208: ChatGPT For Emotional Healing: Step By Step - #GrowYourLife

Hey, what's up, everybody? Thanks for listening to the Grow youw Life podcast. I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for being with me. Today we're going to talk about how you can use Chat GPT to boost your mental wellness. And I did a short walk and talk on my social media this week where I went over this, but I actually want to break down and demo for you how this all works. And so if you're able to watch this episode on YouTube, look up the title on YouTube, and you'll be able to actually find the video of it as I go through this now, we're using GPT4, which right now has a little bit of a cap on it, but we have a way around that cap with an app called PO AI. Whoops. Not PO AI, but if I type in PO AI, we'll be able to find it. And they're running the GPT engine as well, which is awesome. So either way, we'll be able to demonstrate how you can use chat GPT, particularly the GPT4 engine that just came out because it's so much more powerful than GPT 3.5, especially at reasoning and conciseness. And that's very key when it comes to mental health and mental wellness type of scenarios. Okay, so what I do is I love using the microphone. And so one thing that you're going to want to do is download go to type in ChatGPT voice into Google and if you're using Google Chrome and click on voice control for Chat GPT. Okay, so this gives you a little microphone button that you can use in Chat GPT if you're using your cell phone. I love the microphone function that's built into the iPhone, their ability to tell what I'm saying and interpret my language and things like that. It's really, really great, really intuitive. So, but voice control works for the computer. Otherwise most of your phones have voice to text that you can use on your cell phone. Works either way. Again, you're going to want to make sure that you're using the GPT4 model, which is capped right now that just came out this week. GPT 3.5 can also work. You just might not get as good of results out of it. Okay, so we can see right here as I'm talking into the screen, it is pulling up the words that I'm saying and it's actually transcribing them right into Chat GPT. If you're watching the video, you can see the video, the words that I'm saying. Are actually appearing on the screen right here. Okay, I'm going to cancel that because I don't want to submit the message. So here's what I do. I start by dialoguing a brain dump of what I'm going through, feeling and experiencing with no edits, no nothing. And so I'm actually going to walk you through me doing this over something that came up today for me, something that hopefully I overcome. And this is going to be super vulnerable and and possibly exposing of my personality to you just a little bit. I may in fact be risking my reputation on a very deep level by walking you through this with me. So stay tuned. So what I'm doing is I'm going to describe to chat GPT what was actually going on and we're going to actually walk through the process. So I was in a Facebook group and it was a group around people that were talking about their mental health issues and therapy. And I ended up sharing some advice. Somebody was asking a question about something and I shared some advice and somebody asked me what part of me felt the need to give that person advice. When they shared immediately, I got triggered. I shut down. I felt like they were questioning me. I felt attacked. I felt like I was bad for giving advice in this setting, that I should have just kept my mouth shut. And instead I responded, I said, no, no thanks, I'm good. And then I said, well, in fact, it was the part of me that can just do whatever I want. And then I ended up getting banned from the group because they felt like that response was not very kind. And I've had this happen before multiple times inside Facebook groups where I've gotten banned because I've actually just said what I was thinking, what I was feeling, and truthfully, that's what it was. Apparently this group was not a safe space to even share advice when somebody was sharing, and I didn't know that. And then when somebody was questioning me if I was okay at doing this, I was triggered and I responded in a certain way. New paragraph. Can you help me work through this question mark? And here's the output. It sounds like you've had a challenging experience with Facebook groups, and it's understandable that you may feel triggered or attacked in a certain situation. Here are some steps to work through it. Reflect in your feelings. Take some time to think about what you felt. You felt triggered and attacked. Was it the tone? The phrasing, the content of the comment? Consider the context. Online discussions. It's essential to be aware of group guidelines and tone. Some groups have strict rules about giving advice. Others are more open to that. Practice self compassion. Remind yourself that everyone makes mistakes and it's okay to feel hurt and triggered. Try to be kind to yourself and develop assertive communication styles. So what I did was I actually did assert myself, but it was a little more on the aggressive side. And so it says, I apologize if I overstepped or if it wasn't helpful. Yeah, good advice. So now here's where I would use ChatGPT right here. Act as if you are a parts work therapist or an internal family systems therapist and write a script to help me integrate these parts of me that still feel like I'm a bad boy or a bad person because I got ostracized and kicked out and questioned and criticized by members of the group. That's what I was feeling as an AI language model. I'm not a licensed therapist, but I can attempt to guide you through an IFS inspired exercise. Please remember this is not a substitute for professional therapy. And so this is where we end up going with this. Here's a script to help you integrate the part. It feels like a bad person due to the experiences you've had in the group. And yes, this is. This is something that I've worked through and dealt with. Find a quiet space to focus. Take a few deep breaths. Imagine you're sitting in the room with different parts of yourself. You might picture the younger version of yourself as characters. Identify the part that feels like a bad boy or is ostracized or criticized or questioned by the group. Invite this part to sit with you as you listen. Practice compassion and understanding. Okay, so I'm going to pause it right here. Please write a script that scripts out the exact conversation between these parts of me and myself. In the script, you represents core self, while part A represents the part feeling like a bad person. The goal of this conversation is promote understanding, integration, and healing. Thank you for joining me. I want to hear about your thoughts and understand why you feel like a bad person when you're criticized or questioned in a group. I feel hurt and rejected by people that criticize us or question our intentions. Makes me feel like I'm not good enough or that we've done something wrong. It's like we're being punished for trying to help or express ourselves. I hear that you're feeling hurt or rejected when you experience those situations. It sounds like you're trying to protect us from feeling this way. I think I need reassurance that I'm not a bad person just because we make Mistakes or our intentions are misunderstood by others. It's hard for me to accept that not everyone is always willing to approve of me. I understand this is challenging, that we can't please everybody and it's okay to make mistakes. And I want to reassure you that making mistakes, being understood, doesn't make us a bad person. See, this is actually helping me right now. I like that. But I just don't like feeling like we're on the outside always being judged and ostracized. I need to know that we have worth and value. We have worth and value no matter what others think. Let's find ways to remind ourselves that when we face criticism and rejection, let's have self compassion. That sounds good. Maybe we can start focusing on building on a support group of people who understand and appreciate us for who we are so we don't feel so alone when the going gets tough. It's a great idea. Okay. But in that right now I'm feeling like. And this is the. This is the big part of it. Okay. I'm feeling like there's still some sort of underlying issue going on here. And so here's what I want to ask. I want. I want it to ask me a series of questions as if you're a therapist, to help us get to the root issue and identify a repressed deep memory about the issue that we're dealing with. And this is where things get fun. Can you recall a specific moment or incident in your past where you felt similarly criticized or ostracized? I can think of a couple moments where I felt this way. Similarly, one was where I was DJing and I had a guy attack me because I was successfully DJing better than him and he threatened to kill me. Wow. I had forgotten all about that. I had another situation where I had great input to give to a group for a client that I was working with. And they shut me down and said that I was operating out of demons and doing horrible things. So these were when I was an adult. What emotions you remember feeling during those events? I felt terrified and scared. I literally felt powerless. And they made me think that if I don't act right and always do the right things, I will get hurt and people will come after me. Were there any significant people in your life at the time who might have contributed to or reinforced these feelings? Absolutely. They were generally leaders. They were leaders of groups who were in charge of a group of people who basically told entire friend groups to not be friends with me because I didn't fit into the version of their Behavior that they demanded that I be. Wow, this is me just literally verbalizing out all this as I'm reading it. How have these past experiences influenced your current beliefs about yourself, interactions with others? Well, they've caused me to be cautious and to watch what I say, but I have moments where I feel excited and I want to share things, and then I get slapped in the face, just like I did in the Facebook group for actually acting on some of those thoughts that I have when I feel confident. Okay. Are there any patterns in your relationship, interactions with others that might be connected to a past experience or belief that you formed? Yeah, absolutely. Is that. I just. I. I'm not safe to be confident that when I act confidently that bad things happen and I need to protect myself from attackers, from people shutting me down, ultimately, not just attacking me, but shutting me down. Can you think of any positive experiences or accomplishments in your life? By the way, this is an area that I've been working through for almost the last week. Can you think of any positive experiences in your life that might challenge these beliefs about being a bad person or unworthy? Absolutely. I have so many clients that think that we're absolutely incredible, we're helping them. They love when I share advice. Sometimes I'm just not as prudent about when to open my mouth. How would you feel in situations where you're criticized or questioned? What changes would you like to make? Well, what I would like to do is a not be afraid to open my mouth and say the things that I'm thinking, even if it upsets people. I also would like to not be triggered and completely shut down or get reactive when somebody questions if I'm good or bad or not. Okay, so I'm going to submit that as well. It sounds like you've had some challenging experiences being threatened and ostracized by others, particularly in situations that contribute to expressing yourself. Acknowledge and validate your emotions. This is 100. Again, I know some of you are watching this, like, wow, did he make all this up? No, it's actual stuff that I'm dealing with that I've dealt with and I'm being vulnerable enough to show you and share this with you and actually walk you through how I use this stuff. Acknowledge your emotions. Reframe the beliefs. Identify any negative beliefs that you formed. Develop coping strategies, set boundaries. Build a support group. Practice self compassion. It's great that you identify these patterns. Develop assertiveness skills. Okay, so obviously being in a supportive environment is great. I'm going to copy these strategies that it's giving me and I'm going to say, can you please map out for me in detail how I can do the following as it relates to the above? Reframing your beliefs Identify the negative beliefs. Write them down. Do you have about yourself and your interactions? For example, I'm not safe to be confident or when I act confidently, bad things happen. Challenge these beliefs. These beliefs. Find evidence in your life that contradicts it. Okay, can you write down, in your opinion, 20 possible negative beliefs as they relate to the above? Then can you help me challenge these and finally help me reframe them? Coping strategies Listen to your triggers. Brainstorm coping strategies. Deep breathing exercises Positive affirmations Reaching out to a trusted friend or support group Practicing self compassion. It's so key for me, self compassion is my big one. Practice using them when faced with a trigger in a future situation, adjust the strategy that's most effective in combination. Learn about assertiveness. Learn to be assertive. Attend workshops on assertiveness. I'm probably gonna stop at generating. I want to just see what it comes up with. Okay, so we already used all the GPT4 info. Let's see if I can copy this into here real quick and see if this generates anything for us. Now. See, it looks like it's way too much text. Way too much text. Okay, so we have enough data in here, but let's let's feed GPT3 and see what it says. I'm not good enough. I'm a bad person. When I say things, I always say the wrong things. I don't deserve to be heard. I'm always going to be criticized. I can't trust myself to speak up. People always judge and reject me. Identify the evidence that contradicts with I've. For example, I've received feedback from others. I have skills and talents that are valuable. Consider alternative explanations. Maybe they're having a bad day. Perhaps I don't need to explain myself. I don't explain myself well enough. Perhaps I don't need to explain myself. I received many compliments. I'm good enough and have valuable qualities to offer. I'm a good person who makes mistakes. The ability to communicate effectively and say the right thing. I deserve to be heard and have my opinions considered. Criticism is an opportunity for growth and learning. I trust myself to speak up and express myself in a respectful way. Okay, so let's take some of this right here. Here's what I'm going to do is we're just going to take this. We're going to identify it. Going to take just these core keys. Let's bring those into pod. Okay. Message send failed. So it's too many. Too many characters for po. That's okay. And now there's progress you make. Keep focusing. Okay. Awesome. So now we fed this info into po. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back through and I'm going to ask a couple of questions. Act as if you are a psychology professor teaching a college level class and identifying the root cause of mental health issues that relate to the above topic. How would you walk your students through this process? Hello. We'll be discussing the process of identifying root cause mental health issues related to experiences of criticism, ostracism and feeling of unworthiness. Gather information about the individual's history. Identify patterns. Explore their underlying beliefs. Consider the role of cognitive distortions. That's a good one. Help me to understand this. Okay, so I gotta wait till it's done printing this out, but you see how like chat GPT can help you really dive deep into certain issues that you're feeling by letting it ask you certain questions and letting it continue along the certain path with you. Cognitive distortions are ways that the brain convinces us of something that's not necessarily true. These are inaccurate thoughts. Let's take a look. All or nothing Thinking black and white terms. No middle ground. For example, individuals might believe that if they aren't perfect, they're a complete failure. I've dealt with that. This kind of thinking can lead to unworthiness, overgeneralization. A single negative event applies brain broadly. If somebody's rejection a social situation could conclude that they're going to be rejected and fundamentally unlikable. I've dealt with that as well. Okay, let's. Let's try this right here. Act as if you're doing shadow work with me and ask me questions to help me identify my shadow. Evaluate the evidence. Become aware of the distorted thought. Ask yourself. Practice cognitive restructuring to help replace distorted thoughts with more balanced ones by addressing these distortions that can break free from cycles of negative patterns. Okay. Process of exploring and integrating the unconscious aspects of the shadow consists repressed its own. What are some traits or behaviors and others that you find particularly irritating or upsetting? I'll type it into here. We'll do the same thing. Act as if we're doing shadow work and ask me five questions to help me identify my shadow. Can you recall any instances where you've exhibited these same traits and behaviors? This is good. So what I found is that in other people I was particularly irritated and upset by being ostracized or cast out that people wouldn't listen to me or even have any willingness to hear me out. Yes, I have. When I prejudge somebody strongly, I've completely cut them off out of my life and they've gotten very angry with me and actually come after me when I've tried to keep myself safe. There are aspects that you feel ashamed of or try to keep hidden. I think that I react reactively sometimes without thinking. I say things that are out of turn that are like wow. Because a lot of people compliment me for being very articulate. I am a public figure on social media and then sometimes just out of the blue, I can completely like 180 and have a completely different personality. That's not fun to be around, that shows up. But it happens way less than it used to. It happens in triggering situations. When somebody points out a flaw about me or criticizes me, well, I get upset. I get angry. If it's somebody that I love, like my wife, like I take it in and I understand it and I'm accepting of it. But when it's just some random person, I actually get kind of upset about it, which isn't fair to them. What are some personal values that my self esteem matters and that my self belief matters. I felt envious and jealous of people who always have self confidence no matter who criticizes them and they're unwavering and don't get triggered by it. I feel like it's been difficult to express why I've been so afraid of people coming after me and attacking me. Me. Okay, so I'm going to take this into chat. GPT. I'm going to answer. It might be related to feelings of vulnerability, fear of rejection, defensive response to criticism. You mentioned that you feel particularly upset when you're not hurt or cast out by others. Defensiveness and reactive behaviors, inconsistency and self esteem. Yep, it's good. Okay, so then I would go back to act as if you're a parts work therapist or internal family systems therapist and write a script to help me integrate and unblend these parts of me. Take a moment and check in. I have tension in my chest and bit of anxiety. Feeling envious and judgmental. I think it's a critical part. Let's see over here. Therapist. First I'd like you to find a comfortable place. Take a few deep slow breaths. Identify the part of you that feels particularly present or active right now. It okay. So you can answer some of those questions. Particularly I Feel a part that is afraid of being rejected wants to just be seen or do whatever it wants. Notice the sensation you're feeling now. Imagine that you can communicate with it. What specific situations have you triggered that? How did you cope with it? Well, I shut down. I cut everybody out of my life. What does being seen mean to you? People willing to acknowledge me. So I've had situations where people criticize me that I wasn't good enough, that I was a bad person, that I should just be silent, that I should just shut up, that I'm a terrible person for speaking up. And I coped by just running away, cutting them out of my life and ignoring it all. What does being seen mean to you? Why is it important? What do you need to feel? Is that I can make mistakes and I'm not going to be beat up or punished for it. It's clear that this part of you has experienced a lot of pain and fear related to criticism of judgment from others. The desire to be seen accepted without fear of being punished or making mistakes is very a very human and understandable need. Let's explore ways to support and reassure this part of you. First, take a moment to validate the pain that you're having. Practice self compassion. Everything I pull up keeps pulling up self compassion. Find a support group of trusted friends. Develop healthy boundaries. And it's true. And so this is where then I would go to the affirmations prompt and I would have it develop a list of affirmations. I am worthy of love and acceptance no matter what mistakes I make. I trust myself to make the best decision for myself my life. I release the need for validation from others and find confidence within myself. I embrace my unique qualities and talents and share them with the world. Awesome. See what this generates. Here are 100 affirmations. I'm worthy of love and respect. I embrace my perfections and learn from them. My voice matters and I have the right to express myself. I'm deserving of kindness and understanding. See, this is deep, deeper for me. I'm feeling this a lot more. I release my fear of rejection and criticism. I'm more than the judgments and opinions of others. So this is triggering parts of me reading this that is inspiring even more. Areas where there's a part of me that questions the truth in these words like maybe I do deserve to be judged. Maybe I do deserve to be criticized. Maybe I do deserve to be rejected. And so that's how I would dive deeper. I would start to explore a little bit more and then start to journal that out and go through the same process again, asking it, okay, where did I feel, you know, come up with some questions to help me find a deep repressed memory for why I feel like I deserve to be rejected by others, why I deserve to be criticized, why I deserve to be ostracized, things like that. Okay. And so that's really. It is. You keep looping through and eventually you'll get to a point where you're kind of exhausted. That's where you take a break and you stop doing it. And I only do it for about 30 minutes. We've been doing it for about 30 minutes now because that's really kind of the limit of this is very intense level of self, sort of self therapy. But it's not a replacement for therapy. But it is a way to really kind of dive deep with yourself. And if you go five, ten layers deep with this, like, if I read through these affirmations, this is kind of a big one for me. What I'm looking for is I'm looking for affirmations that trigger disbelief in me where I don't believe the affirmation. And what that is, is that is identifying another sort of part of me that is actually reacting in the situation because it has a hard time believing that I am compassionate, that I deserve to have a life filled with joy, that I'm a kind and loving person, and that shows up in these situations where I get criticized. And so then we go back through and we figure out, okay, where did this come from? Where was the root cause of this? In fact, let's just. Let's just try this one. I'm going to go one layer deep with this again. So oftentimes I feel like I don't deserve any of those affirmations that are written there, that none of those are true, that I deserve to be criticized, that I deserve to be ostracized, that I'm not worthy of love and acceptance, that I'm not capable of handling challenges, that I don't deserve to have supportive people around me. And this really drives me in a big way to sort of fight and defend myself against others. I'm having to use these two windows here just because it's GPT 3.5 and GPT 4. Again, you'll notice the GPT 4 outputs are a lot better. Consider the source of the negative beliefs. And so this is where I would go back and I would say repressed memory questions. When did you first start feeling this way about yourself? Past experience, particularly with rejection. Have you felt a similar way in the past. If so, how did you overcome it? And I'll tell you, where I'm actually going with this is even deeper because now I'm identifying childhood memories we felt criticized, judged or unworthy. Well, growing up, my mom always told me that I was not worthy of life and that she had thought about aborting me. And I had a moment where I wanted to learn to play the piano. And I had friends that didn't like me because I played the piano. And when I told people I was homeschooled, they told me that I was weird and wasn't worthy to be around them. How did your family members respond to your mistakes or shortcomings? I was verbally abused constantly. They were always critical of everything that I did. What kind of messages you receive about your self worth? That my self worth was directly attached to me doing exactly what other people say and obeying other people at all times and never deviating from that. Were they significant life events or relationships that may have contributed to the feelings of unworthiness or self doubt? Well, I definitely can look at the when playing the piano was a big one because it was such a big part of my life that I wanted to receive acceptance from people by showing a skill set. And I instead got rejected as a showboat and lost almost all my friends. Anything of any patterns or themes that relate to your self worth? Current struggle of self worth? Yeah, that. That I felt like I was doing something great and good and other people got angry at me for doing it. There's specific people in your life that have a strong impact on your self image? Yeah, my mom and my friends did. What role do perfectionism and high expectations play in feelings of unworthiness? Well, yeah, if I do everything perfect, then I deserve for people to like me. But that's just not true. And how do your feelings of unworthiness or self doubt affect your relationships with others? Well, I end up being cautious in what I say, how I live, what I talk about, and who I talk to. Okay, so I'm going to take this right here and copy that into here. Thank you for sharing. Feel that you face numerous challenges, including verbal abuse, lack of support, and unmet expectations from others. It's understandable these shaped your beliefs and self worth. As you continue to work on these, here's some strategies. Recognize that your self worth is inherent, not dependent on external factors. Your worth as a person is not determined by your ability to please others. Your accomplishments. Even as I read that, there's a part of me that doesn't feel like that's true a little bit. Prior to self compassion, be kind and compassionate to yourself. Reframe your past experiences. As you reflect on the challenges you faced, try to identify the silver lining and growth opportunities or lessons learned. This can help you develop more balanced, resilient, effective. It's definitely getting triggering for me just a little bit reading some of this and so this is probably where I'm going to stop. I just want to type in once more. Act as if you're a parts work therapist, internal family systems. Let's take a moment and identify parts of you that feel unworthy and self doubt. Can you identify them? Yes. The root and past experiences of rejection and criticism. Yes. I think there's parts of me that feel creative and talented and that I've achieved achieve success but they get overshadowed by self doubt and feelings of unworthiness. That's so true. Let's see what GBT4 says. As a parts worker internal family systems therapist, my goal would be to help you identify and understand integrate different parts of yourself that may be contributing to your feelings of unworthiness or self doubt. The following script can be used as a guide to help you explain, explore. Let's focus your attention inwards, see if I can identify any parts that may be contributing to feelings of unworthiness and self doubt. Again, this is way deeper for me than where I'm willing to go right now, but it's spot on foreign. I'm gonna see what kind of affirmations it comes up with. I'm worthy of love and acceptance. I deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. My self worth, it's not dependent on the opinions of others. Yeah, those, those are definitely speaking to something in there that is getting stirred up as I say these things. I deserve forgiveness and second chances. Yep. Wow, cool. And so that's part of the journey. That's part of the journey of your mental health. And if you've ever worked with a professional therapist, you'll know that they kind of walk you through certain levels of this. This is a way that you can sort of rotate between these different commands, these different prompts, and sort of sit with yourself for as long as you feel comfortable. Again, for me, like I hit my point where I feel uncomfortable now and that's where I like, if I feel like I'm shutting down, I'm like, okay, I gotta go do something else. I'm not gonna push further. That's my kind of limiting point. And so I'll usually just do like one session of this a day like this that I just walked you through. And I've found great breakthrough by doing it to supplement my times that I have with a therapist. I still work with a professional therapist, but to help me work through a number of these different things. But this is a great starting place and a great place to do in your own time to help you grow, learn new things, try out some new things and just see what happens. All right, grow your life, everybody, and we'll talk soon. Have a good one.