friend in particular and just thinking, how can she talk to grownups? How is she so confident? Where does she get that? And So I kind of feel like I went on this journey that you just explained so beautifully in this book of figuring out how to develop confidence. And so I want to share that with my women because I hear it every day in my practice. They're like, I can't do it. I don't know how I'm going to change. They don't believe in themselves. And it's so pervasive, it breaks my heart.

Right.

And the beauty of it for me, in terms of what I put into the book, for me, the book is the how-to to develop confidence.

It's really a how-to path.

90 seconds, right? I mean, that's literally the technique. It's going to take more than 90 seconds. You got to read the book. You got to do the work. But what are we accomplishing with this 90 seconds?

So you have the confidence piece. I want to know what confidence was, right? or how someone develops it. As I got into my professional life, the second question I had is, what made it so difficult for people to deal with unpleasant feelings? And it turns out the answer to that question, I began to understand, was the foundation of confidence.

Yeah.

So that's why this 90-second idea is so important.

So what is this? So in the book, what I talk about is A way to be able to lean into your difficult feelings. It's sort of in— think of it as a kind of a sort of a formula.

And the formula is 1 choice, 8 feelings, 90 seconds.

So the 1 choice is choosing into awareness.

So being as aware of and in touch with as much of your moment-to-moment experience as possible.

And that is as opposed to avoidance.

And so what does avoidance look like? Well, avoidance looks like Shopping. It looks like using food. It looks like any kind of substance use, alcohol or other drugs.

Probably a little bit more often for men, it would—

might be sex and porn.

But it could also be things like harsh self-criticism. It could be anxiety. It could be having feelings about having feelings. So there's lots of ways that we disconnect and distract and avoid.

And I don't want you to do any of that.

Instead, I want you to lean into the feeling by choosing into awareness.

You want to be as aware as you can of what's going on in you.

Oh my gosh. This is so timely, right? Because COVID, everybody was kind of trying to avoid all the feelings that were coming up. We're sitting home and all of a sudden we're all drinking alcohol and binge watching TV and doing whatever we can to stay away from what's going on in our head because we have nothing else to do.

Right. So social media and screens are another distraction. So, yes. And part of the reason everything was coming up is because we were stilled, we were quieted, we were asked not to move around very much initially when people didn't understand what was going on. And once we start to get still, the stuff that doesn't get dealt— hasn't been dealt with starts to surface.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's why people started to check out in other ways.

Because now they were in a quiet place for stuff to actually be out there to be worked on.

So, so again, I want people to lean into the awareness to choose that. Then the next step is to— is the 8 feelings.

So what are the 8 feelings?

The 8 feelings are sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment, and frustration. And the most common question I get is, why these 8? And I will tell you, it's these 8 difficult feelings because they're the most common everyday spontaneous reactions to things not turning out not the way we want them or turning out thinking we need them to be different than what they are. So think of these 8 feelings as they're— I've chosen them because of the everydayness of them.

They're super common. And then the 90 seconds is kind of the method, if you will, or the technique that you referred to in terms of being able to lean into the feeling.

And so a couple of different things here. One is to understand we're one interconnected whole. Brain is always feeding information to the body.

The body is always feeding information to the brain.

So the second part of that then is to also understand that most of us come to know what we feel emotionally Through bodily sensations. So the example I like to give all the time is that if you were to look at me and I was embarrassed, you would probably see redness in my face. I would feel the heat of all that blood in my face. I would feel the heat of that, and that would be the bodily sensation. So this is, and this is really key. So what Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor said about—

and it was her observation around the 90 seconds.

I've just kind of utilized it.

She said that when a feeling gets triggered, there's a rush of biochemicals into the bloodstream that activate bodily sensations like the heat sensation.

Yeah.

And those same biochemicals flush out of the bloodstream in an upper limit roughly around 90 seconds.

Again, if you go back to my question about what made it so difficult for people to handle unpleasant feelings, these ideas started to answer that question. So here's the deal.

What I realized is that we actually want to feel the whole range of what we feel. I truly believe that because it gives us a sense of aliveness and a sense of wholeness when we do that.

But what people don't want to feel They don't want to feel the bodily sensations that let them know what they're feeling emotionally. So when we start to distract and disconnect and watch screens and check out and whatever, it's because we're not wanting to experience the bodily sensation that helps us know what we're feeling emotionally. That's what we want to get away from.

That makes total sense. You know, when I think about Planning to give a big speech, you're backstage and you're sweating and shaking and getting nervous. You try to push all those feelings down. You know, over time I've learned to feel through it and help it excite me and energize me. But I see that just in everyday stuff as well. Like, I avoid hard conversations because I know that it's going to physically affect me and I don't have time to deal with it. Right. So I put that to the side. So does it make sense that usually if we're avoiding it, like you're talking about, that the unpleasant feelings last longer or manifest in a different way?

As opposed to— no, I would say, I would say there's no, I would say there's unique circumstances to that.

A trauma, Trauma is different because trauma encodes in the brain differently.

Right.

And I would say the other big difference on this one is, for instance, is think of somebody that's been married to someone for 57 years and then one of them passes.

So you've got 57 years of routine embedded in the brain.

Right.

Right.

So you're going to have lingering reactions because You've got to change up whatever those routines are. And so, so that those are the 2 biggest circumstances where I feel like that stuff, it just, you have to deal with kind of the way the brain is structured and processes information and experiences. But in other situations, we are kind of causing it to linger on our own.

But I want to go back. Let me, let me come back to the—

I want to come back to the lingering thing because I want to finish one element of the That formula.

Yeah.

That is for people to understand that the way you then lean into unpleasant feelings is to, when you have a react—

when you notice a reaction to something, just notice that you're having the reaction. Take a breath.

Let your breath kind of help you lean into the experience of it.

And then the idea is just like you might be surfing ocean waves. Because that's the way feelings sort of are. They ebb and flow and ebb and flow.

Is what you want to do is you want to ride one or more of these short-lived bodily sensation waves.

And that is what helps you lean into and stay present to the unpleasant feelings or the difficult feelings.

Yeah. So you have these feelings, you feel the bodily sensations, you're either going to push them down and ignore them, or you're going to ride the wave and just feel the fullness of them. And does that automatically— I mean, I see that the biochemistry, all, you know, everything that's happening is going to resolve, like you said, in 90 seconds. And then where do you end up thought-wise at the end of that? How do you push your thoughts going forward?

Right. So, so again, there's, there's 2 ways to think about this. So let me go to the lingering part, and then let me go to what I would consider the more productive and constructive use of feelings.

Okay? Yeah.

So the lingering part is that— and this is when people go, oh, no, they don't last 90 seconds.

They last weeks, months, and years or decades.

Yeah.

And no, they don't.

Feelings are transient. They move through your body quickly. But our thoughts and our memories, If we keep on repeating certain thoughts and certain memories, then those thoughts and memories are going to pull up everything that's attached to it, including the feelings. And the more we repeat those same thoughts and memories, the more we're going to repeat the experience of the feeling as well.

Yeah.

Right.

So that's a nonconstructive way for things to happen. And that causes some lingering, this experience of lingering.

A second way is we try not to think about it. So we say, I'm just not going to think about it. But that never works because the reality is, if I, for instance, told you to not think of a blue tree, you would have to think of a blue tree in order to try not to think about it. So that will never work.

Right. Right.

So acting like it doesn't exist when it does exist never works.

And that leaves a quality of lingering. And for me, the third major kind of less constructive way of dealing with feelings And having that quality of lingering is harsh self-criticism. Because I think if you just keep on repeating harsh self-critical comments, then what you do is you— to me, that's a thought hijack of unpleasant feelings. And all you're doing is repeating the unpleasant feelings underneath that.

So those are the nonconstructive ways. The way to make use of feelings then is that— so you've gone through You had this reaction to something. Maybe you notice you're disappointed or angry about something, and that's kind of where you are. That's where you've landed. You've ridden a couple of those waves. You've kind of settled down and you go, all right, I'm angry and disappointed.

What am I going to do with this?

Well, here's the constructive use. You can use that anger. And I'm not talking about in a mean way.

I'm talking about in a constructive way, a well-intentioned way. You can use that anger and disappointment to make a decision.

Let's say a friend flaked on you for the 17th time and you go, I'm not going to make another date with that person.

Right.

That's a decision. So you can use the feeling to make a decision.

It can inform your decisions.

The next thing it can do is you can express it. You can even— so with that same example, you could go to the person and say, look, I really like you as a friend, but I continue to get angry and disappointed every time you don't show up or you flake on me. Right?

So you can use those feelings for expressing. And then third is you can use it for taking action.

I think that's so important because I'm seeing more and more women do those nonconstructive, harmful things. I used to be that myself. A lot of self-criticism and It's to the point where it's just in your subconscious and you're not even realizing that your body is doing it anymore. You're just like the record player is on repeat, right? So you just keep hearing those horrible things and you keep living into that and repeating those feelings. And I just find it so powerful to get mindful of what your body's or what your mind is saying to you and Change that conversation, like literally intervene and say something different. And so I love that you give the tools, like here's some constructive ways to handle how you're feeling, because I think that's so important.

Absolutely.

And it starts with us. Like, I, I wanted to figure out how do I have self-confidence? How do I Talk in front of people or with people? How do I connect with them? And it was really about letting go of the bad feelings I had about myself, of not being worthy, feeling vulnerable, you know, being—

And so, right. So let me— but let me—

can I challenge a little bit of this?

Yes, please.

Because, because this is, this is where I think things go off the rails. Feeling vulnerable or vulnerable to me is, is Kind of a combined experience.

So it's probably an emotional state, not a pure emotion, but it's a combination of kind of thinking and feeling that gets bound together. But vulnerability to me is more of a feeling.

But I'm not worthy, I'm not deserving, bad.

Those are beliefs.

Right.

Those are thoughts.

And for me, they fall in the category of harsh self-criticism.

Yeah.

So anything that sounds like an evaluation, a judgment, that's a thought. That is not a feeling. And so what I watch people do is derail themselves because they're not in the feeling, they're in the thought, and they're doing a ton of damage to themselves.

So your comment earlier about harsh self-criticism, I see it as one of the most self-destructive things people can do.

Yeah.

For me, it's really serious.

If I were going to do a campaign, that would be one of the things I would want to campaign on and have people stop.

Yeah. I've heard you talk about how self-criticism can spiral down to addictions and feelings of worthlessness and isolation.

No, not thoughts of Right. Yeah.

Thoughts of worthlessness. It's not a fear.

Worthlessness is not a feeling.

Yeah. So help us differentiate in the moment our thoughts as opposed to our feelings. So we just need to remind ourselves of the bodily sensations?

No, no. Again, feelings are mostly identified in one word, but Non-deserving or unworthwhile could be considered one word. But people, when people hear the words like sad or embarrassed or irritated or angry or disappointed, those sound like feelings. Anything that sounds like a judgment or an evaluation to me is a thought. And what ends up happening is That thought is typically not pleasant.

It's unpleasant, it's negative and attacking, like unworthwhile, unworthy, inadequate, undeserving, all those different kinds of things. Those to me are evaluative words. So now somebody is into harsh self-criticism, and harsh self-criticism to me is a thought hijack. of unpleasant feelings. Instead of feeling whatever the feeling is underneath, you say to yourself something that is hurtful.

So a quick example of what I mean, and I'll just give it, rather than giving you the full story, I'll just give you the words. I was in a situation where I was listening to someone and the words that came out of this person's mouth were, I'm so embarrassed. And without missing a beat, it turned into, I'm so stupid.

I'm such an idiot.

That's how quickly it happens. And the I'm so stupid, I'm an idiot is the thought hijack of the embarrassment.

Is that a protective mechanism then?

No, no. To me, it's an effort at control.

Ah, yeah. So you don't have to feel embarrassment.

I'm not in charge of when embarrassment is going to show up or how it shows up or that it shows up. So I'm not in charge of that I feel, and I'm not in charge of what I feel. I can manage it once I experience it. So let's say I got embarrassed in a situation and I'm in front of an audience and I go, oh, That was really embarrassing. But now I'm managing the experience.

Yeah.

Why? Because it's in my awareness. But the embarrassment occurred on its own and that I had no control over. So when the person said, I'm so embarrassed, and then followed it with, I'm so stupid, I'm such an idiot, to me, the I'm so stupid, I'm such an idiot, or whatever it was, was to take Control over the experience. So now if I beat myself up, now I'm in charge of how bad I feel. But with the embarrassment, I wasn't in charge. But if I talk trash to myself, I can talk trash with intensity. I can talk it with frequency. I can talk it with over hours or days. Right. So duration. So I'm trying to thought hijack the experience.

That makes sense.

But it's, again, what I will say, it's one of the most damaging things I ever watch people do.

Yeah. And you teach us how to stop that, right?

Yeah.

Well, the first thing is awareness.

The first thing is always awareness.

And then once you hear yourself using that kind of negative self-talk or trash talk or whatever you want to call it, head trash. People call it all sorts of stuff.

Right.

When you catch yourself doing that, notice the thoughts and go, all right, what was I experiencing? What was I feeling just before I started to beat myself up? And then you go back to the feeling.

And then what do you do with feeling? You ride the waves and let the feeling inform your full experience.

Okay. That's amazing. So that's why you got to read the book, because it's got all the steps. It's got everything in it, right?

Oh my gosh.

I think if we can end our self-criticism or dampen it down 80% or 90%, we would have such more amazing lives because I just think it holds us back from so much.

Oh my God, yes.

Totally agree with you.

That's what I see every day is women holding themselves back because of all the talk that's in their head around food, around their weight, around their looks, around their ability to achieve in the business world, like everything, you know?

Yeah, but all of that is distraction. Every bit of that is distraction.

Wow.

Unless you're focused on the goal and then taking action relative to the goal, then most of the negative self-talk around all of that is just distraction.

Right. And I think a lot of women are comfortable in that distraction, right?

Yeah.

To me, harsh self-criticism is an effort at controlling an experience. And anybody that is also engaged in any kind of high control kinds of efforts To me, the whole notion of control is an effort to prevent feeling.

Wow.

I see this a lot with infertility patients. I do case reviews for fertility program, and you get some Type A women in there who want to control every piece of this whole situation, and then they get frustrated because they're not getting the outcomes that they want. And It sounds like it all comes back to they're avoiding something.

You know what?

I did a sequence of groups for people who are challenged with infertility, and we got onto some of this as a topic, as a focus. And there is a desire for control, but Part of what's important here is that you allow yourself to experience what's truly there. So people have disappointments because the conceiving didn't happen, right? Or numbers weren't what they were supposed to be, whatever it is, whether it's blood work or hormones, or we can go on and on in terms of the specifics of that. But you have to be able to be willing to deal with the disappointment and Or embarrassment if people are asking you questions about how come you don't have a kid yet or whatever. But it's staying open to the experience rather than the judgment and rather than the effort at control.

So where does hope land in all of this? Because I feel like going through this process as a young girl and as a teenager and in my 20s, You know, I kind of feel like I was on this path that you're outlining in your book and trying to figure it all out. And I always relied on hope. So was that me, like, shifting my thoughts into more positive thoughts to shift how I was feeling, do you think? Because I feel like people who lose hope, they can't do any of this stuff, honestly.

Again, first thing I would question is how much is losing hope tied to harsh self-criticism?

What I hear you doing is even though you were baffled by things or struggling, there was a part of you that believed something could be better.

Mm-hmm.

Even if you weren't seeing it and even if you weren't feeling it, there was a part of you that internally held that something could be better. And what I hear you doing is you just want to, okay, that's, and that's an important belief, frankly.

Right?

So, and I talk about resilience towards the end of the book.

I would call that a resilient attitude. So there's a total place for hope. If things are difficult, you can have hope, you can have faith.

You know, if you're going to believe in, if you're going to believe that bad things happen and you have those kinds of faith beliefs, you can also have faith beliefs, if you will, that something good can happen.

But holding on to this idea that something better can come or is coming, to me, that's a resilient attitude and belief. Absolutely. So there's a total place for this.

Yeah, that makes total sense. Because I just feel like if you don't have that, you're right, then you're focused on the negative. You're stuck in the harsh self-criticism and you're just going to get more of what you're asking for, whether, you know.

Yeah, but not the good stuff.

No, not the good stuff at all. So the other piece of it is I see so many women not able to ever take compliments Or, you know, feel like they deserve the good things that are said about them and come their way. And is that just more of the self-criticism blocking all of that? I see that with husbands all the time or with girlfriends. They're like, oh my gosh, my, my friend is amazing. She's incredible. And she's like, no, no, no, no, I'm nothing. I'm not worthy. You know, why do we do that?

It's Well, I think a lot of the reason we play off compliments is because we're socialized to do that in probably virtually every religious discipline.

And then culturally, don't get a big head. In Australia, it's tall poppy syndrome.

Don't stand out from the crowd.

So there's all sorts of things.

Your head's going to get so big you won't be able to walk in the door.

Right.

But let me, let me talk about a couple of different things here.

And this for me is, is another soapbox, just like, just like the harsh self-criticism is.

This is the flip side. So hang on here. If you engage in harsh self-criticism and you don't accept compliments, think about this. Where does the good come in?

There's no place for the good.

No, there's not.

Harsh self-criticism, dismiss compliments. There is no place for the good.

I lived that way forever. It sucks. It feels horrible.

Yeah. So to me, compliments— and compliments are one of the—

I think there's like 5 super big things that I would say in terms of how to develop confidence. Ending harsh self-criticism, And accepting compliments are 2 of the 5.

So what's the deal with compliments? The thing that I would want you to understand is that compliments to me are a reflection of you back to you.

So think of it as if I'm holding up a mirror and I'm saying, Tabatha, this is how I see you.

And when I say that to you, It's coming out of an experience of you or an experience with you. It's not coming out of the blue. I'm not just, you know, dragging something out of thin air. It's coming out of an experience with you and of you. So if you go, oh, no, no, no, no, it was nothing. Oh, it was luck. Whatever it is, whatever you did to play it off, not only are you dismissing my reality, You're actually dismissing your reality because my reality is based on an experience of you.

Yeah, I find that so damaging. I remember my ex-husband saying to me once, like, you are insulting me when you don't take my compliment because you're saying that what I believe isn't true. And it stopped me, and I had to realize the problem was I didn't believe what he was saying, so I was disagreeing with him. Right? So, right.

So, and that's sometimes we hold such a low view of ourselves that it's so discrepant that we won't believe, that we don't believe what we're being told, except we have to understand that we're being told it based on an experience of us.

Yeah. So maybe we need to stop and say, hey, maybe there's some merit to that. Why don't I just say thank you? And stew on it for a little bit.

Right. Well, actually, actually, right. As somebody that we were both around added another piece to that, and I would love to add that. And that is, thank you.

I received that.

Yes. Lisa Nichols.

Right. So, and then it's just allowing yourself to sit with it after. So again, so the other thing I would want people to understand is you're not going to get arrogant. If you start accepting compliments, you won't get arrogant. And I would almost say I promise that.

Yeah.

And the reason why is because what sounds like arrogance is just the opposite. So if I have to tell you 17 times that I'm great at something, then I'm not really feeling it. I'm feeling the opposite. And that's why I'm telling you 17 times. But if I'm asked and I tell you once, twice, maybe 3 times, and I say, you know what, I'm really good at playing racquetball, or I'm really good at playing tennis, or I'm a great, you know, I've won awards for my piano playing, whatever it is, that would be telling the truth. And then it stops there because there's no need to talk about it further. It just is.

Yeah.

So what looks like arrogance and conceit isn't. It's the opposite.

It's more a sense of inadequacy or inferiority.

And when you receive compliments and you take them in, the purpose of them, in my mind, is to update and uplevel your sense of self and self-image.

Oh, my gosh. I love that.

So if you don't take them in, then you stay locked in an old kind of an old view of yourself.

Yeah. You're like looking at a picture instead of a mirror, right?

Exactly. Exactly.

Right.

Yeah.

Right. So when you start to allow those compliments to come in, you actually then go, oh, wait a minute. You know what? People are seeing me the way I most desire to be.

That's going to do a lot to change your sense of self and self-image. Yeah.

Because I think we get stuck in the past and how we, how we used to be, and we're not seeing, like, how much we've accomplished and who we are now. Like, I see that a lot. Like, women will be going to the gym for months and they'll look physically different to me and they're— they'll act different, but in their mind, they're still the same person that they used to be. And, oh, I like that. Like, accept the compliments so that you can update the picture of yourself, right?

And uplevel.

Yeah.

And uplevel. Oh my gosh, that's so important. So, yeah, you need to accept them and receive them. And I know how uncomfortable it is. I actually had a patient last week say— I was talking about my group program and some things we were accomplishing because she was asking, she was interested. And she said to me, aren't you so proud of yourself? And literally, I felt taken aback. Like, Physically, I thought, that's really uncomfortable. How do I answer that? I want to be secure and, you know, show her my confidence as her doctor, but I don't want to be arrogant, right? And I was like—

It's not arrogance.

No. And I decided to own it. I was like, you know what? I am really confident, or I am really proud of it because I've worked hard for this group and I'm, you know, doing everything I can to help them be successful. And I felt so much better after I said that. And, oh my goodness.

Right.

So she was, she was simply reflecting truth back to you.

That's very cool.

Right.

And so the moment that you accepted it, you, you actually became more congruent. Right? The more congruent you are, the more, the more emotional strength you have and the more confident you are.

And I would even say, like, my group call that week, I think it was the next day, was, like, so strong and powerful. And the women all told me how amazing they were doing. So I do feel like when you put that stuff out in the world, that's what you get back. It's that powerful.

Yep.

Oh, my gosh. So good. So good. So if women want to learn how to build their confidence, be more resilient, be their authentic selves, like, we just have to— tell me the thing again. The 1, the 8, The 90.

Well, no. So, no.

Think of the 1-8, the formula, which a friend of mine called the Rosenberg Reset.

Think of the formula as the method for leaning into unpleasant feelings.

So the 90 seconds piece is the method piece.

I will tell you, the magic is in the 8 feelings.

Okay.

The real magic. As much as the 90 seconds thing is helpful so that you stay present to the feeling, The truth is that's a major piece of it.

But what's even more important is that you understand how powerful your ability to lean into those 8 unpleasant feelings is.

Okay.

So there's one choice awareness. Second is the 8 feelings: sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment, and frustration.

The magic is in those 8. And in order to lean into them, it's writing one or more short-lived bodily sensation waves in order to lean into them. Then you can make use of it for decisions, for expressing yourself, for taking action.

So that's the first step. The second step is speaking up.

There's a— and I'm as adamant as I am about compliments and harsh self-criticism, as adamant as I am about The importance of speaking up.

Yeah.

And it's not that you're confident and then you speak up. It's actually even not that you know yourself very well and you speak up.

The truth of the matter is, as you speak and through speaking, you actually gain confidence. So it goes the other direction and you come to know yourself better. There are probably times where you've said stuff, something popped out of your mouth and you went, oh, I didn't realize I felt that or believed that. I think that happens to everybody. So the truth is that the more we speak, um, the more confident we become.

But there's a caveat, because in my mind, your capacity to speak with ease, which is the focus for me around this, is, is doesn't give you license to be malicious. Right.

I mean, in, in terms of telling the truth of your experience. So that I do—

I want you to tell the truth of your experience.

Yes. But I want you to do it from a kind and well-intentioned place.

Oh my gosh, that's so important.

Yeah. So for me, that's the, that's the, that's the kind of the guideline or the rule that goes along with you speaking your truth.

Do I want you to speak your truth?

Absolutely. 100%.

Kind and well-intentioned cannot come from a different place. You don't get to just go step in and go, okay, I'm just going to tell you what I see.

Right?

Because that would be not coming from a kind and well-intentioned place.

Okay.

Asking a person that you had some observations or you had some thoughts, um, and would the person be open to hearing them, um, because you thought that they could be helpful, that would be coming from a kind and well-intentioned place. So the 3rd major step is taking action. So similar to speaking up, Um, it's not that you are confident and then you take an action or take a risk.

You take the risk and take the action, and through that you develop confidence. So again, both of those work in reverse.

So it's a little, a little counterintuitive.

I think that's probably the most important point right there is you have to live into who you want to be. That, that is how, that's how I did it. I decided I want to be this woman. What is she going to do? On a daily basis. And I started doing that. I didn't feel like that woman first and then do the actions. I did the actions and then I felt like her.

Exactly. Exactly.

And then the 4th and 5th are ending harsh self-criticism and accepting—

the 5th is accepting compliments. Okay.

And then the other thing that I want to say, because I don't want it to kind of get lost in the shuffle, is Why is the—

or how do I look at kind of confidence from the standpoint of those unpleasant feelings? Why is that so important?

So there's 2 things around that for me.

One is I found that people who had a hard time dealing with unpleasant feelings didn't feel very capable of handling life.

Right.

They backed off from pursuing things.

They backed off from engaging in things. And it just wasn't good. And it was most commonly those 8 feelings that people would feel that would hold them back.

Yeah.

So for me, it's also understanding then that the foundational piece is being able to handle those unpleasant feelings and that in my mind, the definition of confidence is that you have the deep sense that you can handle the emotional outcome of whatever you face or whatever you pursue.

And that comes about first with being able to handle the unpleasant feelings and then being able to build on that with the other 4 things. There's more to it, but that's really the— if people do those 5, life-changing. If people do the first one, it's life-changing.

Right. Any of them.

Anyone, any one of them that you do, life-changing.

Yeah. Without a doubt. I'm here to say it. Like, I've lived everything you're talking about. And just acknowledging those physical sensations and, oh, connecting them with what just happened, then it's not so scary the next time. Because you could even say, oh, I might get nauseous, you know, once I deal with this situation, or I might have a hot flush face or want to pass out. Like, if you know going in, I think that you can handle it better. So I like just identifying the feelings, the bodily sensations, the thoughts that contributed to those feelings, and shifting it all. That's really amazing.

Absolutely.

There's actually something I want to build on with what you just said because it's so important. If you know that you have the capacity to handle those unpleasant feelings, those 8 unpleasant feelings, then anything you need to do, you go in with the awareness that you can already handle the undesired emotional outcome. And if you go in with the awareness that you can already handle the undesired emotional outcome, you can pursue anything you want.

Yeah, that's so true. Oh, my gosh. I'm like, that's crazy because I feel like I'm living proof of your book. That is exactly how it works. So bravo, well done.

Thank you, Doctor.

Oh my gosh. So everybody needs to read your book, 90 Seconds to a Life You Love, and start implementing these 5 strategies, you know, right away. How else can they follow you? Can people work with you?

Yeah, people can work with me.

They can reach me through my website. Um, and they may be able to find me other ways. I don't know. Actually, I've had people direct message me through Instagram or things like that too.

So the drjonerosenberg.com would be the direct place for people to go. That site temporarily is going through a little bit of work, but you'll just see what you see for now.

And I'll deal with my own embarrassment, my short-lived embarrassment.

No, it's, uh, it, you know, It's everything is, everything is growth and everything is something in progress. So, um, so drjoanrosenberg.com. Um, if you use that same Dr.

Joan Rosenberg, you can find me typically on Twitter or Instagram and, and the like, and on LinkedIn, same thing. There's, there's a few TED Talks out there if people want to watch the TED Talks. So there's, there's just a lot of, there's a lot of resources. Awesome.

Well, I'll just put those in the show notes so that everybody can just click down below and connect with you because I know that everybody needs to do a little bit of growth and self-awareness. And even the people who seem to have it all together, I think there's always room for improvement. But I think the majority of us are kind of, you know, stuck in this situation. We need some help. So thank you so much for being such an amazing resource. Love it.

You bet. You bet. Thanks for having me.

Oh my gosh, I really hope this hit home for you on one of those key things we were talking about, whether it's harsh self-criticism, not being able to take compliments, avoiding unpleasant emotions, not speaking up for yourself, or not taking risks and action. So If you need to work on any of those, it doesn't have to be all 5, you know, it could be just one, then I would really encourage you to read her book and start implementing the steps because that is where the freedom lies. That's where your freedom lies. You know, I, I trust Joan with everything. Like, her word is gold to me because I have seen the transformations that she helps create with people, and she's just so wise. I remember I had the honor of being at JJ Virgin's house for a very intimate, um, training with Lisa Nichols. Oh my gosh, Lisa is incredible. You need to check Lisa Nichols out on YouTube. But we were going through some really tough stories of our past, and Learning how to communicate them as speakers. And so there was a lot of crying going on that week. And, you know, I was judging myself. I was thinking, why can't I stop crying? Why can't I get past these emotions? Why are things from 30 years ago still so painful for me to relive? And I looked over as Joan was talking and addressing the group, and she was crying, and someone offered her a Kleenex, and she declined it. And she said, I want to feel my tears. I don't want to wipe them away. I just want to feel them. And that was really powerful to me. Like, just go through the feelings, acknowledge them, feel them, ride the wave, and they will pass so much easier than if you try to stuff them down and bury them and be ashamed of them and hide them. And so that was really a powerful, beautiful moment that I had. But lean into Joan. She's an amazing, great resource. And I hope you got some value out of this podcast today. And I'm sorry that my dogs are barking and being annoying. So they want me to go. But quickly, I want you to share this episode with all the women in your life, especially if you know someone who's struggling in these areas. So check out the links in the show notes for Joan's website, her book, her TED Talks, all the good stuff. And add something in your life. Figure out your golden nugget, incorporate it in your life. Let me know how you're doing. I'm here for you, ladies. Go have a kick-ass week.