Top Psychologist: How To Heal From HEARTBREAK, LONELINESS, & REJECTION To ATTRACT Healthy Love | Guy Winch

It actually starts before the heartbreak. When people begin to fall in love, you become addicted. Love is an addiction. That's why the withdrawal of love is the form of withdrawal.

Dr.

Guy Winch.

Guy received his PhD in clinical psychology from NYU. He's been working with individuals, couples, and families in his private practice in Manhattan since 1992. Guy Winch.

A brain doesn't distinguish that well between emotional and physical pain. This is true in functional MRIs. They look incredibly, incredibly similar. Between emotional trauma and physical trauma. Pain. Emotional pain and physical pain. The divorce rate is so high and people are so unhappy in relationships. We should be teaching this stuff in schools. Relationship dynamics are like cement.

You can mold it when it's wet. It's much more difficult to do when it's dry. What would you say are three or four things that individuals could do to enter a relationship to give them a chance happy, healthy, long-term love.

Okay.

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Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Guy Winch in the house.

So good to see you, man. You as well, Louis.

It's great to be back. It's been too many years, but you've been on twice before, and you're one of my favorite psychologists to be on here. And the things that you do around understanding science and self-help and kind of blending them together. I think is really needed in the world right now. So thank you for being here. Very excited about this. One of your, the first thing I want to dive into is a quote that you have on, I believe your website. You said, Brain studies have shown that the withdrawal from romantic love activates the same mechanisms in our brain as when addicts are withdrawing from substances. I don't know if that's from your TED Talk or on your website, but that seems fascinating to me that the same type of withdrawal from a relationship from love is similar to an addict from substances. Which one do you think is harder to heal from? Someone going through substance abuse or someone going through a breakup?

Look, first of all, we have services for people who go through substance abuse. There's a lot of medical care available, the medications available, the support available, much less so for romantic heartbreak, especially if you're an adult, especially if you're older, you know, than in your 20s where you're supposed to be over it, where these things are for kids kind of thing. And so you find then that you're going through a ridiculously difficult experience and people are looking at you like, come on, it's been a week over it. You know, and you would not say that to somebody who's, you know, coming off opioids. But what's interesting to me is it actually starts before the heartbreak when people, begin to fall in love. And anyone who's done that recently will remember you become addicted to the person. And it can happen extraordinarily quickly. It can happen because you swiped and they swiped back and you suddenly figured that, oh, this is it. She's the one. That's going to be the answer to all my problems. And you start to feel addicted, i.e. you think about them all the time. Nothing else really matters as much. Every correspondence, every word tilts you up or down. She didn't say, love you. She always says, I love you. She was in the supermarket with five bags in her hand. She didn't have the finger, you know, but that's not, you go into a panic. And so it starts when you get addicted. Love is an addiction or a form of one. That's why the withdrawal of love is the, full of withdrawal. Interesting.

So what is the way that most people fall in love? How does it look like in today's society? How do we fall in love? Is it I see someone and eventually I make a decision that's the person I want to be with? Like if something clicks and isn't it around their identity or their potential identity of what they could give me in the future? Is it around their arch chemical attraction that gets us kind of deciding is it around is it more analytical of like on paper they look amazing and all their accolades and their status or what they can provide for me. When do we make a decision that I'm gonna choose to love this person?

We don't make a decision.

We don't decide.

Because if you decided, you could actually decide to fall in love. And there's so many people who would love to fall in love, maybe even with the person that they're actually with already, but struggle to do that, or people who have fallen out of love would like to fall back in love, or the person that's trying to woo them is perfect for them in every way. Why can't I just love them? That would be great. I just don't. you know, we can't quite make ourselves fall in love, but you know what happens is that people fall in love, it's very psychological because it's with an incredible absence of information. It happens quite quickly.

You don't know the person.

You don't. You have a few data points and you're connecting them to create a Mona Lisa with five data points.

Out of a flawed human being.

Potentially flawed, you have no even idea where, and you know, you have the rose-colored glasses, everything is cute. those things that are gonna become incredibly annoying later on are still cute to you. And you just fill in the gaps with optimism, with hope, with, oh, they're probably like this. And so you really don't know the person you've fallen in love with most of the time. Because I said, if you need to know the person, you have to wait until you have your first fight. If you don't know how they fight, you don't know how ugly it gets, you don't know how ugly they get, and that can make a big difference. But that doesn't usually happen before you fall in love. It happens after. You don't know how they fight, you don't know how they travel. You know, maybe you love to travel and they are such an anxious mess in an airport that you really want to just, I am not with this person at all. You know, like you don't know that. You don't know how they are with their parents, your parents, with, you know, the holidays, whether they are a mess, they're fun, like they're so much you don't know.

But people tend to fall in love before, you know, a full year cycle of getting to know someone. Right. Could you imagine if you had a full year where it's like you went through every holiday cycle with someone, you got to meet their family and friends in multiple different situations, you traveled once or twice at least, you got to notice them when they're at their lowest moment or emotionally tired or physically tired. And so you got to see how they react to situations that are not ideal. You got to deal with arguments with them or disagree agreements and see how they respond when you don't agree with them. You got to see how one of your values don't fully align with their values and can you accept one another's values and their background and their upbringing and their deficiencies? Wouldn't it be amazing to have a full year of that before deciding to fall in love?

It would be amazing. Some people do. I mean, it's not everyone that does that. But, and some people, I mean, it's hard to not fall in love for that full year, you would have to kind of hold yourself back in a certain way. But some people do are much slower to boil in that sense. And so they are very fortunate in that way because they're making a much more informed decision. What you're doing, if you don't do that, is you're doing damage control or you're trying to like, you know, shove a round peg into a square hole or something like that sometimes. And that's when it becomes a little iffy. And then a lot of people are like, I don't know if we should get married. We're having so many problems, but -We've.

Been together for three years.

-Yeah, I guess, but it says you should somewhere. I do not know where it says it, but apparently it says you should.

Somewhere because that is how they act. Like it says you should. -I feel like, you know, we have also never been trained how to be in a relationship with one person for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Like, we have never been taught that, right? We have not been taught a lot of things about dealing with heartbreak and failure and rejection. We have not been taught those things, but also people have not lived long enough when they are 25, 30 to say, how can I be with one person and have a fulfilled life for the next decades? How can I really thrive for a long-term happy marriage? Unless we've seen a model from our parents, which most people haven't, we don't know that skill either. And it's just we don't have that skill set. What would you say if people could set themselves up? You've been doing this work for what, three decades? More now? Three decades, three decades. You've been working with individuals, you've been working with couples, married, single, all these different individuals, people at a high level of success, people who are starting out in their career. What would you say are three or four things that individuals could do today to enter a relationship in the best way possible to give them a chance for happy, healthy, long-term love?

Okay, how much time do we have? But I'm gonna start with this. I think the thing we get wrong most about relationships is that we are absolutely clueless about how critical the first steps are. Those first dates, those first months, what you are doing is you are creating an unspoken with that person about what our couplehood is going to look like, who's going to be responsible for what, what the dynamic is going to be, what the vibe is going to be, who's going to be pursuing, who's going to be the pursued, everything you do is a precedent. Wow. But you don't realize that you're setting a precedent. So you're just like, oh, this part's okay, this part I didn't love as much, but fine. No, it's not fine. I mean, maybe it's not a big deal, but if that's what's going on, that's what the other person is expecting would be cool to go on. Forever. Yeah, yeah. In that relationship, you are setting, if somebody tends to be 10, 15 minute late to all the dates, and you're like, it's only 10 minutes, I'm not gonna be, you know, I'm not gonna, then you are signing up for the fact that you get to be late, and if suddenly 10 dates in, you're like, you know, it's really not cool that you're late, they'll be like, Where have you been for 10 days? That's not a new thing. You know what I mean? There's literally that expectation the other person has that if this is what goes on, this is what goes on. But if you're not aware that you're writing this unspoken contract and signing it and agreeing to all these precedents, then you're setting yourself up for a relationship that a lot of people are like, oh, I'll fix this later.

I'll fix it in post.

And like, yeah, right. This isn't a movie. Here's why I'll say this last part about this. Relationship dynamics are like cement. You can mold it when it's wet, when it's fresh, but you can't, it's much more difficult to do when it's dry and it dries very quickly. So you have to be aware of that.

Yeah, and if you want to jackhammer it two years in the future, because you don't like the way it's laid down, that's gonna cause real damage. And it's hard to mend that. It's not like, I forget the Japanese saying where they break a bowl and it's like golden. It's like, oh, it's not that. This is like you're breaking a road and you're breaking a path and you have to almost create a bridge. Once you break it two years later. And that person has to want to go over that bridge every time.

And that's for each thing. Yeah. Not for each thing you want to fix or change or tweak.

This is interesting. I'm so glad you're saying this because We've known each other for how long? Eight years maybe or something like that, I don't know.

Eight years.

And we're not super close talking all the time, but you've seen me go through three different relationships in the last eight years. And you've seen me kind of show up differently in this relationship based on what we've talked about. And there are things that I did differently, I think because one, a lot of the wisdom I gained from you and other different therapists and psychologists that came on that I was able to learn from, to. I was doing a lot of my own healing work in the practice every week with someone that was helping guide me to heal in my last relationship and going to this new one. And three, because I was just sick and tired of experiencing so much pain and sadness and suffering in relationships, like the pattern that I was choosing that I was like, I need to do something completely different than I've always done. Whether this works out or not, I have to just try something completely different. and I felt like what I've done has really worked well for me. I don't know if it'll work well from everyone, but it sounds like I'm doing what you're saying people should be doing, which is entering a relationship in a way that is going to lay the cement and the foundation for the whole relationship and really doing it early on, not waiting. So a few things that I did with Martha and we did together is When we started dating, I said, listen, I'm going to be, we're going to date each other, but I'm not going to have sex with you. That's one of the first things I said, it's not happening. Where, you know, that wasn't the case in previous relationships. So that's the first thing I was like, how I want to get to know someone without chemical interference, you know, without sexual chemical interference. That was always blurring me, you know, in the past. that was the first thing. And it's almost like we got to know each other as friends. And you kind of hear people who are married a long time or happy. They're like, yeah, we were friends early on or we were just in a friendship first. And then it grew into something because we really loved each other. Right? You hear that a lot. Not that that's always the case, but that was what we did. And I think that was really helpful for me to see all the parts of her and say, do I accept all the parts of her? And maybe I don't have to like all the parts, but can I accept it? Because she's not going to change who she is. maybe, but this is pretty much who she is. And I was able to see clearly, I accept all the parts of her to get into a committed relationship after a few months, right? Of us spending a lot of time together, traveling together, seeing her family, like all the things we did early on. I was like, I put myself in those situations, friends, family, travel before getting committed. And that was really helpful. It was kind of like a year cycle in a few months. Um, the next thing that I did is I told her the truth about everything. And from my past, what I've done in my past, things I was proud of, not proud of, everything. And I told her my vision for my future. And I said, this is the man I am now. This is the man I'm growing into. And this is the man I want to be in my vision for my life, my career, my family, everything. and I'm not gonna change it for one person to make one person happy. You've gotta accept this part of me and I wanna know what your vision is for your life and see if we're in alignment. Obviously things might change and evolve, but if that's what you want, I wanna be accepting of your vision for your life and you accepting of mine. And that was really helpful. And then we also did a values exercise. I never created a values exercise in any relationship before. It was like, oh, we like each other and you're beautiful and you like me and whatever. we're having fun, let's just be together. But we went on a trip and I said, I want to do a values exercise and get clear on what you really value around family, friendships, money, time, everything, raising kids, like what are the values in your life that you have? And we wrote them separately and then looked at them together. So there wasn't any influence. And we were in alignment on our values, which was helpful. and so having that clarity of kind of like no chemical interference around sexual acts to values to this is a vision of my life. This is my lifestyle. This is what I want to create. Do you accept it? Because if you don't, I'm not changing for you. And we were able to get in alignment. And that doesn't mean it's all going to be perfect. And it's like it's going to work out. But that created the foundation, the pavement you were talking about where we were like, okay, let's cement this. Let's start to like mold it and start to let it dry. now that we are in agreement of these things with each other. And there was one other thing that we did that I'd always wanted to do, because I'd always ended every relationship in therapy, and then it ended. And I said, I want to start my next relationship in therapy. If that's with you or someone else, like, I'm not getting in a relationship unless someone else is willing to agree to have a, you know, a session once every six weeks with someone where we can get clarity on agreements. because there was never agreements and relationships that were clear and that people stuck to. And I was like, I want agreements so that if there's a disturbance, we can create an agreement quickly so there's less disturbances. And she was like, yeah, sounds great. I'm in. Those things that we created from the beginning have given me so much peace. You asked me like, how are you feeling before the interview? I was like, I felt pretty peaceful. And it's because I've never been in a relationship where I feel fully accepted for me. And I feel that. So I have the energy to go out in life and tackle what I want. And it's been really beneficial. But I went through, you know, 20 something years of pain and suffering in choosing relationships without having the courage to do these kind of activities early on. And I don't know if that's something that you would recommend for all people. It took a lot of work. It takes time. It's like you can't rush into something. but it's given me a lot more peace in this relationship.

So, I am so excited to hear that that's how you went about it. I'll tell you why. First of all, that's why you're at peace, because you've done the due diligence. There's not these corners of her that you've never seen, exposed, or don't know about, and like, well, I like what I see, but who knows what I don't. You actually have seen a lot, because you've asked a lot of questions. The due diligence you did over there, that investment of, if I'm choosing a life partner, I'm gonna vet this as much as possible. I'm actually gonna put in the work to build a foundation. People always say like, oh, we have a good foundation. Did you build it or did you just are just evaluating what actually turned out? Or did you intentionally deliberately build a foundation? You did. That kind of due diligence is extraordinarily rare. And why it's so such a shame that it is rare is because we give that due diligence to purchases like homes and cars. I know people that spend two hours a day studying car models before they make the commitment on their next car. But they're not gonna spend an hour thinking about their next relationship or what they should do or about whether they should have kids or how they want to raise them or what their values are, all of those things. To me, if they're ever gonna put in the work to do the research, do the due diligence, to put in the effort to build something intentionally, deliberately, mindfully, relationships is where it should be. And by the way, not just romantic ones, because all these rules of relationships are true for all kinds of relationships. Yeah.

I mean, what is the big mistake that people are making today than in relationships by entering the relationship? Is it they haven't healed from the previous one? And can you, enter a new relationship while being wounded from the previous one? Or do you need to be on some type of healing journey to set yourself up for a better opportunity, do you think?

First of all, I think you can get into a relationship in any situation. It just might mean that you will have more work to do and that the relationship will have more work to do if you're coming at it from a wounded place or, you know, something like that. You know, when you said, you know, I told her what the plan was. In other words, you told each other, and this was your individual thing, you're like, this is the ride I want to be on. So that's what you'll be joining me for. You need to know if you want that ride. And she's saying the same thing to you. This is the ride I want to be on. And you need to know if that's the one that you want to join me on. Now, they're not in conflict necessarily at all. You know, each person's goals and dreams or how they want to develop or what kind of life they want. But it's very thoughtful and it's very important to say, this is the vision. Are we sharing it? and to ask all these questions, to have these conversations, they're not easy to have. They're not. Because I'm sure it wasn't the case that everything you said, she was like, yeah, me too.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, me too. Stuff needed to be worked out. And then you're like, is this critical? Is this deal breaking? Is this something that we can manage to accept? You know, you would use that word a lot. It's totally about acceptance. That's correct. That's the question. So you're actually walking into a bit of a of a marsh when you do that. It's not like all skipping along, but as long as you're willing to do that work, you get off and you get off into dry land.

That's true. Dry, peaceful land, abundant fertile land that you're just like, ah, no, it doesn't mean there's not going to be challenges and life's going to throw things at you, but I think if you're in it together and you're able to create agreements early on, then it just doesn't mean you have to have a lot of disturbances within the relationship. There might be things coming at the relationship that you need to handle together.

Together.

But when we're in disagreement constantly about each other or what's wrong with the other person and what they didn't do or what they didn't do for me, then it's just going to be a weaker Foundation. I think when you don't have agreement, a force inside and out. The Range Rover Sport is available with a choice of powerful engines, including a plug-in hybrid with an estimated range of 53 miles. Maine, where life the way it should be transforms all who encounter its spectacular Landscapes. Rugged coastlines, pine-scented trails, sandy beaches, sparkling lakes, and tranquil forests inspire you to reflect and make meaningful moments. They offer endless opportunities for adventure and exploration. Whether pedaling or paddling, hiking or biking, Maine has more than enough outdoor spaces to make the most of long summer days. Relish in exquisite flavors harvested from the ocean and the rich soils of orchards and fields. Maine's makers are rooted in its heritage while boldly branching into new ways of thinking, doing, and being. Connect with its people in warm and authentic towns, which beckon you to stroll art galleries and locally owned shops, where generations of artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and craftspeople see the world anew. It's tempting to do it all when you visit, but take a beat and a breath. Get a feel for the time and tempo of Maine. Simple pleasures, Scenic Adventures, where every route is the Scenic one. Discover more at visitmaine.com. should it stay or should it go? What if I mess it up? What if I have to pay taxes now? If you're unsure about an old 401K, it's okay.

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Of each before moving your retirement assets. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC member NYSE SIPC. What you guys did is for a year or however many months, you actually practiced communication, conflict resolution, negotiation. You practice all these very important Couples relationship and communication skills that would have come up a little bit here, a little bit there, but not in that substantial way. So you guys developed these muscles and these habits with one another of like, if we have a problem, we know how to talk about it. We know how to be honest about it, and we know how to resolve it. So that's the other part of the piece and the confidence. You've worked all that out. You developed those skills together in the formation. That's why they're going to therapy every six weeks or whatever it was. Great idea. Let's get a little bit of guidance on that because it doesn't hurt.

It actually helps quite a bit. And there was nothing wrong in the relationship early on.

It does not have to be to learn good habits.

I know it's amazing. But it takes time and investment. I told her, I was like, I don't think I'd have been ready for you 10 years if I had met you 10 years ago. I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have seen you the same way. I wouldn't have been, I didn't have the tools or the skills to like deal with my emotions. I was still healing. I was still growing. and I, and, you know, and I was doing my interview show and I had resources, but I think a lot of people don't have the tools or the skills to have the courage to speak up for what they want, to navigate challenges in a relationship when they feel their button is pushed and they're just reactive. They don't know how to respond calmly because they're in fight or flight. I've been there many times in the past. Like, it's It's a massive problem for people. They don't have the tools. Do you see, I mean, how do you see the younger generation, people in their 20s or 30s, being able to get into relationships and have these tools if they've never been trained? It took me a long time to have a lot of pain to be like, okay, I need to learn something different.

But look how much research you did along the way. This is the third interview we've had. We speak outside of this sometimes, but But you are prepared. You do the reading, you do the research, you've learned so much from so many different experts. You are not a lay person coming at it. You practically have an honorary PhD in psychology and relationships already from all the stuff that you've done. I'm serious.

But most people don't have this.

Most people do not. That's my point. In other words, you do have to put in the work. You had put in the work. And I, you know, the books I write and the things I do is to get people to be more thoughtful. and more mindful about how they feel and what they want and what they do. Because we can't be on autopilot all the time and most of us are on autopilot all the time. One quick thing I wanted to touch on because I think this is something that young people say to me a lot and it's problematic. They say, one person will say to another, I don't like when you did so and so. And that person will say, well, that's who I am. I'm not going to change, and you shouldn't try and change who I am. And I think it's really important that people distinguish who you are from what you do. From behaviors, right? From behavior. Yeah.

They're not asking you to change who.

You are a lot of the time. I mean, if it's like, oh, you hate skiing. You must come with me on skiing vacations three times a year. A year, not gonna happen. But if it's about, I don't like when you say those things to me. Well, that's just who I am. No, no, no. That's what you said. It's not who you are. And so people get stubborn and they don't want to change things that you actually should change and be open to.

Yeah, I mean, you can't be just be disrespectful and say, well, this is who I am. Accept me for being disrespectful to you.

Or stubborn or difficult or whatever it is.

Yeah. And I think it's also important to know, like, hey, before you get into a relationship, make sure you find out if this is the way they are and they're not going to change that. Maybe they're not for you.

What I really find surprising is sometimes somebody will say to me, yeah, the other person, the person they're dating, they just keep telling me what they want and what they like and what they want and what they like. And it's like, it's so annoying. And I'm like, I'm sorry. They're giving you the user manual. For how to be in a relationship with them and you don't think it's.

Important for you to read it?

It's amazing they're communicating that that should be the best thing ever. Now you like it or you don't like it, but it's not annoying that they're doing it. You should be doing the same. They're giving you the instruction manual on how to be with them. Exactly. Pay attention.

No, I think it's really important. I think I probably over communicated more in the first year, probably out of trauma from the past of like, okay, this is really who I am and this is my truth. And I just want to make sure you're okay with this. Yeah.

And she's lying on the couch, watching TV going, I heard you the first three times.

No, no, yeah, 20 times. And she's like, you were really traumatized in the past. I'm like, I just want to make sure you know who I am. All my flaws, all my past, where I'm at, where I'm going, this is what I want. You sure you're good? It's like kind of mile markers, right? You gotta lay the cement. It's like every mile marker, okay, you're still on the same path. Make sure you're in alignment because it's not worth me being like, out of an invested, and then you want me to change who I am. So I think you gotta be willing to accept the person and make sure you figure out all their behaviors or as much as you can within the first six to 12 months. before you take the long road with them and say, all right, am I down for this journey? If it's a little bumpy, am I cool with it? Or don't choose the person. If they have bad behavior over and over, you don't have to choose them. If they're not going to be willing to change, you either accept it and that's it. But you had this on your, I think this is on your website as well, a quote from you that said, Mental health is about diagnosable conditions like depression and anxiety. emotional health is about common experiences like loneliness, failure and heartbreak, the non-diagnosable stuff. And you also mentioned that you grew up, another quote from you who said, I grew up with my identical twin, which of course made me an expert in spotting favoritism. So when I became a psychologist, I didn't take it didn't take me long to recognize how much we favor our physical health over our emotional health. For example, if we get a cut on our arm, We can just tell by looking at it whether we need a badge, a stitch, or an ambulance. But when we sustain an emotional wound like rejection, failure, we have no idea how to gauge whether the wound is deep or whether it requires emotional first aid. And a few of us would know how to treat it ourselves if we did. And as a psychologist, you find that unacceptable, you said. Our physical health and our emotional health are the twins of our general well-being. And as such, we should treat them equally. How can we start to self-diagnose the emotional wounds that we deal with? And how can we know when we are having a symptom of an emotional wound that is worthy of a deeper look rather than just a quick rub it off or a band-aid?

I would use a similar guideline than you do for a physical wound. You might wake up with a little bit of a scratchy throat or a sniffle, but you don't know if it's gonna go somewhere. If two days later you're still sniffling and scratchy, you might consider that you have a cold or something worse and you might wanna do something about it, but it might go away. It's the same thing. We get wounded all the time. Every time you check social media and that person didn't like your thing or share your thing or respond to your thing, we feel rejected. And every little swipe that doesn't get swiped back, we feel rejected. There's a lot of rejection in the world today. because we tether to so many people electronically, just the opportunities are tremendous. But if it nags you, really nags you, if it's really bothering you, if you're having trouble shaking it, that's when you might want to consider doing a quick exercise or doing something to actually treat the wound rather than just waiting for it to go away.

So for feeling, what would that nagging feeling look like for someone if it's an emotional wound? Is it a physical sensation internally? Is it like their chest is tight.

Or their It's a preoccupation, probably, and it's a mood.

A rumination of something.

It can be a rumination or just you keep thinking back, well, why isn't she haven't responded? I thought the date was good. Why is it like, she's not responding, I guess. It's like now she's ghosting me. Like, I don't understand. And it's four or five days and it was one date. Right. And you just don't get over it. Now you don't have to run to therapy for that, but there are certain exercises you can do to just revitalize your Your self-esteem, your mood.

What's a couple, what's an exercise that someone can do if they feel rejected or feel like someone hurt them, whether.

It was intentional or not? Well, there are two things. Actually, there are many more than two, but I'm gonna mention two. One is the don't do. The don't do is, the first thing we all do is become very self-critical. In our efforts to understand why it happened, we review everything that might not be great with us to see if that's the reason. Is it because I'm not this, or I am that, or I'm too much here, or I'm too little here, maybe it's because I knew I shouldn't have done. Like there's this, and This is not, you just got rejected. Not the best time to go through the greatest hits of your insecurities. You know, you wanna be doing the opposite, you wanna reviving your self-esteem, not actually reviewing all the wounds that you've sustained in the past. Because when you look at past wounds, you reactivate them emotionally, right? If, you know, you had physical injuries, if you think about them, they're not gonna hurt. But if you think about some of the emotional times about the rejections or about the depressions or about something that got you really upset, you are going to get upset again, even if it is 20 years later.

Isn't that interesting?

It is, but that is the problem.

When we think about a memory of trauma that we have yet to heal, and we relive that in our mind, is it almost just like we are living that moment all over again?

Yeah, but it is not one that you have yet to heal. It can be one you have healed. If you think about something small and incredibly irritating that happened 15 years ago, and you start literally thinking through the details, you are going to start to feel really irritated. It has zero consequential meaning in the present? None. But that's how we are. I mean, our emotional reflection reactivates these things. And it's important because if that's when, if you're spinning about, oh, I'm not this enough or that enough, and that person reject me, was it for the same reason? Is it this? Like what's going on? Like you start to question yourself, and that's just doing damage to your self-esteem. Because if it's after one date, and really truly if it's after five, Whatever the reason is, it's about chemistry. It's about fit. It's about timing. It's not personal. It's personal in that you might not have been good fit for them, but it doesn't mean you're a bad person or not a great fit for anyone else.

Why do so many people take it personally when they get rejected in a dating situation or relationship?

It's not only that. They take it personally and then they generalize it to mean something even bigger than what it does. I never find love. Really? She just didn't sway back. I mean, that seems like a, A leap in inference to make from that, but it's a very natural thing we do. We assume it's us. Now, literally, people do that when they text it with somebody back and forth for a bit, and then that person disappears. You have no idea if you're even talking to a real person. You have no idea. That person might be in the hospital. They might have been chatting with you to piss off the person they're actually living with at the time. They might be going through whatever hell week at work. There's a thousand things that can be going on for you to assume that you did something wrong in five texts that was so bad that like it's completely unnecessary, but that's where the mind goes. So let's stop that damage. That's the first thing to not do. But the thing you can do is the opposite. You want to remind yourself in those moments of what you bring to the table, what you do have to offer. Now, you can't fool yourself. You can't say to yourself, I'm the most gorgeous person in the world if you're not. And if the feedback that you get is that you're not because your mind won't believe that. You know, we have this automatic way of thinking that will reject things that fall outside the sphere of what it considers believable. And so you can't just like convince yourself of something that's not true. You have to focus on the things that are. So think about your best attributes. I have amazing eyes. I know I'm gonna find someone who'll wanna gaze into them. I am such a great listener. I'm emotionally available, and I'm always up for doing things. those are wonderful qualities and characters that somebody will appreciate, et cetera. You actually review what is worthwhile about you and not do the opposite.

It almost sounds like before you start dating or getting into a relationship, one of the best things that you can do for yourself is build your self-esteem is what it sounds like. Because when you have a quality or high level of self-esteem, you're not going to get into a relationship that's not good for you. You're not going to stay in one where someone's treating you poorly or not respecting your boundaries or you're not gonna take the scraps of something because you're just lonely, right? So building self-esteem sounds like a great foundation for the individual before even getting into a relationship.

It is doing, and the way you do that is doing what you did in your relationship on an individual level, i.e. you get to know yourself and you get to accept yourself.

All the parts of you.

All the parts of you, because there's no one who's perfect, right? Every good quality you have comes with a downside. It's gonna be true of everyone, right?

Let me examine for yourself.

For me? Yeah.

What's a good quality that comes with the downside?

I can think of several, but okay.

I.

Have a sense of humor.

You're very funny.

I enjoy my sense of humor. I sometimes deploy it in ways that.

Are maybe not bad timing or something or.

Yes, because if the joke is gonna be funny, I'm gonna say it no matter what, just because I can't pass it up. And I am gonna be upsetting someone by doing so, potentially. I try not to. It leaks out in sessions sometimes when.

They'Re like sad and like, yeah, whatever. Inappropriate moments.

I'll give you a quote, you know, and I'll give you, this is terrible, I shouldn't do it, just because it makes me sound so bad.

Now you have to do it. You have to do it.

Okay, I'm not gonna say anything about the person, but it was a session in one, In which somebody was having an issue in a relationship. And I was challenging them on why they're not, you know, setting more limits with their partner who needed limits set with them.

Set boundaries. Right.

And they said, yeah, that's how it is. And this person was very successful, you know, and they said, that's how it is. I'm a lion in the boardroom and a pussycat in the bedroom. And I said, I agree with every word except cat. It was funny to me, not funny to the other person. I apologized. for it. I apologize again if they happened to be listening, that wasn't. But the point was actually sound.

Yeah, of course.

I didn't need to, but the joke was dangling and I couldn't. And so here's a thing that has a downside.

Sure, sure, sure. Right?

Somebody who's very, very, let's say, conscientious about things, that's a wonderful thing that they're conscientious. But it's also a standard that they're probably gonna likely have that they'll likely want to hold you to. as well. So lovely to receive it, but then they're gonna be expecting it. And so that can be a pain, you know, sometimes. I mean, there's always a downside to things. So you just have to learn to accept and to go, this is great. Yes, it comes with that. I'll accept it because I like that.

Yeah, exactly. If someone has gone through a heartache or has, you know, sadness or felt rejected in their life right now, and they're looking to rebuild their self-esteem, and rebuild a powerful, strong self-identity. What would you say are three to five things they could start with over the next few months to build a powerful self-esteem so that they can make a better decision in their next dating relationship experience?

So first of all, they have to be honest with themselves about, you know, like, you have to, these are writing exercises. Yes. You know, you can't maintain so many data points in your head, but you wanna make a list then of what are the qualities that you like about yourself, what are the ones that you don't? And be honest, this is private, no one's else is gonna see it. So be very, very honest with yourself. Like, what are the things about you that you think are good? And the fact that you have them doesn't mean that they're in performance all the time. You might miss at times, but generally I tend to be this and generally is also that, you know? So laying it out. B, which of the that's of the things you're not that thrilled with do you actually want to work on and improve? Because we're all or should be trying to improve on a regular basis. And so here's your list of where you can spend, where the opportunities are, as they say in job reviews. This is where your opportunities are to improve here and here. So where are the opportunities? And then how can you go about it and choose one at a time? Because these are the difficult things. But work on yourself.

That's the first one. Make a list of the good qualities and the opportunities for growth.

Correct. Secondly, you need to get in touch with how you feel, because this is all an emotional thing. And we are remarkably emotionally inarticulate. Our language, and I literally mean our ability to distinguish what we feel, the nuances of what we feel is extraordinarily limited. Men are usually worse than women, but generally this is something that, you know, when I ask people, how do you feel? They're like, Cool. Okay. And I'm like, give me, you know, this was a complex situation that happened over there. This happened or this. Like, you must have difficult, you know, all kinds of feelings about it. Yeah. So I'm bummed. Right, right, right. Not a feeling, really. I mean, it implies one, but it's not.

I can relate to that. Before you go on, I can relate to that for men or women watching or listening, because I used to, my default emotion was anger. But really it was, I felt betrayed, I felt not enough, I felt rejected, I felt sad, I felt alone, I felt misunderstood. It was like, you know, a waterfall of emotions that I was feeling. But all of it led to, I don't know how to communicate this, so I'm just kind of angry and I'm going to react with something that's familiar, which is anger. And whether that's defending myself or working harder or proving my worth, whatever it might be, I'm going to use anger as the emotion to communicate my words and my energy in the situation. And it was very challenging to learn how to communicate. I just feel really sad. I feel really hurt. I feel like alone. I feel like misunderstood. I feel betrayed by my friend or whatever it might be. It was challenging for me because I lacked the tools on how to communicate those things. so I think what you're saying is really important is like specifically, I think men who haven't learned the tools beyond anger or numbness of emotion on how to say what is really going on. And I think the reason why it was hard for me to communicate those things, that's kind of like a jock growing up in the Midwest, that I didn't think communicating those things would be accepted. I think they would be laughed at. And it's probably because they were laughed at. It would have been in school with my like guy friends at 13 to 16, you know, they were kind of like made fun of. And so when you enter a relationship in your late teens, 20s, it's like, okay, well, is this person gonna make, is a girl gonna make fun of me that I'm dating? If I say I'm sad or I'm lonely, are they gonna think I'm weak? So it's kind of a protection mechanism, I guess. At least it was for me. And I had to really learn how to have self-esteem and self-confidence, which when you're lonely, sad, or feeling not enough, it's hard to build that to where you can express emotion. and accept yourself either way if the person in front of you doesn't accept you. That's the challenging thing to be like, can I love myself and express it if the other person's gonna laugh at me or make? Maine, where life the way it should be transforms all who encounter its spectacular landscapes. Rugged coastlines, pine-scented trails, sandy beaches, sparkling lakes, and tranquil forests inspire you to reflect and make meaningful moments. They offer endless opportunities for adventure and exploration, whether peddling or paddling, hiking or biking. Maine has more than enough outdoor spaces to make the most of long summer days, relish in exquisite flavors harvested from the ocean and the rich soils of orchards and fields. Maine's makers are rooted in its heritage while boldly branching into new ways of thinking, doing and being. Connect with its people in warm and authentic towns which beckon you to stroll art galleries and locally owned shops where generations of artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and craftspeople see the world anew. It's tempting to do it all when you visit, but take a beat and a breath. Get a feel for the time and tempo of Maine. Simple pleasures, scenic adventures, where every route is the scenic one. Discover more at visitmaine.com.

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Fidelity Brokerage Services member NYSC SIPC. Farnam, here's what Rielinger did, and this is why it's a go-to for many, many people. It actually saves you from having to deal with the more uncomfortable feelings of sadness, of disappointment, of betrayal, feeling misunderstood, all those things that you mentioned. In other words, anger, you know, it's considered like a negative or a bad feeling, but it actually doesn't feel that bad.

It feels quite good.

It's quite activating. Yes. And so you go to a feeling that's externalizing and activating to avoid feeling sad, feeling vulnerable, feeling bereft, all the other feelings you had. So anger is not just, oh, it's my go-to instead, it prevents you from having to deal with the actual feelings that are going on, which is why it's problematic.

-And when you have an emotion like anger that prevents you from feeling what's actually going on, what happens to the brain and the body when you do that?

-Well, what I say to people, number one, is like, be suspicious of anger. Because there are very few situations, I mean, We respond with anger when we're hurt. That's the, you know, like you stub your toe, everyone I know will smack the file cabinet. It's a file cabinet. Do it on purpose. That was your total interrupt. But my point is that's our default response. And so that's why when you're hurt, you're gonna get angry. That's, that's, that is the default. That's, that's how, you know, we evolved. It's a protective mechanism because our brain doesn't distinguish that well, if at all, between emotional and physical pain. This is true in functional MRIs. They look incredibly, incredibly similar. Sometimes experts are like, I'm not quite sure which that is.

Between emotional trauma and physical trauma.

Pain. Emotional pain and physical pain.

So like a head injury, like a physical head injury versus a psychological injury.

Here's the experiment. They put heat conductive pads on people's forearms, and just kept turning up the heat until they couldn't stand it for more than seven seconds. And then they rated how high the pain tolerance was. Then they took people who were just heartbroken, and they had them bring an 8 by 10 glossy of the person. Yes, this is going to be that yo-yo.

Oh my God.

And they stuck it to the top of the MRI, because you're in this tube, and then they had them relive the breakup while looking at the picture. You know what I did when I saw that experiment? For what? I wanted to look up how much money they paid them. I know, right? Because I was like, anybody can get a tube. That better not be a $10 experiment. Anyway.

It's true.

But then they compared the two functional MRIs, the pain from the thing and that, and experts have trouble telling them apart. Wow.

Based on what they were seeing in the imagery of the brain.

In the imagery of the brain of how the brain is responding. I mean, some of the theories are that emotional pain literally is piggybacking on the pathways of physical pain. But the point about what you're saying is when you are hurt, you're gonna respond like you just got, like somebody physically hurt you, you're gonna be angry at them, or shut down and get numb, like you said. But it's one of the two. That's the natural response.

We have to learn how to overcome it. So before we go on to the next point, when someone is reliving a heartbreak, right? They got broken up with three months ago, a year ago, two, whatever it is, and they relive it. They think about the person and look at the videos and the photos. They hear memories, they hear the person's name, and they relive that emotionally. Is the thought, the electrical charge in the brain or the mind, creating a thought that is then creating physical pain on the body, or is the memory creating an emotional pain first that's creating a ruminating sad thought?

I'm gonna say something trite, but forgive me 'cause you've heard this as an athlete and it's gonna piss you off. But all pain is in the head, really. I mean, it's not in the mind. It's our interpretation of something. It's like, you know, if there are certain areas of the brain, if you shut them off, you won't feel pain. You'll have damage to tissue, cartilage, bone, what have you, you just won't feel that as pain. So it's all in the head. And so therefore, how it gets interpreted, where it actually happens, the fact that it happens in such similar regions, doesn't mean, I mean, you'll feel it in the same way you feel visceral distress, which we all feel a little bit differently, but it can be here in the chest or the this. That's why people say heartbreak because it feels like something's going on viscerally in your chest, in your stomach, in this area. And that's how you experience it in that way, but it's a thought.

When does the body start to respond positively to after a heartbreak? like what has to happen for the mind and the thought of a heartbreak in a person or what happened that didn't happen until you feel more peace? Is it the meaning you finally create that's different or positive? Is it moving on and being with another person so you don't have to think about it? Like when does the heartbreak stop for someone? When does that like switch where they're like, okay, I did this and I finally feel better? How can people get there faster? Is that even possible, or does it just take time?

First of all, that is the question that most heartbroken people ask most. They don't ask, How can I heal? They ask, How much longer will this hurt? Because it hurts so much. When you're in pain like that, you want to know when it's going to stop or get a little better. Why I wrote the book about how to fix a broken heart is because there is a lot you need to do to make it happen more quickly. There's a lot you can do to make it happen more quickly. Fundamentally, the general thing that you need to do is that heartbreak and loss leaves a lot of voids, and you have to fill them. You can't just white knuckle it. You can't just like, no, I'm fine. I'm telling you, I'm fine. But half your closets are empty, 'cause she took all the stuff, and half the furniture is missing. You have nothing to do. on weekends and all her friends were the ones you hung out with, so you're not even in touch with your pals anymore. And you used to go to her gym, so that's awkward. You're not going there anymore. And suddenly there are all these areas of your life, mostly your sense of identity of I was a we, I was part of a couple, that was who I was, now who am I? And so there's a lot of rebuilding and replacing and refilling that needs to happen. It's an active process, but we do not know how to do it. That is why I wrote the book, because people were like, oh, I do.

Not know what to do. And I am like, oh, there is so much you need to be doing.

-Right.

-So, when you go through a breakup, there is a void, and we need to fill it. -Void. -Void. What are the things that people tend to fill it with that cause more pain? And what are the voids that they.

Can fill it with that will support their healing journey? -The things that people, I mean, I am thinking, oh, what those things are. It is the key lights, ice cream. It is a lot of television. But it is numbing. you know, people tend to numb at the beginning. And I'm not necessarily opposed to numbing because even if social support is very important, even if talking things out and getting perspective is quite important, even though there are all these things that are important in the first throws of that pain, you're not going to be talking to friends 24-24 sevens. You just need to break from that. And because every time you talk, you're hurting, you need to numb them out every once in a while. So, you know, I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not, you know, judging that, that's something you kind of have to do. But people tend to not know what to do. They think that what the thing will time, it's just gonna take time. So I'm just gonna suffer, you know, silently for however many weeks or months. But it's like, it does take time, but there's a lot you can do to move that process along so it's quicker. Primarily, the goal is get the person out of your thoughts. That's the symptom is how much you're thinking about them. the place they have in your thoughts. The symptom reduction is think about them less. It's useful if you have a job that you must concentrate in. It's useful when you have kids that you have to take care of. I mean, it's so difficult, but it's actually a decent enough distraction. So there'll be some moments that you're not hurting. There'll be some moments where you're not bereft, there'll be some moments where your world hasn't ended. It will also remind you of other aspects of your life and yourself that are still there, no matter what. It's just gonna be very, very difficult. But doing these things and thinking these things through and taking an active position When you are hurting emotionally from anything, whether it's grief like heartbreak or any other kind of loss or rejection or failure or guilt or loneliness.

Thinking about it more will cause more pain.

If it's not productive thinking. In other words, there are two kinds of thinking. There's useful and not useful. And the useful gets you something out of the thinking. In other words, as a product. At the end of it, you got perspective, you got support, you got some insight, you got a deeper understanding, you figured something out. There was an action item that you got. There's something, there was a product that came from it. You weren't just spinning. Yes. And it hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt.

Hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt. That's not useful. Yeah. So I think we've, there was two.

Steps to building self-esteem and then we went on this. Oh, wait. Here's the second one. Sorry.

Thank you.

And I'm thrilled that I actually remember, 'cause I would have forgotten. But it's the emotional literacy. I started to say it. We need to be able to name our feelings. You rattled off that list after the pain and you were like misunderstood and disappointed and betrayed and trust, and you gave like six or seven words for distinct feelings that you had. That is a high level of difficulty that most people cannot do. What I do, and I literally use this myself at times, and I recommend it, it's gonna sound like I'm being condescending, I'm not, I truly have this and use it myself, is the emotion wheel.

The emotion wheel?

Yes.

You have one?

There are so many versions of them online. You can find them very easily.

Oh, really? 20 different emotions or something, or how.

Many emotions are there?

Oh, no.

I mean, how many are on the wheel? A couple hundred?

A couple hundred?

Yeah, we're not talking about 20 here. Holy geez, okay. Right, because there are different, it's the good ones too, it's the neutral ones, it's all of them. It's all of the feelings. So there's a wheel? So there's a wheel, and it's by category. All the anger ones here, all the pain ones there, all the joyful ones here, et cetera, et cetera. Sometimes color coded, but for no real reason. Just to go to, you know, just design purposes. But I will say to people, like, what are you feeling? Here's the wheel. I want at least seven of the challenging ones and two of the positive ones. I'm like, well, how can I have positive ones? I'm like, because when that friend betrayed you, there was also a bit of relief there because they were annoying sometimes. And there was also, you know, a little bit of validation there because you had that suspicion and like, and people, when they actually see it, oh yes, there's this. And here's the thing, it's not what's at a 10, that's one or two things. Some of them can be at a three, or I mean, the relief part of when your friend betrays you is small, but it's there. But then you go, that one's a two, that one's a four, that one's, and find 10 for each situation. That will teach you to find the language to express yourself more accurately, because if you express yourself more accurately, the other person, understands what you actually want to need and feel, rather than some generic, well, you're angry, I guess I hurt you in some way, but...

I don't know why or what I need to do about it. That's interesting, the wheel of emotions. So, well, you said they're online, like.

Images of these things? Emotion wheel. Emotion wheel.

Emotion wheel, you'll find many. We'll put it up on this video on the screen right now. We'll have it up there so people can see it and link to one or two that we find. I think that's really interesting.

I never heard of that, the emotion wheel, the wheel of emotions. You can get them, I mean, It's not my thing, but, you know, like, I literally bought a pillow on Etsy. That has the Wheel of Emotions. -You can have them many.

And it's not just Etsy.

You can get them anywhere. -With all the emotions on it. -With the wheel on it.

-Wow, that's cool. -Because you want to use it with kids, and you want it in the living room. So when the kid is having a meltdown, you're just going... -Here. Punch the Wheel of Emotions and then point at it.

Yeah, yeah. -Tell me. -Wow, that's interesting. That's real... I think that's really fascinating. -Blankets. And when we can point to emotions and start to speak about it, what are we saying? you're being much, first of all, it's much bigger relief when you're actually expressing what you feel. You're trying to, a lot of the times when people are trying to tell me how they feel or tell their loved one how they feel, they really want to convey it. They want to be understood very badly. But it's difficult to be understood if the words you're using are very general, generic, and not really, you know, not very clear. Oh, I'm just bummed, I'm just upset. I'm like, that's generic. What does that mean? What, you know, what specifically? When you articulate, oh, this friend did something and I feel so betrayed and so disappointed and I've lost my trust and I feel misunderstood and I'm questioning my own judgment and all of those things, it really helps the other people and they say, okay, that's what you're going through. Now I know what kind of support.

Feedback, whatever it is you need. So what happens, I mean, this is fascinating. I don't know if I've heard of this, the Wheel of Emotions. It's almost like if you want to.

Create the Wheel of Fortune, you need to be able to point out the Wheel of Emotions, what you're feeling. It's like a color wheel, but it's not, because color wheels are very nuanced, right?

And I'm a colorblind.

You know, like I am with primary colors and like people like, well, that's fuchsia. And I'm like, I have no idea what that is.

Sure, sure, sure. Like I can maybe whatever. Now let's say we get to, we're able to communicate our emotions, but the other person isn't able to receive them or just can't handle it. It's just like, ah, just figure out your own life. You know, I don't know what to do. What do you do in that situation when you're trying to communicate and you.

Are here the seven things that I'm feeling and the other person is just can't receive those emotions. But the other person can say, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by your list of emotions. Maybe we can put that wheel aside for just a moment. Because I need guidance from you about what you want. Because I'm not sure what to say or it's a lot for me. And I just not sure how to react. What would be helpful to you? And if the other person is not saying that, and they're just like, look, you will know when the other person is shutting down because it happens a lot. And, you know, it's often you will come and have this conversation and you'll go on for too long, you'll mention too many things, it'll be so overwhelming, it won't be this specific thing happened, this is how I felt about it. You always do this, you'll take a running start. Back in the 90s, you did it for the first time, not necessarily for the point you're making 30 years later. You know, and so, you know, when their eyes are glazing over and they're.

Starting to do this.

Back off on the emotions. Back off, they're getting overwhelmed, they're flooded.

Now, so they're not gonna be useful to you. this may be a controversial thing to say, but it seems like, and you've been in this work for three decades, right? 30 years. It seems like, you know, when I was growing up, at least in the Midwest, there were different, I guess, roles for men and women, right? Or at least cultural standards, let's say. And it almost feels like now, and again, I'm generalizing this, but I feel like I'm seeing this more and more in movies and media and just what I'm seeing online, people talk about. the roles are blending or changing or shifting, evolving, where they used to be more masculine, I guess, figures in media and TV. Now it's like the men are skinnier and more feminine as like kind of the main roles, right, on in movie and TV, some of these big movies. And it seems like that is also translated in the younger generation in society, like the skinnier men or things like that. and then you see some women becoming either less feminine acting or more less emotions and more like anger. I love if I'm communicating this right, but it seems like the roles have been shifting in some ways around cultural standards. And I don't know if that's just what I'm seeing online versus what's actually happening. But do you feel like roles are shifting between men and women in relationships from when you started 30 years ago?

I think the younger generation, Gen Z, is one of their strengths is that they feel much less bound by labels, by roles, by expectations of what they should feel, say or do, and what they feel like saying or doing. That has its downside, you know, in some ways, but the upside is you're much more likely to see young men be actually quite thoughtful or articulate about their feelings and young women being more assertive than you might have expected their grandmothers perhaps to be or, you know, feeling less restrained in terms of what their narrow role should be because it's not narrow and should never have been. So they're less constrained. And so that's what you're seeing. You're seeing a more natural, because, you know, those, those the divisions between the genders were very cultural and enforced, and the expectations were rigid. And so it's like, as you said, if you had expressed emotion when you were on the field, that would not have gone well in the locker room. But we're like, what's wrong with him? We used to, we still do, have a way of confusing muscles with emotional resilience and emotional strength.

Mm-.

Uh, muscles don't have anything to do with resilience, necessarily, and somebody- Emotional resilience or- With emotional resilience, you know, and physical resilience, yes, you have more layers of protection. So if you get hit by a car, the muscled person will fare better. That's about the end of their advantage. You know, it also puts, you know, more of a cardiovascular burden on them. But that aside for a minute, it's, it's when it has nothing to do with resilience, because resilience actually is very context specific. You can take the biggest war hero and put them in an argument with their wife and they will melt into tears because that's not where they're resilient. That's not where they're strong.

Unless they've developed that muscle.

Unless they've been in a war, they have. But if they've been a war hero all their life, I'm not sure when they would have had the chance to do it. I'm not saying all of them, but I'm just saying, you develop the resilience is for-- resilience is an adaptive evolutionary thing. You develop it for the context you are in. So the context you are not familiar with, you're gonna be less resilient in. Some of them will lend, but most not. And the ones you're familiar with, you'll hopefully have built much more resilience within that sphere. So resilience is not even a general thing. It's context specific.

In 2025 and beyond, if someone is a new parent, and they have young kids who are developing. What are the three skills that you would wish every parent could learn themselves, or at least try to teach their kids to grow up being the healthiest, happiest versions of themselves with all that's to come in the world for them? What would you suggest to parents?

The most important thing I think, well, you said three, I'm going to mention all three. One of the most important things I think a parent can do is teach their kid that whatever they feel is entirely normative and natural, and anyone else in that situation would feel the same thing, whether they showed it or not. So to teach them that their feelings are to be accepted, those are natural, what you do with those feelings, behavior-wise, how you manage them in terms of how you manage your emotions because we can actively manage our emotions in all kinds of different ways and contexts. That's on you and the parent should teach them those skill sets. Parents don't usually know them, so it's hard for them to teach them. But the idea that nothing the kid feels is wrong per se, feelings are not the feelings are not wrong. Only what they do with them. Their actions or behaviors. Yes, and all their interpretation of it might be wrong. You know, like what it says about them might be wrong. But the fact that they're having the feeling is a default. And if they're having it, 90 something percent of other people would have it. They might have it less. Maybe that kid's sensitive to this or that, but they will have a version of it. If you look at the wheel, that'll be a three rather than a seven, but it'll be a three.

So that's the one thing.

So have your emotions, those are okay. It's okay to have all the range of emotions. Never shame a kid for having emotions and always validate that what you're feeling is completely reasonable. Now let's talk about what you can do with it or what's going on.

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It depends on the age. You can say something like that, or you can say something like, look, if you're doing this and you're still upset, let's talk a little bit more, or do you need some time to yourself? Because you're upset before, it sounds like you still are. That's completely okay, but that's not okay to do. So let's talk about what's the best thing for you right now. Got it. But the second thing a parent has to do, and this is the goal of parenting, the goal of parenting, is to prepare your child to manage the world they will be in, not the world they grew up in.

Wow.

They grew up in a sheltered world, not the world they're emerging to.

That's true.

So you want to start as protective as you can possibly be, and then you want to loosen that as the child grows, because you would much rather they went through hardships while you were still around to help them cope, learn from it, change things, evolve and grow from it, develop the resilience from it, then shelter them. So then they go into the world and when the bad stuff happens, they're gonna crumble because they never developed the resilience or the skills or the coping mechanisms or the way to communicate it or the expectations. So your goal, you know, I see people like sheltering these 17, 18 year old kids and I'm like, they're leaving home soon. You're putting them back into the wild and you haven't let them hunt.

Right, right, right, right.

Stop hunting for them.

Yeah, yeah. So what can parents do to where they feel like, okay, they're gonna be safe, but I need them to take some risk in their own too. And what ages should they start to really let them go more?

Look, I joke about it with people who are my age, because we, and it's- 45?

Already.

-Ish. And so, because people my age, we joke, and it's not a joke, that if every parent, mine and everyone else's, would have been arrested such a long time ago for neglect. For neglect, because I was unsupervised from age eight or nine most of the afternoon. Many hours of the day outside and unsupervised. I was a latchkey kid. I came home with my brother. We were 10 years old. We had to make lunch. Knives, oil, gas. We're making french fries. What did you think we would make? We're 10, you know, like, you know, today if you come home and there's a 10 year old with a bunch of other 10 year olds crowding around, popping, and everyone was like, oh, the oil, oh, the, like, it was just like, today that would be, oh, they've disappeared for four hours. Well, they'll be back for dinner. But where are they? Oh, we don't know.

You know, like, that would not fly.

And so, it's a different world, huh? Yes. Do we need to go back to that, you think, or no? No, not exactly there, 'cause that was maybe a bit much, but something in the middle, in other words, if your kid is going to the party and you know there's gonna be drinking at the party and they're 17, do you want them to learn how to manage the fact there's gonna be drinking around them or drugs around them or not?

You want that, yes.

Well, right. But if you don't let them go, then they won't. Right. And if you don't have a big talk about it, about, you know, and people go, parents say this, well, what happens if you're 15, what happens if your friends start drinking or, you know, doing weed, will you do it? And all the kids are gonna say no. And that's the end of the conversation. Let's start the conversation. The conversation is gonna be, you're gonna be sitting there, everyone else is gonna be doing it and looking like they're having the best, best time. And looking at you like you're an idiot. Why wouldn't you do this? There's no adults around. What are you gonna do then? That's the question. But that's the conversation the parents need to have. Like, real, like, how do not Bad things won't happen. How will you deal with them when they will?

Okay, that's the second thing. Did you have a third thing or no?

Yes, relationships. You said it, right? We should be teaching this stuff in schools, but we know so much about relationships, relationship skills. You had to evolve them over the past 10 years. You could have done it as a teenager if somebody would have taught you and saved yourself A lot of heartache, a lot of aggravation, a lot of broken up relationships, not you, everyone I'm talking about, right? Like the divorce rate is so high and people are so unhappy in relationships because we have actually such great knowledge about it and it is not disseminated in any way, shape or form. This can be a two-week class in high school, for goodness sake. It's not that complicated. But at least tell people the facts and so they don't, you know, because people say to me things about relationships when they're young and I'm like, -Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

-What are they saying about it?

-Well, I'm not gonna talk to them if it was meant to be, it'll work out. And I'm like- -Good luck. -Relationships are an active formation process, not a passive, let's see what happens, and you know, like that. No, that's absolutely incorrect. You should be forming. I mean, we just spoke about how much work- -so much work. -you- both put into creating the foundation of the relationship. So much work. No, if it's meant to be, it won't just work out or not. No.

And it was, you know, it was intentional effort. I wouldn't say it was hard. It was, I don't want to say it's hard work, but it was intentional effort.

It's effortful.

It's effortful.

It doesn't mean it's hard or unpleasant. It's gonna be members maybe. Yeah.

And it's the, and it, it was a consistent conversation of what are we building? What are we creating? what works for you, what doesn't work for you? What do you like? What do you don't like? It was a constant conversation of being in the present, but also thinking about the future. And when you've gone through challenging relationships in the past, for me, I was like, I don't want to repeat that. I don't want to repeat what my parents did by them having a horrible relationship and getting divorced. And essentially, when you go through, I mean, for me, when I look back on it, when parents get divorced, maybe you can correct me on this, but as a child, they're breaking up the family one way or another. It's a psychological and physical break. It's like jackhammering the road and there needs to be some type of bridge somewhere, but sometimes you don't create a bridge. There's just dis-ease, discomfort, stress for years until you psychologically and physically create your own bridge on however you view your parents, their relationship and relationships in the world. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's kind of what it felt like for me. And it took a long time with a lot of fear, stress and anxiety to say, I don't want to recreate what my parents did. I don't want to feel trapped and not loved like they felt. And I don't want to recreate that. And I don't want to have that for my future kids. So I was terrified in relationships to commit to the next level and but I was afraid to be alone. And it's just like, so I stayed in places I was not happy and I didn't have the courage or the tools. And those models, that model created challenges for me. Now there's, I've created beautiful meaning from them now. And I've, you know, I see the benefit of it now, but it's, it's painful. And like you said, the divorce rate, what, 50 of marriages are probably still getting divorced right now. So a lot of kids are having psychological and physical. breakups within their own family dynamics and relationship dynamics. And it's, this is more needed now than ever, this information.

I completely agree. Look, divorce is incredibly destabilizing for kids because that's the family unit, the thing that you, you know, that's supposedly forever. And I guess you can't trust that people who love each other will always love each other. And it's very difficult for a child not to go, what does that mean about people who love me then? Whether it's mom or dad, you know, like sometimes parents handle divorce very, very well. It's a minority who do. I've seen parents handle it beautifully. I mean, as best as one can. I've seen parents truly go into it saying, we're gonna do everything we can to make this less damaging to our kids and put themselves in significant discomfort in order to do that. I feel like applauding them whenever I see it. and if it's in a session, I will. I'll literally clap. I'll be like, I can't tell you how impressed I am that you would put yourself both into this level of discomfort when you're probably hating each other right now for the sake of your children. But Bravo, you're doing an exquisite job. I mean, I see it and I love it, but most don't because it's very, very difficult, obviously. And they don't have the tools and they don't have the know-how and they don't have, they've gotten, you know, they waited too long, so they just cannot stand the side of each other. And it's, and it's too. difficult one feels victimized, whatever, you know, you know the story. But it's very destabilizing for a kid. So that has to be mended. Where does your faith come in? But you, by definition, have healed from that. Because if you hadn't, you would not be able to put in the investment you did into creating the relationship you do now, because that would not have seemed like a wise investment for you because you can't count on it. So that's the proof of your healing from that specific thing that you would put that much work in.

Yeah, and I almost got to the place of myself where I had built so much self-esteem, I guess, in a humble way, where I was like, I'm gonna vest so much into over communicating, not from a traumatized place of, like, anxious over communicating, but overcutting, painting my values, my vision, my lifestyle, what I want. And if it works out, great. And if it doesn't, I'm happy to be alone. Like, I'm happy to be alone and live my life for as long as it takes until I can create that. with the values, the vision and the lifestyle in alignment, not perfect, but aligned. And truly accept the person in front of me after getting to know them, accept myself and make sure that we're both willing to be doing the work individually and together. Yes. That's something that Martha did really beautiful. She was doing her own work. I was doing my own work. And I said, I want to do it together, too. Like, relationships can be very challenging as, you know, even when everything is good, it's eventually kids, money, challenges, death from parents, stuff happens. Let's keep intentionally putting effort into this together and individually if we want it to work. Otherwise, we're gonna have to do damage control in the future. And that's what most people do.

That's right.

Or they have affairs, or they cheat, or they lie, or they whatever it is. You're doing something to numb the pain as opposed to intentionally going through the pain to creating peace.

It's a very, very important lesson. I'm so glad you're sharing it with people because this idea of you actually have to work really hard on yourself to get to know yourself, to be happy enough with yourself so that you have a complete self to offer the other person. And then you have to work just as hard on the relationship. It doesn't, doesn't, and I am certain there were moments where you felt like, I just don't, not right now.

Why am I spending a Saturday afternoon with the therapist?

But because, you know, it's good for you. 100%. Because, you know, it will, it'll pay a lot of dividends and because, you.

Know, it'll prevent a lot of heartache later on. Absolutely. Literally. And I think of, you know, my parents who got divorced in their, they were married for, I think, 30 years, something like that. 30. I think it was 30, like 28 to 30 years. They got married when they're like 20, right? They had my brother when they were 19. Right. So I think they got divorced around late 40s or like 50, maybe it was around 50. But all I remember, my earliest memories were when I was like four and a half, five, right? All I remember is uneasiness, tension, stress, screaming, slamming up doors. You know, you just didn't know when it was going to be peaceful. So it was this uncertainty every few days. And my brother, when I was eight, my brother was in prison. And a lot of that had to do with the family dynamics of just like, know how they raised him. You know, my sisters both struggled with suicide attempts when they were teenagers. So it's just like a lot of uncertainty and just like there was, there was love. Like I knew my parents loved me and cared for me, but they didn't love each other. And therefore that just shook the energy consistently and it didn't feel safe consistently. So my early memories are thinking I wish my parents weren't together, right? Like they shouldn't be together. It's just kind of this innate feeling, like there's not love there. There's something that's off. But they stayed because the kids and religion or whatever it is, right? And when they got divorced, there was a relief, but there was also a lot of anger and like frustration and sadness, like what they put us through as kids. So it was hard to really love them. like, I wanted to be around them, but I didn't want to be around them. You know, it was, like, hard to really love them in that 16 to 24 kind of time frame because I was so angry at them. And I think a lot of kids have that feeling of, like, anger that the parents either couldn't figure out how to communicate and love each other and breaking up the relationship. I think a lot of kids feel that.

A lot of kids feel that because parenting is the hardest job in the world. It's got to be so hard and No one teaches you anything about it. Nothing, nothing. Like, you know, you come home with the baby, and that's it. And most mothers, when they feel like, like, wait, you can't just leave me here with this. I don't know what I'm doing.

I know.

And parents get panicked, and it's so difficult. So I feel bad for parents because no one's telling them how to do it, and, you know, and there's much less information available when your parents were, growing up and parenting you than there is today. There's so much online, like even just people who are watching your podcast can just, you know, like there's so much information there that they can just glean. So it's free, it's available, go get it, you know, that kind of thing. But it's very difficult to do.

Yes. A couple of final questions for you before I get into them. A lot of great content we've shared today, but if you've dealt with a broken heart, your book, How to Fix a Broken Heart, is extremely powerful. came out many years ago, but it's still really relevant and powerful today. So make sure to check this out or get it for a friend who's been through a breakup or any type of broken heart. This other book here, emotional first date, healing, rejection, guilt, failure and other everyday hurts, I think is a must read for, for everyone, because emotional injuries are something that we don't evaluate, we don't diagnose.

Right?

We just say, I'm angry. Let me just numb it or drink or take substances or have sex or watch porn or whatever it is to numb the feeling. And the more we numb things, the more pain we're going to feel long term. And it's going to be harder to emotionally unwind those kind of wounds. And you'd say that we all sustain emotional wounds. These. These feelings. I felt a lot of these as a child growing up, almost like weekly. It was like something else happened in school where I felt an emotional wound. but I didn't know how to react or respond to them. So if you're an individual who doesn't know how to do that yet, get this book. And you also have this other one, which is, which one is this about? Complaining the right way.

It's about the psychology of complaining. This is my first book that I wrote. There was no book out there about that talks about the science of complaining and what we know and what we do well and what we do. poorly and how it impacts us in relationships and self-esteem and all kinds of other ways. And so there's actually a right way to do things and that's all that book.

And how to complain the right way.

To get the benefit out of it.

Before I ask the final two questions, Guy, where can we follow and support you online? You've got a podcast, you've got the books, where can we follow you?

So, guywinch.com will be where you can get most of the information. I have a newsletter, you can subscribe to it. I'm working on a new book. It should be out in a year or so, and you'll find information about there. That's a book about the workplace. It's called Mind of a Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks yous Life. Because our work actually hijacks our life in many ways that we're aware of and many that we're not. And seating control in those ways is actually costing us in all kinds of really important ways. And our loved ones, it's costing them too. Our families, our spouses, and so you need to get a handle on that or at least be aware of the damage that might be going on. So, but that will be in a year or so.

Okay, cool. GuyWinch.com for all this stuff, social media as well. Powerful stuff. I've got a couple final questions for you. For Gen Z, the Gen Z world right now, which seems like probably has the most confusion of all because they kind of grew up in social media. They didn't really have the lifestyle we did where we're you know, going out until dark and then coming back and, you know, just playing games outside. They're kind of growing up on the phone, social media, more connected to the world and disconnected to the world at the same time, more friends than ever, but feeling lonelier than ever, all these different things. If you could give them one piece of advice on how to set them up for success for the rest of their life with the world they grew up in, what would you say they really need to focus on developing more?

I think with Gen Z, I mean, it's a very difficult thing when you grow up with a phone. The phone is this device that I, this might sound extreme, but here's how I think of Marie Curie. When she was, you know, was it uranium? What did she find? Whatever the material that she found, she died from radioactivity. because she was dealing with something that was extraordinarily toxic. I hope I'm not getting that wrong. I'll get all your- Physicist's going like, don't you know your history? And I'm like, no, not that physics. I'm, anyway. But anyway, but my point being, this is a very damaging device. It's very, very problematic. It has amazing things in it. It has, can do a ton of good, but it's dangerous in all kinds of ways. The fact that we don't regulate that now, the fact that there's no, you know, I mean, there's a lot of clarity about all the ways that it's damaging, but we just tend to, ignore them. You have to look at that device and like look at your relationship with it and be honest with yourself about where it's helping and where it's not. Where it's not is when you're feeling, if you're Gen Z and truly of everyone, but especially if you're Gen Z, if you're feeling bad, down, disconnected, lonely, you're gonna go there to get comfort and it's gonna make you feel worse. Yeah. Especially on social media. And so you have to know when to use it, when to not, how to use it and how to not. Gen Z has substituted a huge significant chunk of their relationships from virtual, from in-person to virtual. They have much less face-to-face time and it's costing them not just in terms of loneliness, but in terms of social skills, social anxiety, self-esteem, all of those things. So try and when you're with friends and you're having dinner, put the phones aside and I don't mean down, because you'll glance. I mean away. Create phone-free zones when you're interacting in person. The temptation is too great. Otherwise, whenever I see young people, they're all together on their phones and it's like, it's a miss. So that would be my advice. It's gonna be extraordinarily tempting, but police yourself.

Police yourself, yeah.

In that way.

I think I've asked you this before, but I wanna ask you your three truths again and see if anything shifted here. So at the end of the conversations, I ask people, if you get to live as long as you want in this life and you get to accomplish everything you dream of. But on the last day, you've got to take everything with you. All your books, this conversation, no one has access to anything you've shared in your lifetime, hypothetically. But you get to leave behind three lessons or three things you know to be true. And that's all we would have to kind of remember you by are these three truths. What would those be for you?

Caring. To care for other people is free. It can only pay benefits. Yes, it can disappoint you if you don't get cared back, but it really should disappoint you once, because if that person's not caring back, you don't need to keep at it. But the benefits are immense. You know, in the workplace, that's part of the book that I'm writing now, but in the workplace, the toxic cultures we have a very, you know, people leave jobs not because they feel uncared for. That's really the ultimate truth about things and people who feel cared for in their work and in their lives thrive more. It's free. We should be giving this to other people, not hoarding it. You know, so just having this idea of kindness, of caring, I think is super important. In the similar vein, I practice gratitude extraordinarily regularly. like daily. And gratitude is incredibly powerful. And so you're like, okay, fine, yeah, I'm grateful for the sun. And I'm like, then you don't understand what gratitude exercises are, because it's not, I'm grateful for the sun. You might be grateful for the sun, but why? The gratitude exercise is like, oh my goodness, it's been cloudy for five days. It's finally sunny. It improves my mood. I feel like going out. I see everything in a more positive light. bright way, I'm so glad it's on you today. That's a grateful reflection and especially powerful if it's interpersonal. If you're thinking about someone in your life that was meaningful to you many years ago, but you never expressed it, a friend you have now perhaps, writing something, picking up the phone and saying it will lift your spirits for days, for days. It is the most powerful thing we can do for ourselves. It improves optimism. It changes our perspective on life. It makes us find, you know, the silver over linings. It's such a potent, healthy thing to do. Again, free.

Yeah.

Anyone can do it. I really recommend that. That's something that I do and that I practice. And the third one, I'm gonna say, and I have no recollection what I said last time, so if anyone feels like doing the research, humor. Now that's my bias because I like humor. I find it to be a great way to dissolve tensions. I find it, you know, a great way to connect with people. I find it a great way to offer a perspective to get emotional distance from something that's painful. Using humor gives you emotional distance. If you're upset about something, writing jokes, but that's what stand-up comics do, right? I mean, the real ones, they talk about their pain, but it's therapeutic for them. They work it out because if you can laugh at something, you are by definition distant. from it. And by definition, you added a layer of protection. So, that would be the third.

That's beautiful. Guy, I'm always grateful for you. I appreciate you and acknowledge you for your three plus decades of research and the science of self-help and personal development and healing and understanding emotions. I truly believe that the most powerful skill that any human can develop is really an understanding of their own emotional intelligence, emotional resilience, so that they can handle the world in front of them. Because there's going to be a lot of ups and downs for people. And if they're not emotionally fit or resilient, they will have a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, a lot of pain. So we need more people like you, guy. I appreciate you. Final question. What's your definition of greatness.

Did you ask me that one before? I'm trying to remember. You did. I have no recollection what I said about that one. Before I said that, I'm just gonna say, I love talking with you because you are such interesting questions and I think they're so grounded and I think they're so relevant for people. I think that's why you have such a big following because it's actually very practical. It's very, you know, people can relate to what you talk about in terms of your own experiences and the questions you ask come from that. So they're always for me, they're always very, very interesting and different. And that's why I have to do things like buy time when you ask me about how I define greatness. I guess my definition, if I'm thinking about myself, what would make me feel that I've achieved some kind of greatness? And it's not a hubris thing, because I don't believe in greatness in terms of stature. I believe in greatness in terms of how you're meeting your own goals and expectations. To me, greatness is a little bit of what you laid out earlier. You have articulated for yourself, which is, by the way, a step ahead of a lot of people, what your vision is of what you want your life to be about, where you want to go, where you want to develop as a person, and in the work you do in the world. And this might be your definition of greatness, but I do think greatness is articulating that and working toward it, and the greatness comes from the journey, not from reaching some kind of artificial milestone.

There you go. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Amazing. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel. exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and and do something great.

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