12: Telling & Respecting Your Truth with Kirsty Spraggon

Welcome to the Mutually Amazing Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Domitrz, with the Center for Respect. The episode you're about to listen to was recorded when this show used to be called the Respect Podcast. So, you might hear that mentioned during this episode. Well, let's get to the show. Welcome to this episode of the Respect Podcast. Today we've got Kirstie Sprague here. I want to let you know all about her. She, she's been interviewing truth tellers for the past 10 years and working on her documentary. The Truth Teller Project has given Kirstie a unique perspective on truth. Her episodes have been seen by over 2 million people in 120 countries, capturing emotionally raw and powerful stories from those who've endured some of the worst kinds of sexual abuse. risen up from trauma, overcome addiction, and moved forward from shame and stigma. Thank you, Kirsty, so much for joining us.

Of course. Happy to be here.

Well, we're thrilled to have you here. How do you feel that respect plays a part in the work you do as a truth teller?

For me, respect starts with self-respect. I think self-leadership, self-love, self-respect, whichever word you want to use, it's like If you don't respect yourself, you're— you know, this week we've been doing a class with people that's been going pretty deep, and the amount of people who have self-loathing, you know, that internal voice and criticism, to me that's disrespectful and harmful emotionally to ourselves to have that kind of thing going on. I feel like in the bigger conversation of the work I do with interviews, it's respectful to our community and to family members to, to become truth tellers. Because when we hide who we are, we create— we play a role in being part of the reason that things like mental health have a stigma, the reason that people don't share when they've been through a trauma. You become part of the problem when, when you don't open up and share.

So let's dive into that truth teller. A lot of people who haven't heard that term before, may not be fully, uh, comprehend what you're referencing. So what does it mean to be a truth teller?

For me, it's just sharing your truth. And there's big and small truths. You know, there's big truths in terms of what we may have been through— abuse, addiction, depression. And then there's also small daily truths of, I'm just not enjoying this conversation right now, and standing up for what we believe in and sharing when we're uncomfortable in the moment. Or, you know, I'm not doing the work that I wanna do in the world, or I'm not happy in my relationship. So I think there's big and small truths down to the kind of macro of individual conversations that we're in all day, every day. Do we share the truth? Are we coming from a place of authenticity? Are we feeling like we're being fully seen, that we can show up with all of who we are? Or, you know, is the culture that we're in making us feel like we have to hide some of that? Or is it our mindset and, um, the self-loathing and the tapes that we have playing in our head that are making us feel like we can't tell our truth?

So there's a lot to unpack there. You had mentioned whether you're having a conversation with someone and you don't like where the conversation's going, will you say that? So are you recommending that if somebody's having a conversation with someone, they don't like where it's going, they just go, hey, I don't like where this conversation's going.

Yeah, I mean, look, I was just watching a really great video around the MeToo movement with 6 men. I think it was— is it the guy who manages Justin Bieber and some very high-profile people, Lewis Howes? And so these gentlemen were talking about how the MeToo movement is impacting them and the conversations they're having. And one of the interesting things they said is that every single one of them at some point had been complicit in being around someone who had sexually harassed a woman. And when they were in college, they didn't have the courage or the strength, or when they had, some of them had actually said something, so, you know, that's not cool, and then they'd felt like they were then made fun of or isolated from the group. Again, it comes back to when you have respect for yourself, you're okay with maybe this isn't my clique, maybe this isn't where I want— I don't want to sell out my soul to do something that goes against my core values. And so I think that when we have that respect for ourselves and we build our strength to tell our truth, then we become comfortable in all those situations. So yeah, totally, I think that you've got to build that muscle. It doesn't come easily and it's harder when you're younger to have that courage. But yeah, you have to get to a point where you can just say in a conversation or pull someone aside and say, you know, I don't know where that behaviour came from or what was going on, but that really upset me. It's not something that I want to be around or want to have a friend of mine engaging in. Because otherwise, as the men said in this interview, really, you're just as complicit as the perpetrator because they don't get to continue that behavior without everyone else giving them permission to.

Well, I love that discussion. It's something we talk to audiences about all over the world about how to intervene in those moments. How do you help people gain the skills and the confidence to be able to speak up for themselves, for others?

You know, I think it's a journey. I think for me, you know, it certainly was. It's taken 20 years. I don't think it's something that any of us— and I don't I don't think you ever get there. I think it's a continual work in progress. And the more I told my big truths, the more I found myself telling all those little truths. And so for me, it was kind of like one followed the other, because when you hide all the big stuff, then you're hiding all the little stuff, and it's all compounded in shame and secretism and isolation and not wanting to be seen or found out, or if anyone gets too close to you. So, you know, it shuts down vulnerability. We put up walls emotionally. We don't have as many friends. We maybe avoid people because when you have all that, those big things going on that you're not telling anyone, it takes a lot of energy to, you know, it's like keeping a lid on a boiling pot of water. So all your energy goes towards that. So I think that once you get to a place where you can share some of those bigger truths, then you're more comfortable and confident with being able to have authentic conversations in your daily life and it becomes a practice. In terms of how do we get to sharing those bigger truths first, that's working through the shame and the stigma, you know, whether it's for someone that's having an STD or that they've been through sexual abuse or a rape or that they have addiction issues, you know, finding support groups, finding safe places, journaling, gratitude lists, and starting to, you know, really do this inner work. You know, I think that we value going to work and business work so much and— We do, you know, 50 to 70 hours a week, some people, and have no holidays and no time off. And, but yet, when do we do this inner work? You know, we're not just talking about somebody who has something small going on. We're talking about like those kinds of traumas, shame, stigma, things that they're carrying a secret, that has self-loathing going on, or they have depression or anxiety on a daily basis. When you have that sort of thing going on, you— it requires deep inner work. And it may take, you know, a few hours every day or all weekend. And because there'll be times when you're just processing and you need downtime. Or you need to go to therapy and then you need to process and unpack all that comes up from that. You need to just go to the beach and be gentle with yourself and, and give you time to like feel all the new things that are coming up and process through it.

And so you bring up something really good. You said our big truths, which is always interesting because one person's big truth to somebody else could feel like a small truth. It really depends on your view, but if it's big to you, it's big. That's all that matters. And you speak about your big truths. So let's go back a little bit. So where did this journey around truth and shame begin for you?

So for me, I had, um, you know, gotten herpes, a sexually transmitted disease, in my early sort of 19s, 20s. There's plenty of people who are like, oh, it's like a pimple, what's the big deal? So for them, it isn't a secret and it doesn't hold any shame. But in 2018, I still get weekly calls from people who are depressed and suicidal who are newly diagnosed. So there's still a massive amount of stigma around having an STD, you know, and for everyone with whatever secret they have, it's not just the secret, it's all the ways it impacts your life. Having an STD means that you now have to have that conversation with someone that you've just met and you're dating. And so it takes away a piece of your freedom. And so there's all these different pieces, whether you've been through a miscarriage or abortion or a rape, and there's things within each of those that only someone who's ever been through it really get the that kind of ricochet and ripple effect of how it impacts them in terms of shame. And sometimes it can be really insidious. Like, you don't even realize that this could impact you in so many ways and that you've sort of been in this shame vortex. But that takes work and time. Like, you usually, you recognize it when you start isolating or numbing, using something to cope, whether it's a couple of glasses of wine or drugs, you know, and you start engaging in behavior that isn't really loving to yourself and you feel a little bit out of control. Like, they're all signals for people to kind of go, oh wow, like something's not working in my life here. I'm avoiding feelings. This is like too painful, too uncomfortable to want to sit in.

And so in that journey for you, when you recognize that, how did you get to that place of recognizing for you that I am not in a place that I want to be? I need to take a step forward here. To getting to the place where you did TED Talks on this, on this specific topic that you thought was— you felt shame around, you did not want it to come out of the dark. How did you go to that place of now doing a TED Talk where millions of people are going to see you sharing that story? And for you, what was a big truth?

I think that you have to get to a place where the pain is worse than the fear. So I was miserable. Like, I wasn't happy. I was isolating. I was numbing. I was engaging in behaviors that weren't really healthy or loving to myself. I think that being a speaker and being in this world and growing up in sales, I'd listened to Zig Ziglar since I was, you know, 13 years old on the old cassette tapes. So I think I had this seed planted around dreaming big in the workspace, that you could dream big, that you could do anything, that built my resilience and my confidence. And I think that was For me, it was important in a way that I didn't even know until much later, but it was always there building. And so, for a while, I kept those things separate. Success was camouflaging my unworthiness. I stayed so busy that I didn't have time. I was so distracted. Busyness is another way to numb, you know, over-exercising, overworking. When we don't have any space or capacity, when we're not meditating or sitting in silence with ourselves, then we don't have to hear our own voice and all of the misery. So, for me, it was a long journey and it just happened that, you know, I was curious. I was a truth seeker. I knew I was uncomfortable. I knew I was unhappy, but I didn't really know what to do. But I would seek. I would seek out mentors. I would seek out courses. I was a conference junkie. I would seek out books. You know, I was reading other people's stories. Then, I started the show and I was interviewing people, but I wasn't telling my truth at that point. You know, all of these things over the years, all these different modalities from EFT, to therapy all played a role in me building up my tools, my backpack, so that I— when I got to the place where I felt ready. And even on the day when I decided to share in the TEDx talk, I was— I wanted to vomit all day long. Like, I was so nauseous and so ill for hours. So it doesn't mean that the fear ever fully goes away. You just get to a place where you're willing to hold its hand and take a leap anyway.

And before we dive into the TED Talk and that you having that moment on stage and revealing on stage, do you think there's a way— because for your journey and many people that I meet around the world, for many of us, I think what you said was brilliant, that the pain has to outweigh the fear. That makes us make the step forward because we don't want the pain anymore. Is there a way for people to have this journey without having to get that to that place, to that place of so hurt So dark that I've gotta do something or else.

I think, you know, I'm going through a new journey right now and I'm in process of healing that and figuring out what it all means. And I certainly am much more confident. It doesn't mean that you don't have the emotional pain when you have to sit with the memories, the trauma, when stuff is coming up for you. It doesn't mean that the pain disappears entirely, but I don't have the pain and the fear around sharing, around doing the work, around sitting in it all. Like, I know that there's a process. I know that there— that you have to kind of go through the fire to get to the other side. I know that it's going to feel worse before it feels better. So you also build— and I think that this is the same with any skill in life, any entrepreneurial journey— you build, you build like a frame of reference for success. When you go through something. So, having that early journey around shame taught me what the process looked like and that there was an end result. That, yes, it's going to be painful. Yes, it's going to be uncomfortable, but I'm going to be okay. Most of these voices are just in my head. Most of the worries don't ever happen. And the same with business. You know, you know there's this frame of reference. So, whether you go skydiving, no matter what you do, you build this frame of reference. For, I did this, this happened, this worked out, and now I'm at the other side. For me, healing's kind of the same. I don't think anyone needs to wait until they get to that rock bottom. You know, for some of us, that dark night of the soul, like, it's part of the journey. But I think at any point you can choose to go, okay, how do I find resources, podcasters like this, and mentors and courses and figure out how, you know, maybe somebody else has already gone through this. For me, that's one of the reasons that I seek so much through other people's stories and books and in the interviews that I do, because then you're hearing from someone who's gone before you and you get to hear what helped them the most and how they got through it. So it gives you hope and wisdom, and you— I think you always have to learn some of your own lessons. But it certainly helps to hear them from someone who's gone before you.

Yeah. When we created the Voices of Courage ebook, audiobook, and book, it's a book of survivors sharing their stories. And it's amazing how many people really find it powerful because through those other voices, through those 10 women and 2 men, they can see traces of themselves. And in having that experience, they also get to see these 12 people are living their lives. They're, they're living and they're thriving. And they can then see, because I relate to their journey, I can get there too. There is a path for me too. And so I think what you bring up there is so brilliant about finding others who have gone through this experience, because the reality is there are always people who have gone through what you've gone through. It may not be the exact same situation, but the same emotional pain on some level has been felt by other people before. Most of our pains are not truly unique. You know, research shows that, that we are not unique. The mistake is thinking that my pain is different than other people's pain. That is what can cause you to stay in the dark versus recognizing, oh, I am having pain here that someone else has had too. Where are they? Where can I find them? Which is what you're referencing there. And I think that's so powerful for people to get. Early— and the earlier you can do that, you may never have to get to that dark place, right? Because if you start to go, I'm starting to feel pain or numbing about this topic, who else has gone through this, you might be able to kick me out of that before I ever go to that dark place. So I think for people listening, just saying, the earlier you can seek and the earlier you can share, the more freedom you get quicker.

Exactly.

Now you shared on a massive level, right? You shared on a TED Talk. Where for some people it might be share with your best friend. Start there.

Right.

Share with someone you trust. Exactly. Maybe it's a therapist.

Yeah. And people often ask me, how do I know? You know, it's like, you're going to get it wrong when you're younger. You know, obviously we're not as discerning and we're maybe not as tuned into our intuition, but certainly look for red flags. Like if you're going to tell someone, think about like, how do they talk and engage with you? Do they typically engage in gossip? Have they told you private information about other friends? You know, so look at the person that you're going to share this with so that, you know, you can do as much as possible to find a safe space. Maybe share something else with them and just see how they respond. It doesn't even have to be about you, but just talk about something that's going on in the news and see how they respond, because if they're critical of similar things, then they may not be a healthy place for you to share either. Like, if you're not gonna get something positive from them and they, or they're gonna be judgmental, it's like you've gotta make sure that you, you look at why are you telling this person and are they a safe space and are they going to be able to provide some comfort or insight?

I love that. And so now we got, you're at the TED Talk, you're about to share publicly this truth for you that it, that it could be painful, that there's been shame around for years, but now you're ready to talk. So a couple questions. One, what was that like to share on such a massive level? Now in the room there, there's a few hundred. You're not in a million. There's not a million people live, but there's a few hundred. But that, that's pressure. But then, you know, it's going to be out to the world. So what was it like to do that? What was the response and what a journey is that taking you on since?

You know, it was hard. As I said, even on that day, I still wasn't ready. And it was challenging because I had so much anxiety and nausea that I couldn't tell, like, am I supposed to do this, or is the fact that I'm having this response telling me that I shouldn't be? Am I gonna make the biggest mistake of my life? What is this gonna do for my career? I'm this motivational speaker in corporate world, and here I am doing a TEDx talk on herpes. And what if someone finds it online? It's up there forever. Like, all those things were going through my head. But there was this deep inner knowing that it was time. It was time to set myself free. It was time to share my truth. It was time to stop feeling like a fraud. I just knew on some level that this was what was going to lead to my freedom. And I had enough experience and frame of reference with other experiences that when I listened to myself and my inner knowing and my guidance system, that I had always ended up better off, that I had always— it had led to success in some way, shape, or form. So I knew, I had a feeling that everything was going to work out even though I had all those fear voices and tapes playing, I was able to be rational around them and ignore them and push through. Once I got the words out, like maybe a minute in or something to the talk, I felt like just a weight had lifted. It was like, oh, it's done now, I can just like talk. And I don't think I realized, like in my head at the time, I thought the fact that I could do the TEDx talk was like, I'm done, I'm healed, I'm at Yeah. Finally, I felt like the work was done, and I didn't realize that it was only just beginning, that sharing the truth was like opening up this huge part of my heart and vulnerability in myself that I didn't know, and that there was going to be a freedom that— it just shifted so many things. And it was like when the real work began. Okay, now you've got to look at— now you've shifted the secret or the thing that you hold shame around, but what about the 20 years of damage it's done in terms of the way you think and behave and show up in relationships and intimacy and all the other things that the tape that you've been running. So then you have to start doing the work to repair all of that and pull off each of those pieces individually and take a look at them and, and work through them.

Well, and what I love about that is the fact that It reminds us all that if you're gonna transform, that doesn't mean you go back to how you were yesterday. Transformation means I'm different than I ever was before, and I'm not the person I was before. I'm a different human being now. So with that awakening, I now feel everything. I now know who my true self is, so I can notice I don't wanna be the past 20 years, which means I have work every day. I don't just have work for the next week. I don't just have work for the next few months. I have work every day of my life for the rest of my life to be that pure, truest self I want to be. Is that what you're referencing?

Yes, exactly.

And so, how did people react to that? What did you hear as you gave this sharing experience through the TEDx talk?

I mean, the feedback was immediate, you know, just so— I mean, as I walked off stage, they had lined up. all the crew behind and were giving me high fives as I walked past. And, you know, one of my best friends was outside when I came off, and I just said, oh my God, that's going to either be the stupidest thing I ever did or the bravest thing. I got to talk to quite a few people who were at the event, and then it took 3 months for it to go up online on the TEDx site. So in that time, I was able to hear from people that, you know, they had seen this video and it had opened them up to share other kinds of truths. And since then, I've received thousands of messages and emails. And so, it's definitely, you know, it changed the trajectory of my career. I've shifted in a lot of ways the work that I was doing in corporate and incorporating a lot more of this because, you know, you can't go professionally where you won't go personally. So, this stuff shows up as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and, you know, where our past shows up in our present. Those Past behaviors of being bullied or abused, um, if we don't heal them, can show up dysfunctionally in the workplace. So, you know, it's definitely influenced a lot of what I do, and it's much more rewarding for me to be able to, to help people work through this tougher stuff.

And you and I have talked about this before, the fact that what you were sharing about was such a personal situation. You know, sexually transmitted disease or infection is very personal. And people think, well, that's not going to relate to the corporate world. But yet companies are coming to you, organizations are coming to you, as you just referenced, saying, hey, can you share this message with, with our people? So, could you explain how that fits, how that aligns? And you made a little reference there just now about, hey, if we don't have these true skin factors in the workplace, uh, so can we dive a little deeper into that?

Yeah, I mean, like, as I said, you can't go professionally where you won't go personally. So, an example would be, I would working with a CEO who he had built as a solo entrepreneur a $30 million company, and we were talking about the past showing up in the present. And one of the behaviors that he had noticed as a leader is that he felt like anxiety around always getting it wrong. Now you can imagine, as a leader of a $30 million business, you kind of have to make some decisions and not be afraid that you're always going to get it wrong. And that would have a serious impact on his work and his leadership style. And when we looked at that and where it had come from, it was back to about age 2 or 3. His father was an alcoholic and so he was constantly as a child being made to feel wrong, to step on eggshells, to never know which father was going to show up at home at night and to be feeling like he disappointed him, that he got everything wrong, that nothing was ever right.

Right.

Most organizations don't have these kinds of conversations or don't allow the space for it, but when you do, it's amazing what comes up. And then they just have these aha moments and they're like, wow, I never thought that that might be connected, that my past is showing up in my present. And so I think there's a lot of ways that looking at, you know, truth-telling, because it's not about my personal story, and I say that to clients. Sometimes I don't even go into that. It really depends on the situation, but it's not about the individual because every single person, we know statistically, the numbers show us that in every room of CEOs that I work with and leadership groups and conferences, there are pretty much 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 of every person in that room, whether it's addiction, rape, trauma, depression, suicide, it's 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 for most things. And so every single person in that room is being impacted by something. And that's what it's about, looking at where personally something has gone on for you and how if you haven't cleared that, healed that, worked through that, it might be showing up in self-loathing, in maybe not being the person who'll speak up in the boardroom or ask for a pay rise or share ideas. So maybe you become more closed off. Or for others it can be hyper-aggressiveness. bullying and putting up defenses in that way. Um, or like myself, you know, success camouflaged all of my unworthiness. And so staying hyper busy and busy in every way— talking fast, eating fast, being on the go— like, I was just the most frenetic masculine energy kind of person. And now being able to be more into my true self and to feel like I can have that femininity, that I can slow down, that I can connect in meaningful ways, that I don't have to get pulled into other people's energy or agenda. It's like all of that is important in showing up as our best self and being able to be creative and to be an amazing person and leader at home and at work.

Well, and it's such a freedom that it gives you versus feeling like you're living by others, right? By this pressure, by this guilt, by the shame, by these expectations. I can just be. I can just be present. Now, earlier you mentioned meditation and giving yourself time for that. What other practices that you utilize in your life to make sure that you're honoring that space of being you and your thoughts and your feelings and not numbing by staying busy? Because most of us do it. And some of you might be thinking, well, some of us might— I don't really keep myself busy. But if we watched you, you'd be looking at your phone right now if somebody wasn't engaging you, right? Which is an exact full So it's not keeping busy as in you have to be in motion. It's that the mind or the body has to keep busy. It could be either or both. So what are ways you help yourself? You mentioned meditation. What are some ways that you help yourself?

For me, probably the biggest thing is that I, I started a daily energy management chart. So I write a whole list of things, whether it's using essential oils, sage smudging, salt baths, showers, things that clear energy. And so, I started looking at, like, for me, whenever I went into anxiety or— it was actually energetic sensitivity that I would become so overwhelmed and so tired and drained easily by big groups of people. And that I had— for me, it was more managing my energy. So, now what I'll do, you know, on Saturday is a good example. I went on a road trip with some friends to San Diego. It's a 3-hour drive, so by the time we drove down there, we stopped, we had lunch with some people. Then we went to the beach, then we drove to the next house, then we had dinner. By the end of the day, I wasn't enjoying myself. I'd lost my joy of having those conversations. What I should have done is at 2 or 3 o'clock, gone and had half an hour to lay down, to meditate, to just be by myself, and just sort of to collect back my sense of self and not feel so pulled, so drained, so tired from all of everybody else's energy and all the connections and the conversations. And so I'm getting much better at that. Like, I, I really am conscious to— I call it pressing pause in the middle of the day. So for me, it's by about 1 or 2 o'clock. I found when I was using this chart, I would monitor my numbers. So every 2 hours for a week or 2, it's good for people to do this at 8 AM, 10 AM, 12 o'clock, 4 o'clock, 6 o'clock, that kind of thing, just to check in on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being That I'm feeling really low, and 10 being on the highest vibration that I could possibly be. And then I would notice that I would start at a 10 and I would drop down to an 8 or a 7 or a 6. And if I didn't catch it by the time it was at about a 6 or a 7, I— by the end of the day I would be at a 2, and the next day I would start lower, and it would be cumulative. And by the end of the week I couldn't catch back up. So I've found by pressing pause at about 2 o'clock when I find those numbers are dropping a little bit and I'm at a 6 or a 7, I can go do a 5-minute meditation, a 10-minute run around the block, lay down even and have a little catnap, whatever it is. I have a great stress hypnosis CD I use and I love the Insight Timer app and the Live Awake series is beautiful. So it can be something very short and simple with a lot of deep breathing. I can bring myself back. back to center and I can bring my numbers back up to an 8 or a 9 or a 10 very quickly if I press pause in the middle of the day. So that for me has probably been the biggest shift is noticing that I'm like a runaway train and if I don't press pause and I don't notice it that I'm going to end up more depleted, more exhausted over the coming days and not be able to bring myself back to center as easily. And then for me what are those things— I have a list at the bottom of the page on my chart of the things that bring me back to center fast. And so going to the beach, putting my feet in the water, within 20 minutes, you know, if you're close enough to be able to do that. What are those things for you? Is it watching the sunset? Is it watching your kids play? Is it being away from your kids? You know, meditation. So finding 2 or 3 things that are your quick go-to that I can use to press pause and gather myself really fast. I mean, I love journaling. Gratitude lists are proven, you know, the research behind gratitude lists and how they can affect us emotionally is there. As with exercise, so for people suffering with anxiety and mental health, like the first thing I say to them is, are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you not drinking alcohol? You know, are you doing a gratitude list? Are you— this takes inner work. It doesn't shift on its own. It takes work and homework for you to learn these skills, and then they get easier and they become a natural part of your day. But I'm, you know, it frustrates me how many people I meet. who want to go on medication, who are so desperate, but they're not doing any of these things.

Well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna provide everyone a link to that chart so that they can be able to see this and utilize this, because such a great tool that you provide. So that's wonderful. I want to thank you, Kirstie, because you've given us so much wisdom here and so much skills that we can use to find our truth, to speak our truth, and to be aware of our energy levels. So thank you so much.

My pleasure.

For all of our listeners, you can find Kirstie at KirstieTV.com. It's that easy. KirstieTV.com. She also has 2 books she really recommends. I'm gonna have those in the show notes, so you gotta go see the show notes to find out what those are. We'd love to hear your questions, your thoughts, and your ideas, and the best place to leave those with us is on our Facebook page at facebook.com/MutuallyAmazingPodcast. Of course, you can always contact us on our website at mutuallyamazingpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe to this show so you automatically get it every week. And if you could take one moment to leave a review, that really helps other people find the show, which we are greatly appreciative of. So thank you so much for joining us. May you make today and every day a life full of mutually amazing relationships.