In this episode of the You Winning Life Podcast, host Jason Wasser (SPEAKER A) and guest Christopher Michael (SPEAKER B) explore the concept of "emotional reality" and how it is shaped by intergenerational, cultural, gender, and hierarchical influences. They discuss how these deep‑seated patterns often surface as an uneasy feeling that builds until it becomes uncomfortable, prompting either suppression or a breakthrough. The conversation emphasizes the importance of early awareness of one’s current beliefs and how those beliefs drive future choices. They highlight a nuanced form of ownership—recognizing how one has allowed certain patterns without self‑blame—and the power of proactively defining the kind of relationships and experiences one wants (e.g., loving, joyous, connective). The dialogue encourages listeners to interrupt the automatic flow, identify the underlying beliefs, and consciously decide the direction of their emotional reality before discomfort forces a reaction.
Chapters
The languaging expresses your emotional reality. And your emotional reality is that programming, right? It's intergenerational themes and culture and gender and hierarchy stuff and all the, you know, all those things that trickle down and get trickled onto us. But whether we realize that we're accepting it or that we're not accepting it is part of the nuance, right? So what, Christopher, you were alluding to before of like this dataset that just keeps moving the train forward, and then one, then we start getting this ill-at-ease feeling. That you've been describing, right? That something doesn't feel right. But we can't yet put our feeling— our finger on it until it builds up and builds up and builds up and becomes so uncomfortable that we either just keep shoving it down or we finally deal with it. What I want everybody to hear from that is that we are each organically predisposed to our own threshold of when we're going to make the change around that based on our personal context. Of all those different arenas in life. And what I hear, I think you're offering, is how do you get ahead of that? How do you offer looking at it and deciding upfront what you want that to be versus waiting for it to really be uncomfortable for you and then reclaiming all that?
Yeah, yeah. Wouldn't it be great if you could just interrupt it immediately and just say, I recognize where I am, awareness. And I know that the beliefs that I hold right now are contributing to everything that had been going on. So what is it about what I believe that I'm now aware of that is going to inform the next choice that I make?
Right. And I think that level of empowerment is, so I don't like what showed up for me. How did I choose— not how did I, right? How did I choose to allow that, right? In other words, it's that a little bit of that ownership without beating yourself up. And I think that that's the clarity, right? I know one of the things that you and I both agree really powerfully is the clarity on making those proactive decisions. And like you said, calling it out, putting it in, this is what I want my relationship to be, loving and joyous and connective and all the wonderful verbs. And what are all of the different ways, you know, the way that I love that you phrase that, how, what are all the different ways that can show up? Wouldn't it be great if I can look at, if I'm able to give myself the ability to see that differently, or in a way that I wouldn't expect it to show up?
Yeah, instead of coming at it like it's a problem that needs to be fixed, because it just is what it is, and it's not a problem. I see what it is right now, and I know that it's not what I am choosing right now. What am I actually choosing? And then how can I use language to set my sight to where I'm going rather than tether myself to the way that it's been? Yeah.
