Hidden Reason You Still Don't Feel Good Enough

We talk about so many things when it comes to health and how to track that and what to take or what to do to uplevel our health, but there's something that we have not discussed enough on this show, and I want to go deep on this today. That is our belief set around who we are, our purpose, why we're here, and how we can be fully fulfilled. I believe that health is not just about what we take, what we eat, what we do. It's what we believe and how we live our life. Some of the happiest, healthiest people I know feel that they're really on purpose. They they walk into different seasons of their life with joy and openness and happiness. And then I know many others that feel really, really struggled in midlife, like they don't know who they are anymore. Maybe they were raising kids, that was their whole purpose, and now they're feeling stuck or empty on what's next. And this does affect our health. Now, I am not the expert when it comes to therapy, but my friend Michaela Sarno is. She's an incredible therapist who specializes in EMDR. I had the pleasure of working with her, me and my husband both, directly with therapy quite some time back, and it made a big impact on both of our lives. And I just want to share a quick story before I fully introduce her and bring her in. When I met my good friend Shaleen Johnson years ago, it was the first day I met her. We had been talking online, and me and Brooks were at her house with her and her husband. And within like 30 minutes of talking to her, she said to me, you really need EMDR. She didn't even know me. And you've got to go to my friend Michaela. And she said, and I'll bribe you if you go to her. Every time you're up here for a session, we'll film a fun video together. That's what she said to me. I don't even know if she remembers this, but she basically said, you need EMDR. This is what you have to do. Me and Brooks took her up on it, and we both did intensive with you right away. It was pretty life-changing, and I said to you before we started recording today, I couldn't even remember the specific thing, and then we— you jogged my memory, and I'm like, wait a minute, that was a huge pivotal moment here. So thanks for being here to have this discussion today.

Of course, I'm honored.

Can you just give a little background before we really dive in? Like, what is EMDR, and why is that your specialty?

EMDR, it stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It's explained so many ways. The way I explain it is it, it, it, a lot of people think it's for trauma. It's not just for trauma. It's for any mental blocks, any stuck places, negative beliefs, ruminating thoughts, any, it's really for everything. And that's what I love so much about it. Regardless of what a client comes in and the presenting problem is, I know that there's a way to utilize it because everything that drives all the things we want to change come from our unconscious mind, which means now we've got to find an approach that involves our unconscious mind. And there's only so many, right? If hypnosis worked, we'd all just go do hypnosis and we'd all be cured. So I think it works for some people, but EMDR has just always been, you know, since day one, which was so long ago, I don't think many people even knew about it. And I remember telling Shaleen, I just got trained in EMDR and she's like, oh, oh, 'Cause it was so, so new, but it's the concept behind it that really spoke to me, which is, comes down back to identity.

You know, a lot of people do talk therapy, and I know you, you do do talk therapy too. That's part of what you do. But EMDR resonated with me because it's almost a fast track. You don't have to spend weeks, months, years going back to childhood. How do you see that being effective for people more? Like some people I think love that long talk therapy for years and years and years, but what do you see? Do you think it's more effective, it's faster, it's better. What's your thoughts there?

I absolutely think it's more effective. If there was something else, and I'm very eclectic, so I do, you know, EMDR is just a tool to bring into therapy. So whoever you go to, to do EMDR with, it really depends on whether they could be a cognitive behavioral therapist who does EMDR, solution-focused, or IFS, or— so I'm very eclectic, but I bring a lot of IFS and parts work into it. But the reason why I feel like it, it's such a great tool to bring in is because when we do talk therapy, you feel good and it's helpful, and we need that extra information, that data. But it's preaching to the choir because it's the conscious mind talking to the conscious mind. It's not integrating. So, you know, talk therapy is about understanding. EMDR is about integrating.

Okay, makes sense. I want to talk about health a little bit because you work with a lot of women, especially a lot of midlife women. And do you see a connection between their health, how they're feeling, and their belief set about themselves at this time of their life?

Absolutely. You're talking to somebody who's had a lot of, a lot of health issues, um, over the years myself. I absolutely— Natalie, when I started private practice in, I think I started 2012, something like that, I dug and dug and dug, like, what's the bottom line? What's the foundation? Because I've always thought like a client, because I was a client at one point. And what is it gonna take to change things permanently? Because the managing, learning to manage, just that was not something I was into, which is why I stopped working in treatment facilities. It was all about managing. But the further I dug, it came down to core beliefs. That's what we believe. And if we have a core belief that's in our unconscious, it's, that's despite what we know logically, but we don't trust our logic. We're always in it, having, dealing with an inner conflict. Right? Like you've got a core belief, I can't handle it, or I'm not in control. You tell yourself logically you are, but that inner conflict, you're always going against the grain of what you believe, which causes inner turmoil. And our psyche knows that there's an inner conflict and it gets louder and louder. It wants us to turn and reexamine where we learned this belief, this conflict. If we ignore it, which we often do, we try to push it away. We try, you know, you don't think about the past, you just move forward. We distract, we work, we do whatever. The ego gets louder and louder. It's pretty soon it's pounding on the door and it's going to get our attention one way or another, either through neurosis, a neurotic person, or you're going to start having health problems because your psyche is trying to get your attention. So it plays a big part. Yeah.

I think sometimes when we have illness, it is our body's way of forcing us to slow down and look at something that is popping back up. And I know I didn't have evidence of that. I don't have evidence of that, but I do see many times when people go through a chronic illness, especially cancers. I've seen this a lot with cancers in my communities. When they do this deeper work, not just on their health, not just like what supplements, what's the food, what's the treatment. When they do this deeper work and heal those wounds, they start to see improvements in their health and changes there.

Yeah, because if your ego is not going to be wrong, that's why it's an ego. So whatever beliefs you hold, positive or negative, your ego is going to design your life on a day-to-day basis to validate what you believe.

I see a lot of people turning to things like ChatGPT to help sort this stuff through. And I see the convenience. I also see sort of the dangers of that. I wanted to get your perspective as a therapist on what happens when people do that.

ChatGPT, that's a whole nother category that I've been recently jumping in. The thing with ChatGPT is like listening to anybody. And I was recently, I was telling a friend of mine, I was kind of assessing the CEO of ChatGPT and a lot of the OpenAI and the empires and just to kind of assess their attributes and their traits and patterns of behavior to see who is likely to be a dark personality or even a dark triad. And interestingly, ChatGPT is a dark personality. Wow. You know, which takes me back to something Sam Altman said. He was being interviewed by Tucker Carlson and, you know, Tucker asked him what is the, moral foundation that ChatGPT follows? And Sam said, all of humanity, the good and the bad. But there's all— there's a lot of bad. And interestingly, the ChatGPT mimics its maker.

Wow, interesting. Okay, my perspective, and I'm certainly not a therapist, but I, I watch with AI, it just sort of echoing whatever we're inputting. So if you're saying it's almost like it's, it's reading what you want to hear. So you're asking it specific questions, it's going to echo back what it is that you're looking for versus getting you to think differently, which in my experience, an actual therapist gets you to think a little bit differently. It opens up things that you had not considered.

We need to be so— I think it goes even beyond what we've been concerned about already, which is, you know, teenagers getting on it or, or what have you. I think this personality style. So yeah, it's, it's a computer, it doesn't have a personality, but it's got a configured communication style. It is very chameleon-like. And this has been a kind of progression we've noticed with ChatGPT, right, compared to when it first came out. They say hallucinates. How different is that from being dishonest? Chameleon-like, it changes depending on, you know, what you want it to be or sound like. And I think we need to be really careful because it does have somewhat of a particular personality style, not just a communication style. And that's concerning considering what we have already seen so far.

So when you— if I were to ask the same question to Chat or to you, when you ask Chat, it's automatically giving you this answer, right? But when you ask a therapist, typically they're going to ask you more questions to clarify where you're going with a question. So that's a big difference right there where— and I've joked with you before that, like, why do you answer questions with questions? But it's almost like you can't help it because that's what a good therapist will, will do is they're they're going deeper on the questions to get you to think differently and make sure they understand why and what you're asking and why you're asking it. That's what I picked up too. Yeah.

What I've noticed is one of the things I think personally that makes a good therapist is asking the right questions and asking a lot of questions. And ChatGPT, I think that's where, at least at this point, in my opinion, doesn't ask necessarily the right questions. It asks what it thinks. It's following your lead. You know, wants to make you happy.

What is going on with midlife women? I want to talk about a specific thing that I'm seeing here, and I want to try to put some logic around this. This is a really big transition time for women in their late 40s, their early 50s, I feel. And this is not everyone, but most of us, me included, we were in a certain role. Building, we were raising kids, we were in a certain role that we had worked towards. Let's just say that. You grow up as a little girl going, "I'm going to get married and have kids," or whatever it is, this role. And you then become this empty nester. And there's jokes online about being an empty nester. And there's also this side of people feeling free and it's fun, but there's this really deep side that I don't think is talked about enough. And this is this identity change. With women where it feels like time has sped up, that it feels strange. I know for me, I definitely ruminate on my daughter being little and what that was like. And I put that back to kind of the happiest time of my life. And when I've shared that, it doesn't feel that I'm alone. I think a lot of women especially go back to those times. What is that? And how do we get out of that? How do we fix that? Does it even get to that? I think that's what I'm asking. I hope.

Yeah, it does. It does. I think it— and this goes for most people, but let's say for women in the empty nester, if most people don't really know who they are. So what I mean by that, it's the same thing as having a lot of negative beliefs and the way they're formed. We almost were set up really in a negative way. It's good job security for therapists. But we're really set up— if a woman has defined her sense of self by being a mother, then the danger in that is obviously when the kids leave, now she doesn't know who she is. If her sense of self was formed very early on and if that was solid, she would have feelings, she would experience normal sadness or what have you, but it wouldn't cripple her. It wouldn't— she wouldn't ruminate. It wouldn't be such a thing. Anytime we lose anything or anytime we crumble or anytime we can't get past anything, it's because our sense of self was tied to it, which is, again, dangerous.

You know, I said my daughter— I'm very close with my daughter, but a lot of times, you know how like on Facebook you'll have pictures pop up of when they were 7 or they're 8, and I'm constantly sending them to her like, "Oh, remember this?" And she had said to me, "Mom, why do you always do that? Like, I'm right here. Like, I'm still here. Like, I'm here right now." And she really got me thinking and I thought, I told her, I said, "It's almost like when you look at your kids, you had different versions of them. You had the toddler version, you had the young 7, 8-year-old, you had this teen. You have all these different versions of them. And it's almost like a mini mourning of each version of them." That's how I explained it to her. Like, it's a mini mourning. So there's all these versions of you that I miss. It doesn't mean I don't love you now and who you are now, but I still miss those versions. And I'm asking you for my own help here, but I also— most of my friends have said that same thing, that they, they relate to when I say that, that there's this like not talked about enough mourning of those different stages of raising your child.

I think there's probably can be various reasons, but I think it's when we were doing mothering well, it's when we were doing our best. It's when we were at our best, because then let's say our kids become teenagers, they start to put these boundaries. Now there's, you know, there's these things to kind of work through and navigate. When they're younger, it's a lot easier. So if, again, it comes back to our sense of self, I am a good mom, or I am successful, these are all core beliefs. So we go back to the time where it really held tight and kind of supported our who we are.

Is there anything we can do for someone listening that might be feeling this, like to turn that into a positive versus a sadness?

Specifically the stages?

Yeah, like is that a forever thing that you're gonna, you know, always look at pictures of your child when they were 7 or 8 and have this kind of sadness as to missing that. Is that just a normal process?

I think it's a normal developmental process that we all go through, but it depends on the charge. If you look at anything that you're wondering, is this problematic? How high is the charge when you think about having it or not having it or it changing? If you feel a ping, if something feels personal, anything that feels personal or causes a reaction, it's more than just what you're seeing. It's going kind of deeper into your core and who you are.

The other thing I noticed, um, myself included, is having regrets of like maybe things that you said or you did or how you, you know, like I think of myself as a good mom, um, but there's these things that, you know, you have like that one argument you remembered and you're like, I wish I had handled that different, or they remembered a different perspective as you. So there's a little bit of that self-beat-up of like that a lot of us will go through in our 50s of like, oh, I wish I had done this differently.

Mm-hmm. I want— and we, of course, I'm going to hear that a million times. I always reframe it to, okay, so let's go back to that time for where you were at, for what you knew, for all the circumstances, for everything involved in that moment. Did you do the best that you could? Yeah, because it's easier 5 minutes later day later, a year later to go back because we now, we have more information, more data to make a different decision. So we want to look back and if we're going to judge ourselves, judge ourselves for in that moment with everything involved.

One thing I learned from you, and this was the epiphany I was mentioning that I had just when we, we got on the call, when I first went to you, I had a very weird strong belief set wired that came from my mom and you helped me figure this out. And the story was this, I'm going to share it. I remember I was a kid and I must have been like 7 or 8 years old and I was in my mom's car in the backseat. And I had this very clear memory of a friend of ours, a neighbor, the husband had died. My mom was upset about it. And my mom said, "You could always have more kids." This is what I remember her saying. "You can always have more kids, but you can't replace your spouse." 'Now, that's what I remembered her saying.' And it created a very deep-rooted belief in myself of not being important, of being replaceable. And when I was in your office and in an EMDR session, you brought me back to that memory. And one of the things you did was you— I don't remember exactly what you asked or said, I was in the EMDR trance, but you had me look at it from a different perspective. And when I left that session, I called my mom and I asked her about that conversation. And it was really wild because first she said, "That never happened. I have zero memory of that." And it wasn't the point as if it happened or it didn't happen. It was what she said next. She said, "Natalie, if I said that, which I can't imagine I would have, that is 1,000% not what I believe and definitely not what I meant." So please know I would never think that. I think losing your kid would be the worst thing that could happen. And that created so much healing for me because I was holding that belief all these years and it wasn't a true belief. And I'm bringing that up because what I just asked about things that we regret or say or did, it's like it almost like it doesn't matter. People have their own experience and remember or hear what they want to hear or believe.

Yeah. With that, if you were a client, we were in session, I would probably counter that and say, that's great that your mom was able to kind of set, set the record straight. But just because she set the record straight and said what she did, that didn't make you important to either, because you can't become something you never lost in the first place. And that is something that we get— we're so good at when negative things happen. This doesn't mean that I am not important, or this. But when positive things happen, we need to tell ourselves the same thing. This doesn't make me that or this, which is why I would always tell parents one of the best things we can do for our kids, having done this for so long and seen how this plays out, is you ask your kid, do you know you're— and you can use any belief— do you know you're lovable? Do you know you're capable? Do you know you're good enough? Do you know you matter? Do you know you're safe? Do you know you're all these things? And your kid will probably say, yeah. You say, how do you know that? And they're going to say, well, because you love me, because Dad keeps me safe because all of these things. And that's where we want to cut in and say, yeah, Mom and Dad love you, but we don't have the power to make you that. Your coach doesn't have the power to make you that. How you look doesn't have the power to make you that. Your grades doesn't make you that. What makes you that is the kind of person you are and the choices that you make each day, which is your desire to do better, be better, your values. And that's it. But because that doesn't happen typically, The child learns as part of child development— and stop me because I'll go on a rant— how this all starts, it starts wrong. That the endearing expression of the mother looking back at the child tells— begins the process. Keyword begins. Begins to tell the child that they're worthy, that they matter, or lack thereof. That's Stage 1. And the only reason that very beginning happens this way is because a child too young to start developing their sense of self. But what should happen is this: the child just gets a little bit older, we teach the child kind of what I said earlier. Mom can't make you that. I don't have the power. All I can do is make you feel that. Dad can only make you feel. Getting good grades can only make you feel. Being popular can only make you feel. But we don't do that. So then what happens is the child unplugs from mom and plugs into their external world. Everybody becomes mom, essentially, depending on their endearing expression or their lack thereof continues to tell this child who's now an adult whether they're good enough or not, or whether they matter or not. And so that's why I think people, uh, have so much anxiety in the world, because their sense of self is always on the chopping block the minute they step out their front door, depending on who they run into and how they look at them. And so we give so much power away that way.

It feels like that's a very real ongoing problem with a lot of people, it's this external validation, and people-pleasing would be that.

Mm-hmm. And it's what I do, you know, every day because it's such a core part of the beginning process of developing a strong sense of self so that our who we are isn't tied. And a lot of people will, you know, they might debate with themselves or, you know, or whatnot because our logic is true. We don't trust our logic. We trust what we feel. If we feel not good enough, we buy into it or feel not in control. But if you felt like you could fly, you wouldn't jump off a 10-story building. If you felt like a chicken, you wouldn't become a chicken. So we can't feel things into reality, but we do. And we rely on our external world, which makes us powerless, to tell us who we are. Remember, our external world is, is kind of messed up. There are people are in therapy, people are dealing with addictions. We've got personality structures, good and bad. Our external world is the worst gauge to tell us who we are. This should be solid. One has nothing to do with the other. The only thing our external world can do is make us feel things. And when this is solid and you know who you are, things can come and go and in and out of your life. You know, as you grow older, but you're not crumbling. You're not constantly changing like a chameleon. Good enough, now not good enough. Useful, now useless, you know, back and forth. So you become almost fearless when this is solid and not tied. So I always tell people, children, just like you did in the car with your mom, they're always unconsciously filling in the gaps with what things mean. And we ought to continue doing that, especially the older we get, depending on what, you know, what we're dealing with. Because if we don't— if you don't fill in the gap, your psyche is going to unconsciously fill in the gap for you, and it's likely going to do it wrong. So you always— and with even with our kids— fill in the gap with what things mean. So if your mom had in the car after she said that, if she had said, just so you know, what I mean by that is And because she didn't, you know, for whatever reason, you filled in the gap with what it means. It doesn't matter what you tell a child, it's what they experience. They're going to fill in the gap. And we continue to do that as adults in the wrong way.

You just made me realize something about external validation and people pleasing. Maybe the reason this comes out so strong in our 50s where we recognize, wow, there's a big problem here with external validation and people pleasing is because we spend so much time in our 30s and 40s masking because you're in so many different roles. Roles. So what I mean by that is when you're in mom role, like raising kids, you literally are consumed by that. So you're not observing yourself as much, like you're in a role. Same with like building a business or your role at work, like you're— or getting married, like you're in these roles. So now you become an empty nester, things are a little bit different, you're faced with yourself. That's what just came up to me, that that's maybe why we realize it's so hard right then.

Yeah, I think we unconsciously define ourselves by whatever we feel like we do the best, right? And we're caretakers, um, you know, we're maternal, we're caretakers. So that is such a huge part of our life. We enjoy doing it and we do it well most the time, but I think we tend to attach our identity to it, which again is— anytime our identity is attached to anything is a dangerous thing.

So when people feel this, a lot of times they'll then turn to ways to kind of mute it. And when I say ways to mute it, it's either, it could be alcohol, it could be weed, it could be Xanax, it could, so it could be external things that they take, or it could be burying themselves in some other type of addiction. What happens when we mask that way, when we go and cover with something like that?

Kind of takes us almost in a different path, but it's all inner, it's all interconnected. Those are obviously the coping mechanisms, but these are all ego defenses. Right? Avoidance, procrastination, minimizing, people pleasing. These are all ego defenses. And ego defenses are for the sake of defending against the reality of something. And the longer we defend against the reality, the harsh reality, and what we think is real— and most people would think, well, I see it, I understand it, there's no confusion here. If you are doing any of those things, The way you see reality now is not actually quite in its totality of the reality of something. That's the whole point of these ego defenses and these coping mechanisms. It's our psyches. It's sometimes it's on point, sometimes it isn't, but it's built for survival. So anything it deems is a threat to our survival, even new information, is going to try to protect us. So what it'll do is soften, minimize that. So we're seeing just a softened version, but there's still gotta be a conclusion to explain what it meant or why it happened. So it's gonna make it about you. So you're gonna have anxiety, you're gonna become neurotic, you're gonna have ruminating thoughts, you're gonna deal with depression, you're gonna deal with all of these things, but it's all for the sake of our psyche trying to help us to avoid a reality that as adults we can handle. But we can't control our ego defenses until we become aware of this whole thing happening. This is why so many people are neurotic and deal with so many things, because our psyche is so busy helping all of us to survive some things that are a threat to our survival, but many things that are not.

When you say that, when some people become neurotic, what does that mean? Like, give us— help me with an example there.

So neurosis is just all the symptoms— anxiety, depression, ruminating thoughts, or worrying, or, you know, obsessive-compulsive behaviors. They're just all the symptoms, all the stuff we go through. All of those things, it's because we're resisting something, avoiding something, defending against something. And things that we may not choose to defend against or resist, but we don't often know what's happening. So, so much of So much of the things that we do are unconscious, unconsciously driven, and are illogical because there's no logic in our unconscious mind. It's all in our conscious mind, which is what EMDR does— opens up communication between our conscious and unconscious mind. We've got to get the logic flowing into where there is no logic so that when we get triggered, we have the logic now that's in our unconscious mind to tell us truthfully who we are or how to respond. Otherwise, our ego defenses are kind of in between the two. And so we never really get to the stuff we have to get to.

So logically, you just sort of explained that, but what would be the harm in it? So there's many people that will say, well, yeah, but taking the Xanax helps me feel calm and not deal with this, or drinking my glass of wine helps me check out and not worry about this. So in a way, they feel that that's a healthy move for them because they're eliminating the stress. What is, I guess, what's the danger in doing that?

Well, aside from the obvious things, we don't, you know, an addiction or something.

Sure.

You know, the thing is, is this stuff isn't going away because it's coming from memories, right? Our memory network. So it's not going away. The older we get, the louder it gets. We're going to be confronted. And the older we get, the lower our ego defenses, they start to lower. So it's not going away, it's just going to get louder. So, but we can, we can delay it, but there's going to be a price to that. And the, this is going to, we're going to see it in self-sabotaging. We're going to see it and we're just never going to get to that version or to that, you know, finish line or that place that we want to be fully because we're, we're not dealing with reality.

So you're, when you're doing that, you're, you're literally, you're masking still. You're not dealing with reality. You're not facing it.

Yeah, you're checking out.

You're checking out.

You're checking out because either you're consciously not wanting to deal with something or unconsciously your psyche isn't, isn't letting you deal with it.

And then the other thing that we'll see people do is really go into a control. I'll do this. This is definitely my, my thing is I'll try to control, like, let me control the situation. Um, what is that? What is it when, when people do that, they're going to control everything?

People will often put safety and control together, right? And safety can be emotional, physical, what have you, but it's a very common belief. They put control. With it. And control does not make us safe at all. Truth makes us safe. And the truth is that you're already safe.

Wait, explain.

You're already in control.

I want to make sure I understand that. So you said control is an illusion, it doesn't actually make you safe. What do you mean?

First of all, we know logically what we can control, what we can't. We know we're in control of our responses. Okay, we know that logically. We resist the reality of that. And we walk away. No, I can, I can control this. I can control that because we learned that very early, right? When I do this, mom gets mad. When I do that, she doesn't. Oh, okay. I have the power to control outcomes and people, but that doesn't always work. So, but we still allow ourselves to hold on. That's called an illusion, right? A fantasy. But we hold on to that. But we're pretty aware of that. Otherwise, we've— a lot of people, especially people that are really control freaks. We're control freaks by nature, but they're trying to feel safe or something close to that. So what they'll do is they'll put control with safety. If I'm in control of everything, that's going to make me safe. Control doesn't make you safe. How could it? It can't, because we can't control outcomes. We can only influence outcomes. But if we're going to hold on to that illusion, um, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The fact that it works sometimes just feeds into that illusion. But the reality is, if we're trying to be in control, what are we trying to control? And why are we trying? What's our destination? We're trying to control this because it's gonna make us feel safer. It's gonna make us what have you. It'll never work. What makes us safe or whatever we're trying to land is truth. The truth about who we are in the present moment, because in the present moment, that's the only reality that's real. All of your thoughts have to be in the present moment. So in the room you're in, this is what being fully present is. And all your thoughts can only be about what's in the room. If your thoughts are about something that happened already or something that's going to happen, you're not fully present. So in the present, if you look around your room, if you don't have any evidence to support that you are not safe or that you're not okay or that whatever it is this control is trying to get you, then those control beliefs or whatever you're seeking, it can't be true because the only reality that's real is in this present moment. But we're so often just not fully present. Most people aren't. Present is being— if you imagine having amnesia, you have no memories of anything except for what you've just been told by the nurse. Here, this is who you are, this is your family, good luck. You don't have any anxiety, you don't have any worry, no lack of confidence, you don't have any of those things. Because you don't have any data to pull from.

It sounds amazing, actually. Like, well, that should be a therapy in itself. Here's amnesia for you.

Oh my God, that's what being fully present is. Otherwise, everything is pulling from our memory network. That's why we have a memory network. And depending on one's, you know, history, that may not go, you know, in the best way. And in addition, the way these core beliefs form— I don't know if you remember this— core beliefs form based on what we felt. So this is why it doesn't require trauma to have negative beliefs. It could be this, you know, this— you didn't get invited to the birthday party in second grade, it made you feel not good enough. We unconsciously, even as kids, accept that as a truth. It becomes a core belief. And even for a child, we logicalize, we tell ourselves it isn't true, but it's already a truth in our unconscious mind. And now from that moment on, these core beliefs based on what we've felt, they generalize, they become about our existence always, forever, in every situation for the rest of our lives until we change it. So we're constant. Now the friction starts, right?

Do most people recognize the things that happen, or is that the bigger challenge to go, what was the event, or what was the thing that made me start believing this? Or is the bigger challenge changing your belief around it, or is it both?

You know, the biggest challenge is, interestingly, and in almost 20 years, it's the most important thing I'll tell a client in session, and it's, it's, it's an ongoing pattern, which is getting— it needs to click that the only thing that can decide what you are, who you are, is ultimately you, right? It's the— and it's the kind of person, but this compass, this arrow, is so early on, it's faced this way to tell us who we are. So especially prepping for an intensive, all I need is to make sure that this data is in their head so that when they start processing, it's all them. And that's how— the only way you change a core belief is if you change it. My job is getting all the data in their head so that when it is all them, they've got all their old files of everything that's telling them, you know, they're not good enough or what have you, but they've also got all this new data. So that their brain can now process. They're not doing the work. They're letting their brain finish the work to determine who they are. But your question is the hardest part. It's getting people to accept that who they are is only based on this because society has played into it so much. It's worked so many times. We're going to get confirmation bias. We've got so many things working against us to make us not believe that. But it's a truth, which is why I'll tell some clients, listen, I'm all ears. I'm very open-minded. Take this week before you come back. I want you to try your hardest to logically explain when you come back how what this person did or didn't do, how did that transfer from them through the air onto you and then poof, make you something. It's kind of like if a guy works for this company and he's doing sales, but the company realizes he's not making enough sales. It's not worth it to keep him on. They fire him. That guy walks out the doors of that company a worthless person in his mind, in the world, always. So it's getting people to realize anything outside of us cannot possibly truthfully, realistically, logically make us anything. It's ba— it's gotta be based on just the kind of person you are, your internal authenticity. That's it. And if we learned this at a young age, we wouldn't feel so powerless. We wouldn't feel so helpless. We wouldn't have all of these symptoms and behaviors and triggers and blocks and all the stuff, but we don't. And that's the problem. It's we are defining ourselves by our external world.

Does that tie into why there seems to be a struggle with people around what's their purpose or what they should be doing in a certain season? Is it tied to that?

It is. You know, I often say in order to know where you're going in life, you have to know who you are first, because what happens is is, let's say, that child, depending on what the endearing expression or lack thereof, they go— next place we go is into school. And the first time we get positive affirmation, we think, oh, okay, so I'm skinny and I'm getting a lot of attention, this must be what makes me good enough or worthy. Or, oh, I'm getting good grades and everyone's happy, parents are happy, that must be. So wherever we have that experience now that child grows up and now they have to maintain that weight as an adult. They have to keep accomplishing things because the minute they don't, now they're worthless again. Now they're this. So when that isn't solid, it takes— we go down these paths trying to become something we never will, because like I said, we can't become something we've always been. We never lost.

Wow, this is making so much sense because you think about We all have such different backgrounds, but maybe somebody was an athlete, like in high school or college, that was their identity. And then that was how they got that praise, that reward, that whatever. And then next thing you know, they're a parent and they got it from that. So it's like they have these different things. So now here you are midlife, what's the thing? And you're still looking for that external thing because it was always an external thing.

Yeah. Like let's say it was the way you looked, right? When you're younger and you know, your body is the way it is. And then we get into menopause and we go through all things.

Yeah.

If your first experience was, oh, I'm getting, you know, something's changed, it must be this. And that's where we, that's where it goes wrong. This must be what makes me good enough or worthy. So, you know, having that, and it's never too late to change your sense of self, but that is the piece, that's the kicker that takes people the longest to try to, you know, latch onto is Nope. All this time. This is why my daughter, who's doing— does tattoos now, I let her tattoo on my both arm. One arm says, um, I already am. The other says I always was, because I say it so much.

That's so good. That's why I have— I have on my arm, it says surrender, um, as on my right arm. So I would have to see it every day. It was to remind me not to be in control. It has not really worked, but that's why I had it there. Like, don't be in your— and you know, my husband all the time is will say, what does your arm say? What does your arm say?

Yeah, I've had so many clients get, seriously, uh, tattoos. Um, I'm good enough. Just recently at camp, someone showed me their tattoo, um, or worthy, because it's so symbolic. You can't lose it. So I always tell people, keep life really simple. Just focus on one thing instead of all this external stuff. Just focus on being the best kind of person that you can. And making the best choices that you can because that will make you all the other things.

So, this almost brings me back to my very first original question in the intro. We're so focused on— this is in advertising, this is in social media, this is in everything— in how do we get back and feel young again and not have the menopause symptoms and look— let's look a different way. We get caught up in that, a lot of us. I'm not everybody listening, but a lot of us get caught up in that. And, But with everything you're saying, that's still about control. That's still about masking. That's not about finding out your truth and being enough. So where's the middle ground there? What do we need to be aware of there? Because couldn't that just make it all worse? I'm just thinking if we're constantly looking for how do we take the peptide or have the facelift or do all these things to be a certain way, is that going to rebound still again later? Because you never can really control that. Stuff.

It depends. I don't think there's anything wrong with any of those things as long as your sense of self isn't tied to it. And so how would you— how would one know that? As long as you're not distressed about— as long as there isn't a charge to it, as long as it's not— if not getting it isn't going to set you back. So we know anytime what we feel kind of feels a little bit out of the box, it's because your sense of self was probably tied to it. Otherwise, we're going to have normal emotional experiences and feelings but they're normal. Anything out of the box is probably tied to your sense of self. So I think if you're going to do all of those things, it's good for you to know who you are first. In other words, that isn't going to make you anything except look better.

That sounds scary to people. It sounds scary to me. Like, get to figure out, get to know yourself. It sounds scary and overwhelming. Why is that?

Because you're thinking of it from a position of a person who likely, because most do, maybe not, has already a negative core belief. And that's why I always tell people when, when this is— so let's say with core beliefs, it can only be one or the other, right? Let's say somebody is attacked and they feel unsafe, and that becomes unconsciously now a core belief: I'm not safe as a person in the world, forever, always. Now this person has anxiety. But there can only be one conclusion. If they were attacked, how did they walk away being the person that's unsafe? Wouldn't the other person be unsafe? That's how our ego defenses soften our reality, but it's got to make it about us instead. Does that make sense? I think so. I don't even— did that— what was your initial question? Sure.

Well, I'm just— it's when I, when I hear things like this about, and I am somebody who lives in control for sure.

Oh, the scary part.

Yeah. I'm like, well, I do know myself, but that thought of that feels the opposite of control to go deep and be unconscious and really go deep and understand yourself, like you said. So whether you're thinking EMDR or hypnosis or some people plant medicine or whatever, that can feel very scary for someone who has only known control as their safety method.

Yeah. It's like Dumbo with the feather though. And here's the good news, which is great. Yeah, there's some work involved, but the good news is you're not developing a new sense of self. You're not going to find out something bad about you. We only need memories because we need to know where you may have learned that or first felt it. But the good news is you're just learning, realizing who you've always been. Right. I'll always say it was because I'm not good enough. Such a common negative belief. Were you born good enough? Is an infant good enough? What makes an infant good enough? Because sometimes they're not, they're not good looking and they haven't accomplished anything, but they're just good and right inside. Despite our humanness, we're going to have moments, we're flawed, but it's what we do after. And I would say, have you, despite what you've been through and your humanness, have you maintained being good and right inside as best you can? Then you never lost it to begin with. So, you know, it really is kind of a realization and an eye-opener. That you don't have to learn or become good enough. You're learning that you have always been good enough. You never lost it. The hard part is though—

you're good.

Sorry, I was gonna say the hard part is, remember, we're dealing with two things: a reality of something, a memory, and a core belief about who you are. When a person realizes who they've always been, now there needs to be another conclusion to that reality, that memory. That's probably the work. So then why did that happen, or what was that exactly, if it didn't happen because I'm not a good enough person?

I've never heard anyone say that about the infant. That's actually really brilliant right there, because you're right, you— an infant didn't have to do anything to be good enough. It's just born. It's just there. So we as women form all these beliefs there has to be some kind of achievement or a thing to be good enough. But what you're saying is what we tend to forget, we all forget, is that you're, you're born good. You're literally born good enough. And then we—

Right. Like, yeah, I'll sometimes use, well, what about somebody who's terminally ill? Are they not good enough now? Are they worthless as a, as a person? So yeah, there's so many examples that come down to that it's internal. It's not by works. These things just support who we are, but they don't define us.

So when someone says that they feel kind of lost at this stage. They're like, I don't know what my purpose is. I don't know really who I am. When they're having that conversation, what do you want them to hear? What do you want them to know?

Who you are is who you've always been, right? And that can be good or bad, but who you are is who you've always been. And in terms of purpose, if who you know yourself to be logically doesn't always feel true, and then you have a negative core belief, it doesn't mean it's true. But in order to really know where, who you are or where you're going in life, you want to change that core belief because whatever negative beliefs we have in our ego, there's this inner drive in us to now, since we lost our good enoughness, now we got to try to become it again. I got to find it again. That's going to take us down all these random paths that may never have been your fate. It may not have been what you were put here for. It's a path you might have to come back again and do it again, a whole nother life. When this is solid though, and you know who you are from the get-go, for most people who you've always been, now you've got this clear canvas in front of you to do what you're passionate about, to bring justice to injustices, which I feel is, is very much purposeful because now you've got skin in the game. But when this isn't solid, it's pretty much always going to affect our ability to find purpose or see purpose or the purpose we are doing that may feel very good and be purposeful, our identity may be tied to that, which means we have to keep doing it.

Wow.

So we always want this to be solid. That's the best way to know and have a clear path ahead of us with what we wanna do now in this world.

You mentioned earlier that being present, when you're truly in a state of being present, that's kind of when, and maybe I'm taking this out of context, but that's really when change can happen. That's when memories can form. That's when, that's when you can be happy and when we hear about being present, you'll a lot of times hear that with meditation or breathwork or something like that. And, people that tend to be high anxiety, high stress, controlling, that's a very big weakness for them. They have a very hard time going into meditation or stress. Is EMDR and therapy a bridge for that? Is that why that's sort of there? Is that force that situation with somebody that has that high-driven personality?

If I understand your question correctly, so talk therapy, most often you're going to leave feeling better, maybe for an hour, maybe for a day, maybe for a week longer, until you get triggered again. So that'll— but that'll pull you into the present.

With the trigger or the therapy?

The therapy.

Okay.

Talking, it's like the talking cure. It'll pull you into the present. EMDR though, you're not necessarily present. You're in REM sleep mode when doing eye processing. So you're in the same, same state as REM sleep. So when you're dreaming, that's your psyche sifting through all the events throughout the day. And before you wake up, it has to come up with a conclusion to explain what it was or why it happened. With overwhelming events that we go through, or painful, or for an adolescent who just doesn't have enough data, it doesn't ever fully form a conclusion. It kind of gets stuck. So EMDR dislodges stuck memories that were never able to come up with a conclusion, go in the inbox, in the archive. So upsetting, painful memories go into the inbox, but they never go in the archive, so they kind of stay stuck. And from the moment we wake up, we're present initially, but from that very first, uh, second, your psyche is scanning Everything. And it could be a sound, a smell, a forethought, and anything that associates to any of your— these memories that kind of stuck or never went in the archive. It pulls us out of the present, one foot out of the present and the other foot into that memory. So in those moments, everything we felt, everything we thought, everything we believed with conviction is going to feel very true. And then eventually, for all of us, eventually we're going to pop back into the present. And that's those moments where we say, I don't know why I did that again. I don't know why this keeps happening. I don't know how I woke up this way and I felt so good because we're present initially, but trigger, trigger, trigger. So it pulls us. Now, for somebody with dissociative identity disorder, they get triggered and both feet get pulled into their memory. So that's where my office can become their childhood bedroom. I could become their mother or their aunt. That's their reality. Until we pull them back to the present. For the rest of us, we always have one foot that stays in the present. So we know where we are, we know who we're with, but the other foot got pulled into our memory network, which is why we'll have those moments of feeling and thinking completely different than we normally would. And then we come back into the present. The way to make that stop is you got to integrate your ego, which EMDR does.

It's interesting listening, like every question I've asked you, I think that people are looking— there's so much out there about just do these 3 things or just take these 5 steps. And what I like about everything you're saying is that's not the answers you're giving me. Everything I've asked, you're bringing it back to our belief set and our sense of self and ego and really doing the work. And that's what is such a refreshing experience right now because I think there's so many people that just go, "Do these 3 steps." And I don't think that— that's not practical advice for people because just Just waking up and doing 3 steps, like, doesn't— that doesn't address your deep beliefs or your trauma or things that you've been navigating for 50+ years.

So that's all conscious. That's all conscious information. It's not— our unconscious is in charge. It is out of everything. It is in charge. Your brain's just a computer, literally a computer. Your psyche, you've got your conscious mind, your unconscious mind. We're in our conscious mind, but, but of everything we know, give or take, according to literature, 10, 15%, our unconscious mind is in charge. And that's what's running and guiding. And that's what we're fighting against all the time. So all those do the 3 steps, that's all helpful and really good. But depending on what you have in your unconscious mind and the conclusions you've formed, it's going to make that really harder to work.

Well, but it's not helpful because what happens is people do those steps for a period of time and then they go, what's wrong with me? Like, why is it not working? Or why can't I stick stick to this, or why aren't I motivated, or like— so it really doesn't work. And when I asked you earlier about chat, I, I think AI is doing that same thing, because you ask a question to AI, it's giving you the steps. It's not like actually helping you fix anything. So then we're just basically regurgitating like, okay, these are the steps, or this is how to fix it. And then it's gonna— it almost can make it worse, because you think something's wrong with you, that you can't stick to those steps, or they didn't work for you.

This is true, which is why So in helping, you know, I go back to when someone begins, uh, or when someone's starting to process with EMDR, because it's all you, whatever you have in your head, which is why there needs to be that dialogue. And, you know, EMDR is an 8-stage protocol, but it includes dialogue. We have to have that because if I just put somebody in front of this bar and without any of it, they're just going to loop with the same information that got them where they are right now. So we've got to add that. So it can be helpful in that way, but in the way that you're saying, it does. People then blame themselves. This was supposed to work. It didn't work for me, so I must be a failure.

So for those of you listening, there's a lot of therapists that do EMDR. What McKayla does is something a little bit different. You do an intensive, um, and, and I'll let you sort of explain that. But the reason me and Brooks did the intensive is I didn't want my controller to convince me why this was dumb or I shouldn't be doing it or it's uncomfortable. So to me, it was a way to kind of just jump in and be committed to it for a series of days and be in it and then be able to be done with it. So it was like instead of me kind of going and getting a little bit and having aha and then going back to my ways, it was a way to jump in. So I preferred that method that worked with my brain. Can you share a little bit about why you suggest intensives typically?

Well, like I said in the beginning, I'm— I think like a client. And when I first heard or, you know, found out that EMDR is the only type of treatment you can do consecutive days in a row and actually have change occur, you're not just beating a dead horse, you— I thought, oh, well, it's not only the fastest form of treatment, how many days? So I did a research study. It was for about a year that was funded by the EMDR Institute way back in the day for how many days would someone need to go, how many hours in a day where they're not, you know, beating that dead horse for actual change, to change beliefs. And after that year was 5 days, 2 hours a day, because once you start processing, your brain's going to keep processing for the next 24 hours. So, you know, there are some that do 8 hours, they do— and your brain is exhausted after 2 hours. But it's not about the longevity. It's about the quality of— you do 30 minutes now, you don't need to do 8 hours necessarily because for the next 24 hours, unconsciously, your brain's going to keep processing. So the consecutive days, you can imagine 5 days in a row, 24 hours a day, which is another great thing. You don't have to do homework. I'll give you homework if you want it, but all the work is being done unconsciously. Because now we've already dislodged that file. And there's a way to know that. There's many ways to know EMDR is working. I always like the client to feel like they're in charge. You know it's working because you'll start noticing you respond to things differently. You'll notice that things look differently, like, wow, the house next door has been gray and all this time I thought it was green. Like, so you'll notice yourself reacting, but you'll— another way to know is you'll be able to, if you can take a negative belief, one that you were working on, and identify the positive instead. I am good enough. If you can hold, I am good enough, or I am in control, or whatever the positive is with the bad memory, or the memory where you learned the opposite, and it feels true, I am good enough now with this memory, or I do matter when I think about being in the car with my mom when she said that. And if that feels true, then it changed because it's the same way that beliefs are formed based on what we felt. So if it feels true— and that's how you know what you have in your unconscious mind. If you go down a list of negative beliefs, which you can Google, and you just note the ones that at times still feel true or have felt true despite your logic, those are all negative core beliefs that you're working against. So there's a lot of ways where the client can feel like they're not just, you know, depending on the therapist to tell them, because 'Cause clients won't know necessarily that EMDR is working or not. So I always like to empower, you know, my clients to let 'em know, this is, this is your gauge. This is how you know. Otherwise, so the 5-day did that for a year and I've been doing it ever since. And I think if there was another, you know, I bring a lot of other approaches in, but if there was something else that I felt worked, I'd bring that in too. But it just continues to work almost 20 years later. It's, it's, of course it's in combination. The relationship with a therapist is a a huge part of it working. So there's a lot of components. So I think it's the EMDR, the tool. I think it's the relationship. And then I think it's the theoretical approach of the therapists that makes that work. And so I've been kind of molding this since 2012 and, and still doing it, you know, to this day. So because it works.

Can you work with anyone? Like, can anyone in the country come to you, or how does that work?

Yeah, but a lot of people from other countries come You're really just assessing for candidacy, but you know, I've done intensives with neurodivergent. I've done intensive with traumatic brain injury. I've done intensives with personality disorders, bipolar, you know, you can do it with performance enhancement EMDR with— I've worked with a lot of athletes, a lot of football players, a lot of quarterbacks. So you, you can really work with just about anybody. What matters is it won't work with a narcissist, to put it bluntly. Why is that? They're not going to want to come to therapy.

Oh, okay.

Because they're like, you don't have to worry anyway. So the people that it typically, for the most part, won't— it— that it wouldn't work with wouldn't come anyway.

That makes sense. But if you, if you're listening and you're like, I'm open-minded, this sounds like me, then you're probably a good candidate for it. Because the person, the person that's not a candidate wouldn't have even listened to this episode. I'm sure they'd say no. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

I've even done an 80— I've had an 80-something-year-old in here doing an intensive, which I love because it's never too late.

What do you wish I had you that I didn't?

I don't know. I really am surprised you asked such good questions that I wasn't anticipating. I don't think any. I think you hit a lot of them on the nail.

What do you want midlife women to know, kind of as, as you're— as they, they are thinking, like they maybe came into listening to this episode as, yeah, I've been feeling off purpose, I don't know what to do with this season. Well, do you want them to hear?

I think women have gotten a bad rap I think this is— has been— what do they call it— a man's world. I think things are changing in the world a lot. I think women are realizing a lot more. I think they're realizing their own power and their own strength and, and maybe the responsibilities that, you know, they've always had. And maybe they're the only ones that can uphold a lot of the things that need to change. Or I think women are going to have a huge part, you know, moving forward in history that that goes beyond just the day-to-day. And I think the more empowered and the more responsibility we're going to have, we need to be solid and as solid as possible. And I think, you know, knowing who you are, and at the very least, you know, for anybody listening, to go back to, were you born whatever it is, whatever that belief is, or whatever it is that you're questioning about yourself, if, if you were born that way, and depending on the kind of person you are, you're still that person. It's never too late. It doesn't matter how old you are. And if you feel like you haven't found your purpose yet, if you feel like you're lacking confidence, if you feel like you don't know what to do with your life because you're an empty nester, that you— clarity comes from knowing who you are. Clarity comes from doing this kind of work. It just makes everything make sense. And then, you know, you find a way to, you know, make the whole point of you being here matter to you. Like, what's your legacy? What do you want to leave behind? I think that matters to a lot of women. And I think the time is, you know, I've got a son who's still in high school. There's going to be a time when he graduates, and that's that next chapter, chapter of my life. And, you know, even for me, it's what do I want to do when that happens? But what's helpful for me is I know who I am and I have, and that makes that so much easier because it's just going to be gauged by or based on what am I passionate about and what do I want my legacy to be? What do changes how do I want to contribute to humanity, or just even being in a relationship. All that's hard when you don't know who you are.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

Wow, this is— I learned a lot from you today. Where can people go? And I'll put it all in the show notes, y'all, so too. But where can they go to learn more about working with you?

And then go to my website, which is just drmichaela.com. Then go to my Instagram page. Everywhere on social media is just Dr. Dr. Michaela, which is D-R-M-C-A-Y-L-A. First link if you want to know about my intensives, it's— that link is in my Instagram bio. It's also on my website, the intensive page, so you can find me there.

Thank you so much for today.

Absolutely fun. Thanks for having me.