Therapist Uncensored Podcast

Through state-of-art science, learn how to reduce distractibility, rumination, and catastrophic thinking with 12-15 mins of targeted mindfulness training. Many of us struggle with hyper-vigilant minds that overwhelm our nervous system.  We then often overcompensate by habitually tuning out, causing us to miss important information from our bodies and our relationships. This becomes especially true under high stress, which can wreak havoc on our ability to attend and be present where it matters most in our lives. In today’s episode, co-host Dr. Ann Kelley talks with neuroscientist and author, Dr. Amishi Jha about her research findings on attention, concentrations and focus. Dr. Jha summarizes years of research findings on the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion, resilience, and performance. Through her work, she and her team have identified some of the most efficient and effective mindfulness skills that have will calm our minds, increase our focus and attention, and even improve our mood and sense of well-being. It literally changes the way our mind is wired. “… everything can feel like a caution sign in the world when you’re on high alert. That can lead to anxiety disorders, and is very common within PTSD. But most of the time, people don’t think of that as an attentional challenge. And I’m saying it actually is – changing how we pay attention may soften the costs of a hypervigilant mind …” Join our Therapist Uncensored online community as a TU Neuronerd and help support getting this content out to the world. For deeper dives into topics and extra episodes, join our online community for as little as $5 a month and get deep-dive content, ad-free feed, discounts on anything we produce, and unique study opportunities. About Dr. Amishi Jha Amishi Jha presenting at the PopTech convention (2010) Dr. Amishi Jha, Ph.D. is a Director of Contemplative Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami. Prior to her current post, she was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her B.S in Biological Psychology from the University of Michigan, her Ph.D. in Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience) from the University of California–Davis, and her post-doctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University in functional neuroimaging. With grants from the Department of Defense and several private foundations, she leads research on the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion, resilience, and performance in education, corporate, elite sports, first-responder, and military contexts. Time Stamps 9:25 – What is “attention”? 10:09 – Analogy of the brain as a “flashlight” 20:33 – Inspiration for “Peak Mind” 27:16 – So why mindfulness? 29:40 – Hypothesis on the evolution of the brain 43:09 – Where/How to start implementing daily mindfulness Resources Dr. Amishi Jha’s Website “How to Tame Your Wandering Mind” – Ted Talk Amishi’s Book – “Peak Mind” Amishi Jha Episode – For transcript click here 

Ever curious how attachment theory applies to polyamory? In a society seemingly dominated by monogamy – it can be difficult for those in a consensual non-monogamous or polyamorous relationship to find representation. Roughly 5% of the population actively participates in polyamory or multi-partner relationships, although we believe the number wildly under-represents this rich community. It is important to not only have representation – but also the same resources for support that monogamous couples receive. Psychotherapist and relationship expert, Jessica Fern works to change that. You may recognize her as the author of  Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Non-Monogamy where she dives into uncharted territory and extends attachment theory into consensual nonmonogamy. Tune in as Fern and co-host Sue Marriott explore the depths of consensual nonmonogamy, from a personal and professional perspective, and the importance of the application of attachment theory when navigating multi-partner relationships. “When couples come in and they’re struggling, they might say we’re dealing with agreement challenges, or we’re fighting more, or one of us can’t get over our jealousy …. those are typically symptoms of deeper issues.”  Jessica Fern   In her book, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Non-Monogamy, Fern provides a fascinating perspective of attachment theory and how it operates within multi-partner relationships. As the world starts to become more open to relationship styles outside of monogamy, Fern strives to create a healthy discussion and cultivates opportunities for success on an individual level and within relationships. Utilizing resources like her six specific strategies, Ferns provides resources to heal past traumas and create more fulfilling, secure connections. This book is one of many we have featured in our Therapist Uncensored “Reading Pods.” “…it’s interesting to even think of sexuality as an identity. Cause for some of us it’s, it is very much an identity, for others – it feels very private and they don’t want to wear it as an identity. And some people don’t feel like they even have that choice to conceal it…”   Get your first 2 months of SimplePractice for free when you sign up for an account today as a Therapist Uncensored listener. This exclusive offer is valid for new customers only and by signing up through the following link: simplepractic.com/therapistuncensored   Time Stamps 6:02  Descriptions of polyamory, poly-romantic relationships 11:30 The difference between poly-orientation and lifestyle 13:03 The definition of solo-polyamorous 15:08 Secure Functioning 21:56 Primal Attachment Panic 23:50  The difference between enmeshment and closeness 34:04 “Non-Monogamy will expose the cracks in your relationship” 44:52 Attachment styles can vary between partners in Polycules 48:04 For those who have been highly traumatized, is BDSM an extension of their trauma or self-expression? Resources Jessica Fern’s Website Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Non-Monogamy “Secure Attachment with Self” 4-month Live Online Program  “Maybe Monogamy Isn’t the Only Way to Love” Article by Drake Baer – 2017 Therapist Uncensored Podcast Episode 42 – Sexual Vitality Refreshing Our Understanding of Sexual Health with Doug Braun Harvey (Part 1) Therapist Uncensored Podcast Episode 43 – Sexual Vitality Six Principles of Sexual Health with Doug Braun Harvey (Part 2) About Jessica Fern Jessica Fern is a psychotherapist, public speaker, author, and trauma and relationship expert. She specializes in working with clients from around the world to form healthier connections and to seek more fulfilling experiences. Jessica is the author of the book Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual NonMonogamy, and is in the process of writing her second book which expands on the original ideologies. Along with her private practice, Fern provides resources and also leads online programs designed to better help individuals navigate hardships and find security within themselves. Check out her program: “Secure Attachment with Self” launching February 4, 2022 to take a step on your own journey to healing traumas and finding stability in such difficult times.   Join our Therapist Uncensored online community as a TU Neuronerd and help support getting this content out to the world. For deeper dives into topics and specific episodes, join our online community for as little as $5 a month and get extra content, ad-free feed, discounts on anything we produce, study opportunities and – in Feb 2022 we will meet live together after a series of private episodes breaking down Jill Bolte-Taylor’s, Whole-Brain Living. If you are seeing this afterwards, all this will be accessible plus new things we are finding interesting at the time.   Not ready to join us officially? No sweat. But if you are this deep into the shownotes we hope you have gotten something from the wealth of content in our episode library and we’d love it if you might leave us a rating and review – that is how the show grows, word of mouth and ratings.  TKS FRIEND! View Episode Transcript Here

Self-compassion has gotten a bad rap, it’s time to update your perspective on this key tool to security. We’ve been socialized to associate compassion with femininity, self-love, and gentleness, and self-compassion as a way of saying to be “nice” to yourself – basically a recipe to get walked on.  Dr. Kristin Neff has dedicated years of research to help understand, update and restructure the ideas around weakness so that all genders can harness the power of having a self-compassionate stance. Join Dr. Kristin Neff and Co-host Dr. Ann Kelley as they explore the world of fierce self-love. Embracing Fierce Self-Compassion “Women have lower self-compassion levels than men because we’re socialized to give compassion to others and to be self-sacrificing.  We feel less entitled to meet our own needs than men do.”  Kristin Neff Join our Therapist Uncensored online community as a TU Neuronerd and help support getting this content out to the world. For deeper dives into topics and extra episodes, join our online community for as little as $5 a month and get deep-dive content, ad-free feed, discounts on anything we produce, and unique study opportunities. About Dr. Kristin Neff Dr. Kristin Neff Dr. Kristin Neff is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, who has dedicated her life to understanding and educating others on their journey to fierce self-love. Neff earned her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley and is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is the author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, along with her newest release – Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive. In conjunction with her colleague Dr. Chris Germer, she has developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. They co-authored The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook as well as Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals. She is also co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. Time Stamps  00:18 – Why Neff shifted her research towards women 1:13 – Fierce self-compassion 2:09 – How men are harmed by their inability to be tender 7:13 – How it connects to the sympathetic nervous system 11:28 – Neff’s 3-step model 13:59 – Research on self-compassion 21:22 – Biology or socialization? 32:18 – Why we are “afraid” to appreciate ourselves 50:29 – Positives and negatives of feeling anger 58:16 – Inner compassion Resources  Dr. Kristin Neff – Her main website loaded with free resources and MP3’s Center for Mindful Self-Compassion Mindful Self-Compassion Intensive Workshop The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive Kristen Neff: Self Compassion Step by Step, The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself (Audio CD) Karen Bluth, forward by Kristin Neff: The Self-Compassion Workbook for Teens Jean M Twenge and W. Keith Campbell: The Narcissism Epidemic Living in the Age of Entitlement Self Compassion Test  Want more on this topic? You’ll probably enjoy these previous episodes from Therapist Uncensored Building Grit Through Self Compassion with Dr. Kristin Neff – Episode 23 Sue and Ann Explore Self Criticism and Internal Scripts – Episode 169 View Show Transcript Here Value this content?  Please take a moment to leave us a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts to help others discover this resource, and share with those you think can benefit.   

Learn what the amygdala does and doesn’t do, how it’s related to memory and consciousness from the best, Dr. Joseph LeDoux.  Fun times, sister neuronerds! We are honored to introduce him to you all! Joseph LeDoux – The Amygdaloids In the previous episode, we covered how neurobiology affects your relationships to help prepare you for the incredible discussion we had this week with amygdala expert, Dr. Joseph LeDoux. Listen in as we discuss the amygdala, non-conscious versus unconscious, protein synthesis, the differences between fear and threat, and how it all applies in the world of attachment. “…that’s why I always thought of the amygdala as a non-conscious process – because it’s generating these behaviors non-consciously. Then cognitively, we interpret that to generate a narrative that makes it make sense in terms of who we are…”   Join our Therapist Uncensored online community as a TU Neuronerd and help support getting this content out to the world. For deeper dives into topics and extra episodes, join our online community for as little as $5 a month and get deep-dive content, ad-free feed, Ask Me Anything sessions, discounts on anything we produce, and unique study opportunities. About Joseph LeDoux Dr. Joseph LaDoux Dr. Joseph LeDoux – is a professor at NYU in the Center for Neural Science. He is also the director of the  Emotional Brain Institute at NYU and a well-respected author of many books including The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, and Anxious. Throughout his career, he has received many awards for his research including the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award, and the American Psychological Association Donald O. Hebb Award. In his free time, LeDoux is the lead singer of his band, the Amygdaloids. Time Stamps for Unpacking the Amygdala 1:05 – Introduction to LeDoux’s rat experiment 2:30 – Split-brain patients 6:45 – Story follows state explanation 8:20 – Introduction to the bell curve 12:34 – The relationship between the non-conscious and the unconscious 18:30 – Memory reconsolidation 19:05 – Protein synthesis 26:44 – Taming the Hippocampus 31:30 – Optigenetics 37:52 – LeDoux’s tips for emotional regulation 41:26 – Explanation of the new book – “The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains“ Resources “Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety” – Dr. Joseph LeDoux “The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life” – Dr. Joseph LeDoux  “I Got A Mind to Tell You” – Psychology Today Article “The Amygdaloids” – Music Complete List of LeDoux’s Books  “Putting the ‘Mental’ Back in Mental Disorders” – Research Paper, National Library of Medicine   Relevant Episodes “Polyvagal Theory in Action – The Practice of Body Regulation With Dr. Stephen Porges” – Therapist Uncensored Podcast, Episode 93 View Episode Transcripts Here

Explore how early life experiences impact emotional reactions and attachment styles, debunking myths about the amygdala as the 'fear center'. Dive into the effects of fear responses on coping strategies, trauma, frozen motor systems, and body therapies. Understand the role of threat responses in relationships, emphasizing self-awareness and effective communication. Discover how past experiences shape present threat responses, highlighting the importance of addressing unconscious biases for safety in relationships.

Guest Dr. Elizabeth Stanley knows stress reduction – she had developed a program used by the US military called Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training. Co-host Dr. Ann Kelley and Dr. Stanley discuss practical strategies that will help you build resilience, recover from trauma, heal and thrive. “…One of the biggest gifts we each give the world around us is our own self-regulation – our own presence. Only from a self-regulated place are we able to contribute to the collective…” Dr. Elizabeth A. Stanley has dedicated years to understanding her own traumatic experiences and extended her knowledge to others through research and teaching, including her work developing the Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT)® (utilized by the United States military). There are many factors that contribute to the way in which we manage stress. From early developmental experiences to the lessons we learn within our culture – how we process and manage our experiences during stress and trauma plays a large role in the way we navigate the world around us. Too often we go on autopilot and ignore the impact of stress and trauma on our body. This can have a devastating impact on us personally, but also on our relationships. Thrive even under stress “…we kind of divorce trauma and write it off as that’s what happens with weak people or people who can’t handle it. So people who are really suffering that way don’t really want to admit it to themselves or to anyone else because that somehow reflects on them that they’re broken or wrong or weak or powerless in ways that really isn’t true. Stress and trauma are actually a biological continuum, but we’ve divorced it this way…” Join our Therapist Uncensored online community as a TU Neuronerd and help support getting this content out to the world. For deeper dives into topics and extra episodes, join our online community for as little as $5 a month and get deep-dive content, ad-free feed, Ask Me Anything sessions, discounts on anything we produce, and unique study opportunities.  About Dr. Elizabeth Stanley  Elizabeth A. Stanley, Ph.D., is an associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University. She is the creator of Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT)®, taught to thousands in civilian and military high-stress environments. Stanley is also an award-winning author and U.S. Army veteran with service in Asia and Europe, she holds degrees from Yale, Harvard, and MIT. She’s also is a certified practitioner of Somatic Experiencing, a body-based trauma therapy.     Time Stamps 1:08 – Background on Dr. Stanley’s life 5:09 – The creation of her mindfulness-based training Program 6:16 – How culture plays a role in toxic/overworked environments 22:01 – The window of stress explanation 23:20 – Three pathways that can make the window narrow 45:49 – Three principles of mindfulness 47:57 – The biggest “Pay Off Habit” recommendations 56:20 – Implementing mindfulness regulation strategies into the military Resources Dr. Elizabeth A. Stanley’s Website “Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma” – Purchase “Mindfulness-Based Mind-Fit Training” – Online Courses “Optimizing the Caveman Within Us” – Dr. Elizabeth A. Stanley’s TedTalk Training your brain to thrive show notes

Writing courageous words can heal deep wounds.  Bibliotherapy, family reconciliation, mother-daughter bonding and the questionable power of memory are all covered in today’s episode with Laura Davis, author of the Courage to Heal and the new memoir, Burning Light of Two Stars. “…no one should ever sacrifice their own well-being to maintain a psychologically devastating relationship. The final option for reconciliation may be not having a direct relationship with the person, & instead being able to find resolution inside yourself – this can be the best choice…” How do we navigate tumultuous relationships in life? When do we know when to walk away, or to stay and reconcile? Most individuals will experience a tough relationship in their lifetime – sometimes with family, romantic partners, colleagues, or friendships. The type of relationships that feel unbearably frustrating, almost impossible to maintain – so, how do we find peace within the chaos? Author and teacher, Laura Davis is an expert in navigating these kinds of connections. In her most recent book, “The Burning Light of Two Stars”, she openly shares the raw feelings behind her decades-long relationship with her mother and the beautifully tragic ending to her life. From her childhood of abuse and young adulthood of healing, follow along as Davis and co-host Sue Marriott examine her journey through reconciliation as she becomes her mother’s caretaker. “I used to think that the opposite of estrangement was reconciliation, but actually – the opposite is what we have to do to get to a place of peace with the reality of this relationship…”   We are proud to offer this library of episodes free to the world and accessible. In order to help us do that, please join our Therapist Uncensored online community! You’ll get deeper dives into topics and extra episodes, an ad-free feed, Ask Me Anything sessions, discounts on stuff we may produce, unique study opportunities, and access to your like-minded peers!    Time Stamps for Courage to Heal author Laura Davis interview  3:14 – Davis’s personal journey 5:03 – The journey of writing “The Courage to Heal” 10:42 – Explanation of “The Burning Light of Two Stars” 13:28 – Book excerpt #1 from “The Burning Light of Two Stars” 25:45 – Book excerpt #2 from “The Burning Light of Two Stars” 39:45 – Finding reconciliation and healing 50:30 – How writing can be a tool for healing & transformation 59:21 – Secure priming Resources *Special Bibliotherapy for Therapist Uncensored Listeners* Laura Davis’s Website & Workshops “The Courage to Heal” – Book by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis “The Burning Light of Two Stars” – Book by Laura Davis “I Never Told Anyone” – Book by Ellen Bass Link to the first 5 Chapters of “The Burning Light of Two Stars”  The audiobook of “The Burning Light of Two Stars” – Read by Laura Davis Signed copies of “The Burning Light of Two Stars” Travel to Tuscany with Laura Davis!  Click the book you’d like to purchase:  Laura’s riveting new memoir examines the endurance of mother-daughter love, how memory protects and betrays us, and the determination it takes to fulfill a promise when ghosts from the past come knocking   MORE FROM THERAPIST UNCENSORED: TU112: The Life-Changing Science of Memory Reconsolidation with Guests Bruce Ecker & Tori Olds(Opens in a new browser tab) Find full transcript in the podcast player.  And follow us on our social media pages to get the latest updates and information: Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn! Like what you’re hearing? A great way to help others find these resources is to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. This is an easy and effective way for those seeking assistance to be able to find it. Thank you so much for your support.

When talk therapy isn’t enough How Attachment-Focused EMDR works and when to use it While talk therapy can be an incredible resource for working through and healing traumas – sometimes it is not enough. The theory around trauma is that when it occurs it “gets locked in the nervous system” in the form of fragmented thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. This makes true healing difficult.  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, also known as EMDR, is an evolving science that utilizes bilateral stimulation to help connect the left side of the brain to the right in order to form more cohesive, healing thoughts to better support the healing process. Dr. Laurel Parnell is a leading expert in EMDR, and uses her vast knowledge to help train thousands of clinicians worldwide to spread the safe science. Using the “lighting it up and linking it up” methodology combined with the Four Foundational Resources, Parnell helps individuals suffering from PTSD and other obstacles better navigate their world and release some of the tension stored within the body and mind. Tune in for this episode as co-host Dr. Ann Kelley and Dr. Parnell take a deep dive into the evolution and successes of EMDR.   “…people can spend years in talk therapy working through some horrible accident, and they’re not getting better because the therapy isn’t reaching where the trauma’s stored and it’s not helping with that integration of the nonverbal experience…” Join our Therapist Uncensored online community as a TU Neuronerd and help support getting this content out to the world. For deeper dives into topics and extra episodes, join our online community for as little as $5 a month and get deep-dive content, ad-free feed, Ask Me Anything sessions, discounts on anything we produce and unique study opportunities.  About Laurel Parnell Clinical psychologist and director of the Parnell Institute for Attachment-Focused EMDR, Dr. Laurel Parnell is a leading expert on Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). She has served on the faculty of the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco, as well as at John F. Kennedy University. Parnell is also the co-director of the non-profit Trauma Assistance Program-International, “TAP-IN”. She has dedicated her life to training thousands of clinicians both nationally and internationally and is the author of six books on EMDR.   Time Stamps 1:11 – What we do with EMDR 5:44 – Introducing the Four Foundational Resources 12:30 – Explanation of what Standard EMDR looks like 16:05 – Breaking Down Bilateral Stimulation 21:12 – The Connection between REM Sleep & EMDR 27:49 – “Little T” Traumas and “Big T” Traumas 29:57 – “Creating Ideal Communities” for Healing 35:22 – Integrating Attachment-Focused EMDR 46:53 – How to Integrate EMDR Virtually 53:04 – Making Modifications to the Practice 1:06:55 – Understanding EMDR Timelines Resources Dr. Laurel Parnell’s Website Parnell Institute EMDR Website EMDR Training Workshops Parnell Institute Facebook Group  Find an EMDR Trained Therapist  Christie Sprowl’s Website – EMDR Expert Dr. Francine Shapiro’s Website “Inside the Mind of Dr. Dan Siegel” – Therapist Uncensored Podcast Laurel Parnell’s Books (Click the Image to Purchase)         Not ready to join us as an official Neuronerd? We respect that, no sweat, just glad you know it’s an option. But if you are this deep into the show notes we hope you have gotten something from the wealth of content in our episode library and we’d love it if you might share it with someone you think could use it.  The way new people find us is mainly word of mouth, so leaving a rating or review – that is how the good content finds its way across the world. Thanks, friend!      

Self-criticism is such a practiced skill it could be an Olympic sport – style points, consistency, creativity.  Learn more about this common practice and what it may mean about your internal working script. Hearing yourself criticized impacts your nervous system no matter if the voice is your own or someone else’s. self attack can be brutal Self-criticism, unfortunately, is something that most individuals can deeply identify with. Not only does it affect our own self-esteem, but it also can take a heavy toll on our relationships and the ways in which we navigate the world. But can self-criticism look different for different attachment styles? What outer influences contribute to our critical tendencies? You will want to tune in this week, as Ann and Sue answer these (and many more) questions, by taking a deep dive into self-criticism as it relates to different attachment styles. Learn more about the detrimental role our cultures and societal pressures play in our thoughts, and how we can help build healthier patterns through secure attachment priming. We are proud to offer this library of episodes free to the world and accessible. In order to help us do that, please join our Therapist Uncensored online community! You’ll get deeper dives into topic and extra episodes, an ad-free feed, Ask Me Anything sessions, discounts on stuff we may produce, unique study opportunities, and access to your like-minded peers!  Time Stamps 19:28 – Explanation of how self-criticism can activate a threat response 20:31 –  How avoidant attachment/dismissive styles can differ in self-criticism 23:42 – Pleasure and soothing and the roles they can play in self-criticism 28:50 – Preoccupied self-criticism 29:24 – Society & culture’s role in criticism 37:10 – Explanation of secure attachment priming Resources “Attachment Styles Modulate Neural Markers of Threat and Imagery when Engaging in Self-criticism” Article “Music, Emotion, and Therapy – Interview with Bob Schneider” – Therapist Uncensored, Episode 45 Therapist Uncensored Episode Transcript Email Download New Tab Ann Kelley: Hey, Sue Marriott. I am happy to be back in the studio with you. Sue Marriott: Absolutely. It's so nice to actually be recording together. We've been doing so many crazy things separately and yeah, it's fun. So let's do this, Ann Kelley: let's do some announcements. You know how we've been talking about how important it is at Therapist Uncensored that we build community, right? We are really excited. We've been hinting at this suggesting it, but we're going to do it. We're going to have a live meetup here in Austin, Texas, and we are going to encourage live meetups, wherever Therapist Uncensored reaches. Sue Marriott: Yeah. So if you're a listener on April 22nd, this is all going to happen simultaneously. We've already had a couple of people sign up to host in their local community. So wherever you're hearing this from our idea here is. We're going to be announcing like, so somebody wants to host in Boise, Idaho, or in Calcutta or in Sydney, Australia, wherever you're listening from, you just raise your hand, let us know. And we will announce it. Basically, all you would have to do is find a location. COVID, you know, friendly location for people to gather and, you know, everybody will pay for themselves. Things like that. No big deal. But. There's probably, there may be other listeners of this podcast near you. And especially if you're in a Metro area, New York, you guys are one of our highest listeners, Los Angeles, of course, the big hubs. So if somebody will just raise their hand and say, Hey, let's meet at you know, sour duck, uh, you know, and, uh, and you just need a big patio or something. Then the notion is that anybody that's also listening to the podcast, that's maybe a neighbor of yours. You guys already have a ton in common, right? Ann Kelley: Like not everybody listens to a neuro nerd kind of podcast. That's for sure. So if you are interested in this, you have some commonalities. That's what we assumed. So even if you just have one other person in your community, that's enough. It doesn't have to be a huge one. We want everybody in the same day to gather and talk amongst yourself, get to know you have the community have connections. So we're going to do it in Austin, Texas on April 22nd at four o'clock. And um, we have few, I know we have a host volunteer in Milwaukee. We have several host, volunteers already, Sue Marriott: Bozeman, Montana. Ann Kelley: Oh, that's true. And I think one in Australia. And so I'm not sure which city yet, but I think what we are going to do if you volunteered to be a host, you're not gonna have to pay for anything. But I think we are going to send you a Therapist Uncensored t-shirt, so when people get to your location, they'll know where to find you. Sue Marriott: And just a thank you. Ann Kelley: And just to thank you for doing it. So all you have to do to host again, is send us your name. You could do that at info@therapistuncensored.com and just say, Hey, I'd love to be a host and we will. start coordinating that altogether. Sue Marriott: That's right. And so if you're interested in attending, if there's one in your area and you want to attend, we're going to be funneling you to our Facebook group, and we'll have an event on the Facebook group that will be about this. And so in the chatter, under the event, you'll, you know, you can say, Hey, is there anybody in the, this region in the Southeast or wherever? So, um, yeah, we'll see how it goes. It might be that zero people show up, but that's cool. That's fine. Ann Kelley: That's fine. But hopefully in Austin, Texas, we will. I think right now we have one location. You mentioned sourdough Sour Duck. I think that's going to be the location. Sue Marriott: Let me tell y'all a side story. Ann is really wanting to like spend the next couple of weeks, like going to different event, going to different locations and checking out the vibe and seeing how nice the people are. And you know what I mean, like having it be an event, like a scouting event to find the perfect location. Ann Kelley: We call that me circling my blankets. So we could actually, you could say we do, we always talk about sort of our different dynamics on the podcast. So who do you imagine wants to be decisive? We went to a place. This is it. This is fine. Let's name it. And I'm like, let's circle the blankets. Let's ride our bikes all over the city. It's just also an excuse to play around. Right. And find the location that is just right. So right now it may end up being Sour Duck, but we'll get back to you. But there are so many people out there that are not in Austin, Texas. But if you're out there and you have a location in mind. Awesome. we think it'll be fun. We're going to want you. If you get there, even if it's just one person that shows up when you're there that day on April 22nd, we want you to take a picture of you or your group and send it in. Sue Marriott: We might be doing some live FaceTime and stuff like that. So that'll be fun. But wait, in my defense about the sour duck. It is really a great place. And my notion was to already have the location, then it's, as we announce it, everybody knows where to go versus I do love the scouting and the journey and the, all of those things too. So we'll see how it actually lands, but if it lands at the sour duck, it doesn't mean that it's a sour decision. Ann Kelley: It means it was the right decision. Sue Marriott: It just means I already knew that was good. Ann Kelley: You do have good instincts it's true. And I do have a tendency to have to circle a blanket and see all my options. Sue Marriott: Oh my gosh. That's so true. Ann Kelley: So true. Well, let's jump into today's episode. Sue Marriott: Absolutely. And one way to do that. One of the things that we do here at Therapist Uncensored is we provide this incredible content. I wouldn't say that the first five minutes has been that incredible of content. However, we normally provide really, we have an archive of incredible really, really good, solid content that we provide for free. And we are able to do that two ways. One is with our community of neuro nerds. Thank you all for supporting us. You can join in and get all kinds of access to learning opportunities and cool things like that at therapistuncensored.com/join, but also we especially really want to give a moment here to our sponsors Simple Practice. Ann Kelley: Yes. Simple Practice is a online management system for anyone that works with clients, especially therapists. Sue and I both use simple practice. That's the reason we reached out to them as a sponsor because we want to only support things that we really feel some positivity towards. And it's really helped in being able to manage our system, being able to do billing. It's an all-in-one HIPAA compliant practice management system. Our listeners out there get two months free. So if you go to simplepractice.com/therapistuncensored, and check it out. And by the way, just checking it out really helps us a lot and help sponsors the program. Sue Marriott: That's right. And just to say a little bit more about simple practice, honestly is we both didn't use any kind of software before. We had our own ways that we handled it. And I have to say, if I've ever seen you as a client, you know, that I'm terrible at details and billing and things like that. So since then, I've gotten on simple practice. It was a little tiny bit of a learning curve, like a three out of a 10. That's how hard it was, but within probably an hour, it was already ready to roll. And now basically it's, you know, most of my clients are preset, so I really probably spend 30 minutes a month max making sure that it's all correct. Other than that, the bills go out automatically to the clients. Some of them already have their credit card in and it's all done automatically. They don't have to deal with it. We don't have to deal with, I don't have to deal with it. And there's an accounting at any minute. Anybody can log on and figure out what's going on. So. It's not lightly that we say that if you're not sure, or if you have hired someone, that's great. But if you're thinking of doing something more efficient that can be ongoing, then we really recommend that. And again, two months free. Okay. This is gonna be an interesting episode.. Ann Kelley: It is. You know, we've been talking a lot about kind of different ways that we can tell when we're in our, like more defensive protective system and when we're in more our connective and open system. Right. And one of the things we've been thinking about is what are the things that you can, how you can tell when you're in one in the other. And one of the big ones is self-criticism. And self-criticism can be a huge problem for so many of us, right? Sue Marriott: Oh yeah. I mean, I would be surprised if there, well, actually there is a category of when it comes to attachment of folks who are less consciously self-critical, so we'll get to that. But what's interesting about this as we get into the science around it is that first of all, everybody has a voice. So don't feel bad if, when we say self criticism and you're like, eh, I'm going to raise my hand. I felt guilty, which is already a little self critical. Isn't it? Ann Kelley: Exactly. You're prepping your own self critical self. Sue Marriott: Exactly. But what is, so it's not that unique to have a voice that is being critical of yourself, but when we can listen to the way that we criticize ourselves, then it becomes interesting. Ann Kelley: Absolutely. Absolutely. And because, I mean, we talk to ourselves all the time, like you said, we have an internal voice, we have a Metta voice going on more than we ever even realize. Right. So how do we recognize it when it's just being observational? Right. Like I spill my ice tea and I'm like, ah, you know, versus it's hopping over to that place where it becomes kind of a critical analysis of your own self. Sue Marriott: Totally. And I imagine as you're listening, like if we were doing a big world group therapy right now, and, and everybody could speak up and say like this, this is my words that I say to myself, and this is my words. We're not saying the same things. Everybody's saying something particularly unique and it probably has a theme. And so it just becomes kind of interesting. It's like, even right now, just reflect, like when you really get going against yourself, what does it sound like? Like what's the thing, like, is it that you're stupid? Is it that you're ugly. Like these are painful things to think about, but the reason that we're pointing you to them is because we're going to decode them and update them, so that our self-talk is going to, so you know, jumping to the end, we want one of the cool things about security and is basically that you have a secure script. Those of you who have been following for a while, know about internal working models. So. We might kind of just try on the idea that your self-talk might hint towards your unconscious script, your internal working model. Ann Kelley: So one of the things to think about, you just asked everybody kind of slowly think about it for themselves. What would just take another moment again? What would be your most common moments of self critic? And what would the theme be? I like how you're saying that. And I know for me, my self criticism often comes when I've realized I've procrastinated too much. And then I'm up against a deadline. That is brutal. If I have distracted myself and postponed, and then I'm about to maybe jump on an interview or something, and I haven't done my sufficient prep, I can feel that self criticism. Sue Marriott: What does it sound like? Ann Kelley: I think mine centers more around expectations of work ethic. It's not so much how smart I am, how I look. Mine is have I done the work ethic, and I will get really rough on myself if I feel like I've lingered and I haven't shown a strong work ethic. That's kind of how it sounds like I go, why did you not, you know better. Mine would be, you know better. Why did you do that? You know, like that would be my theme. What about you? Sue Marriott: Well, do you have any idea of why work ethic is achilles. Ann Kelley: Ah, absolutely. I think growing up work ethic was really promoted. I think having a strong work ethic in my mom and the identity of how hard she had to work for us, for one, and the anxiety that I would get if I wasn't doing, I can still remember. Sue Marriott: Lucille Ball. Ann Kelley: Oh, it is. I have. It's so funny to remember that. I'm sure I've talked about that before, but still. And my daughter's Sydney loves the Lucille ball show, but still when I hear that music, my stomach gets a little like anxious because I knew my mother was going to be home, I guess, it was like 25 minutes from the start of that program. And if we hadn't done the work that we needed to do and started dinner, et cetera it would make me a little anxious, mainly for her being upset, but also disappointed cause I knew she was working so hard, so there's like this strong work ethic. So my self-criticism probably centers a lot on my working model around what that holds for me. Sue Marriott: Yeah. That's interesting. I'm glad that you said more about that. Ann Kelley: So what about you? Sue Marriott: Oh, I think mine's a lot worse. I think you're just healthier or something. I don't know. No, I think my, what a couple of things I've noticed. One is. When I'm more dysregulated, when I'm not in a good place, my self-criticism is brutal. You said yours was brutal, everybody, you know, I guess it's all relative, but I'm definitely much more. The other thing is it doesn't necessarily come in the form of words. It's more of a feeling and it's, and it just cuts. Right? It's not like work ethic. It's like more of like, worth. My worth, my goodness, badness like that I'm actually bad or that my badness will be revealed. It's definitely more like core value of self. Ann Kelley: And that's what self criticism can be. It's an embodied experience, isn't it? It's not, it's not. The research really shows that it's not a cognitive thought, stop having that thought it really can envelop the body and it's a bodied embodied experience. So you're really describing it in such an articulate way that it can just have a wave of feeling incompetent or unworthy. And it's a sense you can't even articulate the words that come with it at times. Sue Marriott: Right. Well, and you know, if I am thinking in words, it's actually, if we think of the nervous system, you know, the lower down than I am, the more it's embodied As I come up, right, you have my higher thinking on, then there may be words. So there's some interesting things about this. So one is that, if I'm not dysregulated and there's, you know, we should talk about that paper and the research. So if I'm not dysregulated and I'm in a pretty good place, say that I'm feeling self-critical. One of the great things about that is that like, I don't know. I just don't, it doesn't go to that worth place. It's just more of like, dammit, you know, it's, it's a little bit more reality-based Ann Kelley: What you're saying is that when we're in our more secure way of relating and we're not activated, we can be self critical. We can go, oh, you should have prepared. Or you can, but it doesn't hit you on this core level, and we're able to self-reflect about it. We're able to mentalize. You know what, true enough I should have started earlier. Right? Like, so there's a way to be self-critical that isn't devastating to you and leaves a mentalization process where we can look at ourselves. Sue Marriott: So Ann, do you have the reference for that paper. So if you'll find that and I'm going to just share a little bit about. It was really interesting and the reason we love this particular paper is it has to do with mental scripts. And so one of the findings is just what I'm saying right now, and it's ringing really true for me. Which is that, when you're in an FMRI machine and if you're being self-critical and let's say that you score a s securely attached, it shows another part of your brain that I'm going to forget because I'm not a neuroscientist, but I probably should have, see, I could be critical of myself right now, but there's basically it has to do with the visual cortex. So if you're secure and then you're being self critical, the visual cortex lights up. And what the interpretation of that is, is that it's like, you're examining the thought you are kicking it around. It's like, you might can defend yourself even from your own self attack that like. In other words, it's a more complex Damn, I shouldn't have done that thing. Yeah. But they didn't give me the information in time. There's a working it. Ann Kelley: Right. There's a way of, I guess the language that we've used a lot is it's a way to mentalize around it. You can see yourself from outside. I think what you're. Okay. What you're talking about is the lingual gyrus. Sue Marriott: Thank you. Ann Kelley: So, but the article that you're speaking of is it's attachment styles, modulating neural markers of threat and imagery when engaging in self criticism. And it's in Scientific Reports 2020. So it's a recent article. You can see how Sue I spend our fun time. And we seriously do read this stuff for fun. That's a whole nother conversation, but it was really fascinating to see the things that we see in our office, we see in ourselves, but to really have it manifest in a way that we can describe it through brain functioning. Sue Marriott: Right. So if your score is secure on this, I don't remember. Here's an interesting thing about research though y'all is that there's so many measures of attachment and what Ann and I typically talk about is developmental attachment with the strange situation, AAI, the adult attachment inventory, and the adult attachment projective, those kinds of things. But, but, so when you're looking at an article, it's interesting to see how they measured it. We're writing a book and in our appendix of all the attachment measures, there's a zillion. But anyway, so that, that, you know, as a parenthesis, right, that, that basically that there is this activation with self self-criticism with securely attached where that it's, I like how you said it. It's basically, there's more mentalization happening with this Lingus gyrus. Ann Kelley: But one of the reasons why it's so important is that self criticism in general can activate a sense of a threat response. Right. And so that's when we were started off the whole conversation with how do we know we're in our defense? Well, when we start to self criticize or we're criticized by others, there is a sense of threat. There's a threat to our identity or self. Are we going to be rejected? Are we going to reject ourselves? So there's a threat response in our amygdala. And, and, and it goes through our limbic system. Those with secure attachment in an internal working model that says that being criticized, first of all, that their body likely is not as programmed towards self criticism. If you end up developing a secure attachment, you likely were not raised with highly self-critical parents or a critical of you. And so that with the amygdala response, it's like, we do feel a little threatened when you're in a secure place, but with that threat, it doesn't overwhelm the nervous system. It doesn't overwhelm our coping strategies. So, but it was really different when they looked at avoidant attachments, individuals more dismissing styles. Sue Marriott: Yeah. So basically one of the findings there is that there's not that activation of the, I'm making it, Ann Kelley: the lingual gyrus activation that they have an amygdala response, but there's not as much response to the lingual gyrus activation. And they speculate that in some ways that it overwhelms the coping system, that there's not this way of, they suppress basically the ability to mentalize. It's like, it moves very quickly out. It's kind of a way to dissociate if you will. Sue Marriott: It's dismissing state of mind. Ann Kelley: Right. It's dismissing one's own experience. When we talk about being in a dismissing state of mind, we often are dismissing our own emotions as well as others. Sue Marriott: Which includes self criticism. Ann Kelley: Absolutely includes the feelings of threat around self-criticism as too much so that it gets almost dissociated or suppressed. Sue Marriott: Right. And so the experience might be as someone who is recovering from dismissing, that side of things, for sure. The experience I think is more, it's going to be more critical of the other person. Like, I'm fine, but who is this crazy person out there, but notice that the self. So in other words, I'm not threatened by self attack. I'm more threatened by other people. And I want to talk about something about pleasure in just a minute, but were going to say something. Ann Kelley: Yeah. I think it's an interesting way to kind of think about it because we often talk about, or we have talked about one of the states that is threatening to this dismissing individual, or when we're in that state is the threat to an identity. Right. And so to be self-critical and to question yourself would really be activating because one leans towards dismissing because you had to rely on yourself. This isn't a negative. Remember this is not a negative state. This is not a personality disorder to land on dismissing. It's like we had a really, when you're there and you grow into an internal working model of dismissing is because you've had to rely on yourself. So you had to really learn to overvalue yourself because you didn't trust others. So, if you think about it, the idea of self-criticism and doubting yourself really would feel threatening. Sue Marriott: It would feel threatening, but it doesn't feel threatening because it's already suppressed. It happens so quickly. Ann Kelley: Right? And that's the one reason why we've talked about doing a whole episode on this, and maybe we will, because we've got an episode coming up specifically around the amygdala, but that's one reason we want to point out the difference between feeling threat and feeling fear. Like for somebody with dismissing attachment, you're not necessarily going to feel, oh, I'm afraid to be self-critical, you're going to bypass that experience altogether through the suppression and the act on the threat. And that's where dissociating that feeling comes out. And like, I don't have self criticism. In fact, I feel pretty damn good about myself. Although underneath we know that even in insecure attachment, including dismissing, there's a lot of self doubt. That's really hidden and suppressed. Sue Marriott: It's absolutely true. So basically your protective system, your defense system is active. And so you're a little amygdala, amygdala squirted some, you know, threat neurochemicals, and you've got a little cortisol. So if you put a Monitor on your finger to measure threat. It would actually be there, but you wouldn't be perceiving the threat. Ann Kelley: Right. You would have pushed it away and it kind of leans towards why criticism of others comes out. Because if somebody else is being self-critical, that is actually really hard often on somebody with dismissing attachment is to listen to somebody else be self-critical. They want to stop it. Sue Marriott: Or, to be critical to them. Ann Kelley: Oh, a good point. I was actually leaning there and I forgot that point. Thank you for bringing it back. And that is that the, the identity threat. So somebody being threatened, we often say that somebody with dismissing attachment will lean on how could you say that about me? Right. So you being critical of them is very, very disruptive. So while they don't incorporate self-criticism, they really, we really can become very defensive around criticism from other people, which then leads to wanting to cut it off, wanting to either eye roll, shut it down, move away, withdraw, leave. All of those signs are like, I have to get away. This is too much. Sue Marriott: So earlier, I had mentioned this idea of pleasure, and this goes exactly with what you're saying Ann, which is if we just very quickly go back. So here's this dismissing adult, but in childhood, what that means if they're dismissing adult, is that, that was adaptive for their environment, which I really appreciate you saying that earlier. That was just, we can't emphasize that enough. It's not a pathology. It was adaptive early on, but less if we break that down just a little bit more, what happens if you have a good environment, good enough environment, then you're distressed. Your little brain is distressed because we can't calm ourselves down. Right. Then the bigger brain is responsive and takes care of us. And guess what happens is we feel relief because we come back to homeostasis and that gets patterned. And then pretty soon we're going to feel relief when the caregivers even nearby 'cause there's a, there's a feeling of pleasure. So it works basically. Ann Kelley: That makes sense. Yeah. Sue Marriott: And so then we want to be near the caregiver, and their presence is soothing just in and of itself. Ann Kelley: Another way to look as rewarding. Sue Marriott: It's rewarding. Now, when you have had to, as you're saying depend on yourself, then that's great, but your what's missing is you're not getting the pleasure of the success of being soothed. As a matter of fact, What can then eventually happen is that it might not be pleasure, but your, your homeostasis has to do with being on your own. So then when you have someone near where, okay, now we're grown back up and we have a partner. That can actually evoke the threat system. Rather than oxytocin and all the good stuff that we really want to be happening when it's, when you're in a really dismissing state and the, and, and being alone can give you the feeling of relief Ann Kelley: because you're not warding off that sense of threat. Sue Marriott: That's exactly right. So I thought that was, that was one of my, like, ahas about some of this and reading more. And it also really emphasizes what Ann and I talk all the time about, about this being a morally neutral stance and it can, it can cause us problems for sure, but we don't want to approach it that the person's just being an asshole. Ann Kelley: That is so important Sue, and if you think about it, what often happens in relationships. Let's say. Uh, you're in a conflict and somebody being critical of the other person, which happens in conflict. But you have some criticalness coming. And you know if we continue the conversation about being in a dismissing state and you want to move away, you're hearing criticism and that's activating. If the individual doesn't accept, self-criticism very much guess what's happening? Your criticism while they're activated is not actually going in as insight. There's not a light bulb going on. Oh my God. You're right. I'm an ass like that. That happens less for somebody who lives in dismissing attachment because it's overwhelming. So then what can happen is that person leaves withdraws, walks away. It goes into their office, shuts the door, puts on a gaming device. And what can happen is that can really piss somebody else off. So then guess what happens? Yeah, they get approached with more criticism. I can't believe you withdrew, you walked away. How dare you? When really they're doing what their body's Sue Marriott: self soothing. Ann Kelley: They're self soothing. And doesn't mean it feels good. I'm not saying it's right, but they're self soothing. So when that other person comes in and is now more mad because you've withdrawn, you could see how the cycle, the pattern really, really gets very entrenched. And so one of the points of this is like self-criticism and criticisms from another person, other criticism I guess, is, is like really impactful on the nervous system and our sense of felt wellbeing. Sue Marriott: It does definitely it evokes the stress response for sure. Ann Kelley: And to be able to move out of that, we have to really, we noted that with we're in a secure place, we have the ability to mentalize. So that's one reason why we want to wait to really talk about these difficult things. When you're upset, instead of pointing out the criticism while activated on either side, it's just not productive. We don't have the mental capacity to mentalize, to reflect, kind of take that in and how important that is. Because it's important. When we mentalize, we actually then integrate that criticism Sue Marriott: We can learn. If we're in the window of tolerance, then our hippocampus is active. The hippocampus is the part that can begin to form memory, autobiographical memory. And it's like, oh, when this happens, I've learned this and this and this. Versus when we're more dysregulated, we can't learn that. Like you're saying, there's no uptake of information that is like, oh, oops. You know, I'm going to change this. Now again, remember we're moving towards again we're listening to our self criticism and we're playing with what's the script that we've internalized, which is our internal working model. And we're still aiming towards a more secure script, which we're going to name some of what that sounds like in just a minute, but probably we should go on over to the red side and talk about preoccupied, self criticism. Ann Kelley: Yeah. But preoccupied, self criticism, often centers on criticism related to relationships. It's not necessarily related to achievement, et cetera. It's often of course, any of us can, no matter where we fall can have self criticism about any of it on achievement or looks or anything based on our internal working model. Sue Marriott: Can I say something? It's not just individual. It is not just because of our internal working model. Part of why we attack ourselves is because we live in culture that attacks us. And that makes us, I mean, what marketing is about is making you feel deficit and then the product will make you feel better, whether it's your pimples or your belly fat or whatever it is. Ann Kelley: That's a great, great point. Cause we're talking about something, this to ourselves, we talk about self-criticism as if we walk around only, only responsible in our childhood, only responsible for what happens in our head. And we all know that that is absolutely not true. It's a really great point. Sue Marriott: As a matter of fact, when you talk cross-culturally and thank you, shout out to all the folks that listen from all over the world. We are so blessed to have a following in over 200 countries. So in some cultures, they don't struggle as much with self-criticism and shame is not the go-to. And for our culture, shame is, you know, Brene Brown, like shame. It's a thing. And so many of us can identify with it. But in some cultures that's not true. So I just, the point being that the bigger picture, the culture, our context really does also impact this. Ann Kelley: No, that's a, that's a great point. Actually, let's take just one moment out to thank our sponsor for today. Before we jump in and talk about red, which we will or talk about anxious attachment, just want to do a shout out for our sponsor today. And that is simple practice. As we mentioned before, Sue and I both use simple practice to run our management system, and you are able to do HIPAA compliant billing. You can even actually do a video on simple practice video. Sue Marriott: We can send reminder notices. Basically, one-stop shopping all in one. So we really recommend that. We asked you to go to simple practice.com backslash therapist, uncensored, and poke around .It can't hurt anything. It's two months free just for our listeners. Two full months free. So check it out. And now what about red? So in talking about, self-criticism, when we're in a preoccupied state of mind, or if we live more in a preoccupied, internal working model, we likely struggle with self-criticism more than any other internal working model. Because the core of that is that we haven't really learned to trust ourselves. And sothere's a frequent experience, not only of self doubt, but that we are causing those around us to push away. And it's often very centered on any idea of social rejection. What did we do that could lead to somebody pushing away, judging us or being critical of us? How many people like after an interaction and you're driving home, or what have you walking home later in the middle of the. You're going over it and going over it, and you can remember and visualize the person's face. Not quite catching what you said. Oops. Maybe you made a mistake like that sort of stuff. That those are all signs of that preoccupation. And with criticism, once we're in a more activated red preoccupied state, that could go either way. It can be. Self-attack. Or we can project that out into the world. And a lot of times when we do project it out into the world, we're imagining the self attack, but it's coming from someone else. Which also it's critical of that person. Like, oh, they're just I really mean and they just think I'm so stupid and you know, it's still critical of that person, but we, we project our own insecurity into other people and then feel it as if it's coming towards us. Ann Kelley: So the statement we often use to describe that as how could you do this to me? And it's a feeling of. I've done something you're rejecting me. How could you reject me? But underneath it, there is this self-incrimination. Sue Marriott: Right. Like I'm rejectable. Ann Kelley: when we were in a red state or anxious attachment state that we have an heightened amygdala response. That is certainly the experience in the brain of a highly sensitive amygdala response, which also means that we walk around ready to feel threat. So Sue and I often talk about wearing sunglasses as a distortion, so. When you're in a red or avoidant state, Sue Marriott: basically when you're dysregulated, not in the green state, either, either direction, dysregulated up up the nervous system, sympathetic or dysregulated down the nervous system. Parasympathetic, go ahead. Ann Kelley: We're talking up right now. You have sunglasses on that says you're able, you're more likely to interpret things out there as threatening and misinterpret them as negative. And here's the other thing misinterpret that the cues you're picking up are about you. Right? Sue Marriott: My pimple is gigantic, and everybody is looking! Ann Kelley: So that that's a really hard part. And to, to deal with that, if you have, and it's not unlikely to ruminate and to have an experience of a lot of negative self attack. And then what we can do to ourselves is then self attack ourselves for having all this negative rumination, which really sucks. And we really want to point out how important that this is not a cognitive processes. This is not something to just stop doing. You know, and, and that, you know, we were just speaking about what can happen when a blue person shuts down and leaves with somebody is in highly anxious state. And self-critical, it's very tempting to try to just tell them to stop acting that way or thinking that way Sue Marriott: that you want to push away. That's a sign actually that you're with someone that's a little bit moving into the red is typically, they're leaning in, even with their words and their pace and their urgency. Basically, if you could imagine, like they're leaning in and it causes us typically to begin to pull back. And so if you're feeling that pull back feeling, you know, like the wide-eyed pullback feeling, probably they're in an activated red state, Ann Kelley: that's a really good way to put it. And what they talk about in some of the brain studies. That the areas that are actually elevated during that state and the now, should we try it? The dorsal anterior cingulate and the interior insular regions, all of these regions are actually associated in our brain with rejection related distress. And in those areas, they actually become more activated, which is also really interesting because avoidant attachments tend to get less activated in these regions. Related to rejection, when they do studies that involve social exclusion, that somebody in a red state is much more likely to have this heightened activity in areas while somebody in a blue state is going to be lower activated. Sue Marriott: So, part of what that means is if you know that you tend towards that red, more activated preoccupied state, it's not that you can't trust yourself. It's that you need to learn that your equipment tends to lean in a certain direction. So it's like, if I'm feeling like they're all talking about me or that my, you know what I mean? That. That they're still thinking about this. I can sort of, self-correct a few degrees back around probably they're not thinking about this. Like in other words, this is all using our higher thinking and it assumes that we're in the window of tolerance, but it is actually a skill too. It's a learnable skill. So this gets into what script we want people to hear. Ann Kelley: Yeah, but you know, this weekend, since we've been kind of research focused, let's throw in the part of how sometimes they activate different attachment experiences in the moment in research is by doing attack, what they call secure attachment priming, and it's an amazing impact. And that basically means that we prime our bodies in a more secure way. And that can be even showing individuals images of secure, relating, two people hugging like social relationships that are getting along really well, Sue Marriott: soft eyes, soft space, Ann Kelley: it also helps to have individuals imagine secure relating through past relationships. But the point of this is not try to induce some research activity out there. The point of it is, is that priming our bodies for positive social support in any way calms these regions of our minds and our brains that we're talking about that get activated and pull us more into our secure way of relating where we aren't pushing all of our self-critical buttons or other critical. So as well as being able to help each other. So being able to say I'm really upset, but I'm here for you. You know, being able to soften your eyes, being able to lower your voice and imagine, or if you're on your own, imagine somebody coming towards you in a caring, loving way could really activate your body. Sue Marriott: Right. And we're primarily talking about secure relationship with self, and we want to build secure relationship with self because basically you can hear what the self criticism it's not there, not a very secure base in there when we're actively criticizing ourselves. So even that movement, just you saying those words Ann, I could already actually feel a physiological response about people hugging like, or real smiles, like, like not fake smiles, people lying together, relaxed, a mother holding a baby and gazing. These are some of the primes that can evoke the right neurochemicals in our body. Again, this is a moral meaning, it's not if I'm preoccupied and I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just being difficult because my that's the neurochemical soup that's active . I mean, I'm literally responding to my body. Ann Kelley: Right. Due to your intensified amygdala response, inability to mentalize as we were talking about it. Sue Marriott: And then what happens on that side is I'm more focused on what you and like it's, and I don't believe I consumed myself. I believe I need you. I need you to understand me and give me what I want. You have to give me this feeling or else I'm not going to be okay. Right. That's a preoccupied script. So rather than running the script of, I need you to understand me right now, or, you know, I need to have this feeling or else I can't let go. Right. What we're wanting to help you move towards and help ourselves move towards is, this doesn't have to end perfectly. I'm going to be okay. this person that I'm upset with is good enough. And I'm going to be okay. Like it's moving back towards the secure sense and it's not perfect. It's not like, oh, I'm wrong. And really everything's okay. It's more of this is hard. So when you're in a secure state, you can handle things. So it's like, I can handle hardship. That will be okay. I can feel feelings and be okay. Ann Kelley: And just the idea of being able to, listening to her voice to just very calming me down. But it it's a way of I'm going to be okay is the sense of generated a sense of security, even though your threat is feeling like, oh my gosh, you're reminding your body. And I guess we could bring that in, especially if we tend to be self-critical. And like, I'm so stupid. I'm like, you know, to say, wait, no, no, no, no. I tend to say that I tend to be really hard on myself and that's okay. Sue Marriott: Self compassion Ann Kelley: Self compassion. Sue Marriott: Right. So, so secure scripts sound like things like it's okay for them to need me. I might fail sometimes, but I'm going to be able to help this person. Ann Kelley: It's okay that I lost my temper and I was way activated. It's okay. It's because my body did that. I'm okay. Sue Marriott: And not only am I okay, but I trust that this other person's going to be okay. I haven't broken them and if they need help, they're going to get the help they need. Or maybe they'll turn to me and I can help them be okay. It's okay for me to need something. I get to need things. Sometimes I get to ask for help. I don't have to be perfect. Ann Kelley: And even if I think a big one is again with the criticisms, like I realized I did this really dumb thing, but I'm okay. I did this thing, but I'm not the thing. Sue Marriott: Oh my God. Say that again. Ann Kelley: Well, I did this, but I'm not this. I let myself down because I wasn't prepared, but I am generally a really good person. I, you know, I'm really worthy. I screwed this thing up, but I am worthy. Sue Marriott: And I'm going to get a second chance Ann Kelley: and I'm going to get a chance and nobody is going to, sometimes you have to really think if you you've really heard of friend's feelings and you just are horrified. You have to just then imagine the secure ending, instead of being preoccupied with a negative ending. Imagine things will be okay. I will be alright.. Sue Marriott: That's a really, actually super important. When they do prompts with photos and things like that. And you make up a story. Secure when we're in a secure state of mind, or if you happen to come by natural attachment security, the story that you tell is both you're capable, there's help available. And you know, a lot of times the prompt will be, and then what happens next? And always the, what happens next is, oh, and then the friend comes her in, like, so that's like, basically we're introducing the idea of the future. We're not always going to feel this terrible a minute ago when you said the thing about, yeah, I did this bad thing, but I'm not bad. Something like that. It reminded me of an old episode when I was interviewing Bob Schneider. And he's a musician here in Austin. Side story, but one of the things he had said was something about the, in the depth of his therapy. That has fear always. So I'm not identifying him as whatever level he is, you know, as far as what kind of attachment. But what it made me think of is cause I wanted to go back to the avoidant for a minute. Cause we've been talking a lot about the self criticism and the activation. So on the avoidance side, it's like, we can't quite let ourselves feel it, but if we did it's really bad. And so he had made some comments that what he couldn't let himself think about, but really thought was that he was this raging narcissistic asshole. And through the therapy, he came to that, he's a narcissist. Interesting. Right. And he's okay. Like he struggles with this thing. It was some version of that. Know that I'm bungling it, but it really reminded me of like, I struggle with these or this thing, and I'm not a monster. Ann Kelley: And his ability to actually mentally rise that and tolerate that and let that in means he just moved in the spectrum away from narcissism. He's still can be narcissistic. Sue Marriott: Right. If a narcissist is worrying and thinking about their narcissism, we're in pretty good shape, Ann Kelley: you know, I'm glad you brought that up because another interesting thing about the dismissing not really coping with self-criticism often they have been raised with self-criticism. In fact, individuals who end up reporting that their parents were highly critical often landed insecure attachment on both sides, but a dismissing individual who doesn't actually let themselves metabolize self-criticism often are more likely to be critical parents. Sue Marriott: Oh yeah. They act it out. Ann Kelley: They act it out because here's the interesting thing, you know, we said that they're not mentalizing it. So one speculation is that the can't then let themselves feel the effect of self-criticism. Right. If we're in a secure place of living. Even in an activated anxious, we feel so sensitive to criticism that we're aware to be able to mentalize its impact on other people. Right? So that, that helps us. That's one reason why, when we're really activated and pissed off, we can be more critical. But when we're calm, we can mentalize the impact. If an individual was raised with a lot of self-criticism and they have to push that away. Cause it's just too much. So be criticizing, especially throughout childhood is overwhelming for that child's nervous system, but they're more likely to be critical parents because they dissociated the impact so they can criticize without imagine impact on their children without holding that. But we will tell you that is having a devastating effect on kids. Criticizing children on a frequent basis is really, really a negative powerful indicator. Sue Marriott: Yeah. The way that I think of it is, you know, I've had to be tough. I, you know, pull myself up by my bootstraps. So if I, if I push my kid a little bit, Then I'm like be tough. Don't bid, don't cry about that. What are you, what are you crying about? Ann Kelley: That's often how they feel to say that's how I was raised, when you try to do parenting coaching. That's how I was raised. My dad talked to me and look at me. And so maybe they're very effectively achievement oriented. So they're saying, look, I'm so successful. And I was raised this way, but what they don't realize is how close are they in their intimate relationships and how close are they to their child? Because. Your child is feeling it. You may not be now, but fortunately, if you're lucky, your child's still feeling your criticism, because if your child's no longer feeling your criticism, that's not a good sign. And that's really what, what happens eventually. You just tune it out. Sue Marriott: I love what you just said there. We need to highlight that statement in our show notes because the whole thing of like once I stopped criticizing, you know, or once I stopped feeling it, that there's a, what that means is my nervous system has been so impacted by it that I have to shut it down, which is by the way, the definition of trauma, that is a bad things can happen to us, but if we have the resources to handle it, it's not trauma. What trauma is, is when our, it effects our physiology and it goes in a new way. So basically what you're saying is once they stop feeling it, it means they've had to shut down a big part of their affective world.. Ann Kelley: In fact, it's probably a good way to start wrapping this because what we want to end with is we're all trying to find a way that our body can lean more towards secure relating whether we were brought up that way or were earned in our security. And to know that if you're in the more secure place we're busting through those myths, that. Get through it and not feel it is actually a positive outcome. Nope. What we're shooting for is I can feel it. I can really experience it in my body, but I also can do it at a way that I can still mentalize and keep my thinking online. Sue Marriott: And when I lose my shit and I see, I no longer keep my thinking on. That's still okay. Ann Kelley: Because I'm aware that I'm doing this, Sue Marriott: or even I'm not aware of doing it, but like, again, self-compassion, it's like, there's nothing, shame does not help us in any form get more related or connected or honestly more effective at whatever we're trying to do. Ann Kelley: That's true. So if we lose it, we lose it, Sue Marriott: we lose it and then you just, you know, then there's another beat and then there's another beat. And on that third or fifth or 20th, We get to stand back up and hold her head up and make repair and do what we need to do to handle that. But it, but not coming from a place of you are a bad person Ann Kelley: I love us ending on the concept of repair. That's what it's all about. It's all about being able to repair with ourselves and being to repair with others when we have lost it. And once we repair our body, we have to have repair. That's what, that's what true parenting and true connection and true relationships about. It's not getting it right. Is being able to say I screwed up. I'm sorry. We're there. Sue Marriott: Yeah. So, so secure priming as we end ,so imagine a person that you feel unconditionally. And that would be there for you no matter what, even if you haven't seen them in a long time. So just sort of visualize that person, those of you that have worked with ideal parent stuff. See if you can imagine like a perfectly responsive, contingent attuned reaction. And we want to just hang out in this place of just imagining the soft eyes. And the soft face. What other kind of secure imagery do we want? Ann Kelley: Well, all of a sudden I had the secure imagery of puppies, Sue Marriott: Oh my gosh, yes. Oxytocin Ann Kelley: Things that can actually if we can activate the, the oxytocin in one another, that is what can be the secure relating. Even listening to a voice that's calming and caring. It really can warm the system. Sue Marriott: That's right. Art, certain music, tuning into music that gives you that feeling, nature. There's somebody that I know that likes to in the middle of the night, go out and, and, you know, work on their garden and like pick the caterpillars off their plants. And you know what I mean? Like basically really immerse in nature and look at the sky, the dark sky and the, you know, perspective, those kinds of things evoke this ease. And this low stakes place of like, everything's going to be okay. That's the way that we want to kind of end this and really invite you to just, we want to grow that part of you, that that can find your safe place and your safe people inside of you. Because remember, this is about growing security in yourself. Ann Kelley: Perfect way to wrap this. All right, you all speaking of secure relating. I want to do a big shout out to our, those who that are patrons out there for us. And if you are out there and you're able, cause not everyone is able and you're able to support our programming to be able to get this kind of information out far and wide for our goal of deepening security one episode at a time, we ask you to join us and you can do it at therapistuncensored.com/join. So, not only would you get ad free feed, but you would be helping us build security for you and those around you and across the world. Sue Marriott: That's right. And we also do deep dive, like extra episodes. we do a lot of community building and which speaking of you don't have to be a patron to come to the meetup. April 22nd. Jump on, like, if you're willing to host an event, contact us info@therapistuncensored.com, or go to the Facebook page probably by the time this publishes we'll have the event page set up and let's do it. It'll be fun. Ann Kelley: It will be fun. All right. Thanks for joining us. And we'll see you around the bend. Scroll back to top Sign up to receive email updates Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast. powered by

“It’s not about letting harms and injustices get a free pass. It’s about making choices about how you seek that accountability in a way that’s more likely to be effective.” Calling in Call-out Culture and lots more…. see show notes below for more resources! Loretta J. Ross is an activist, professor, feminist and warrior of reproductive justice and human rights. She is a master of a kind yet powerfully effective confrontation and advocacy.  In this episode she teaches about self-forgiveness as an important missed step in advocacy, the 5 C Continuum and surprisingly, she debunks the idea of security and safety as a goal in human relating.  She doesn’t believe in safety for good reason – it’s a good wake up call. Join us in a powerful discussion with Ross and co-host, Sue Marriott as they look at young radicals, the idea of inclusive human justice work (this means everybody) and her techniques that many who know co-regulation will appreciate. About Loretta J Ross  Beginning her series of careers as a human rights activist, Loretta J. Ross has dedicated her life to social change. She has worked at the National Football League Player’s Association, the DC Rape Crisis Center, the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Black Women’s Health Project, the Center for Democratic Renewal (National Anti-Klan Network), the National Center for HumanRights Education, and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. After her retirement in 2012, she continues her influential efforts by teaching Women and Gender studies as a clinical professor at Smith College in Georgia. Among her dedication to change, she has also been the author and co-author of many books and articles, including Reproductive Justice: An Introduction with Rickie Solinger, and Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique. Ross has also been featured in many impressive news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, TIME magazine, and many others. In 2022, she plans to release her most recent piece, Calling in the Calling Out Culture.   “Call-out culture” – is a term coined within the last few years, but it is a concept that has existed long before. With a society immersed in technology, there are many positives about the seemingly never-ending conversation, but with this increase in connection and immediate dialogue, there’s also an increase in the ability to speak negatively to and about one another. How do we educate others without tearing them down? In a divided world, changing our approach can help create social change. “Calling in is to invite people into a conversation rather than a fight.” L.J. Ross  For the young fighters:  Stop imagining that you’re the entire chain of freedom, the whole revolution doesn’t rest on your shoulders.  The chain of freedom stretches backward towards all of our ancestors and forward into our descendants. Our whole job is to simply make sure that the chain doesn’t break at our link. “You are more likely to have an influence,” she said, “if you are listening carefully, respecting their humanity even as you disagree with them. The person who uttered those hard words will start walking them back because they did not get the reaction they were counting on.”  Calling out someone, with the intent to shame and humiliate, “can be a paradox, because it’s not likely to get you the results you desire. It’s more likely to lock someone into their position.” Time Stamps: 2:00 – About Loretta J. Ross – personal story, Calling In Call-Out Culture backstory 10:16 – Young radicals – The Importance of Understanding Perspective 11:56 – Self Forgiveness – IMPORTANT POINT 17:03 – Breaking Down the Concept of “Appropriate Whiteness” 20:46 – Understanding “Performative Activism” 25:17 – Exploration of what “Safety” really is – Loretta schools Sue 🙂 29:24 – The “5 C Continuum” 51:54 – Utilizing your “Toggle Switch” of Consciousness   Resources: Loretta J Ross’s Website Loretta J Ross Ted Talk Speaker’s Notes  What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In? – New York Times Article  Purchase Loretta’s book, “Reproductive Justice: An Introduction” Purchase Loretta’s book, “Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice” “Human Rights and Reproductive Justice” with Loretta Ross – The Trail Article  The Future Is ‘Radical Reproductive Justice’ – Rewire Newsgroup Article Fighting White Supremacy and White Privilege to Build a Human Rights Movement “Eugenicists Never Retreat, They Just Regroup: Sterilization and Reproductive Oppression in Prisons” – Article by Loretta J Ross Loretta J Ross recognized as one of 14 Badass Women – Refinery 29 Article  Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Interview of Loretta Ross – PDF Loretta Ross Papers – Smith College Libraries Calling In the Calling Out Culture: A Continuum of Accountability – Loretta J Ross Speech “I Hope We Choose Love: A Tran’s Girl’s Notes from the End of the World” – Book by Kai Cheng Thom, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 “Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable”– Article by Ngọc Loan Trần, BGD, 2013 “We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice” – Book by Adrienne Maree Brown, AK Press, 2020 “The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love” – Book by Sonya Renee Taylor, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018 “Reproductive Justice” one of her first pieces written alongside Rickie Solinger If you enjoy this content please consider joining our online community as a TU Neuronerd and help support Sue and Ann in getting this content out to the world. For deeper dives into topics and specific episodes, join our online community for as little as $5 a month. As a member you get extra content, ad-free feed, Ask Me Anything sessions, discounts on anything we produce, study opportunities, and – in Feb 2022 we will meet in a live Zoom session after a series of private episodes breaking down Jill Bolte-Taylor’s, Whole-Brain Living. If you are seeing this afterward, all this will be accessible plus new things we are finding interesting at the time.     Transcript – Lightly Edited for Readability Can you tell us a little about yourself? My name’s Loretta Ross, and I’m a Texas gal born in Temple, Texas grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and feel like I’m an I-35 family. But I live in Atlanta, Georgia now because I’ve been gone from Texas since the days of the Hemisfair. I left in 1970 to go to college. And I haven’t lived back in Texas since then. I’m a professor at Smith College in the program for the study of women and gender because I’m a professional feminist. I became a feminist when I went off to college at the age of 16 and I haven’t looked back, I’ve worked in women’s rights, civil rights, human rights work for more than 50 years. Right now I’m really focused on not what work we do, but how we do the work. And so I started six years ago, a book called Calling in the Calling Out Culture. And it actually can be blamed on my grandson because at the age of about 12, he decided he didn’t know how to answer his cell phone. I knew this was incomprehensible because every kid knows how to answer the cell phone, but it would go to voicemail. And he said grandma if you want to reach me, get on Facebook. I got on Facebook just in time for him to immediately migrate off saying it was for old fogies now. And I didn’t follow him to Snapchat or wherever he went, but I stayed on Facebook.  And that’s when I noticed how unbelievably mean people were to each other. I am convinced that people give themselves license to say things online behind that cloak of anonymity if they wouldn’t dare say to a person’s face. And so when I noticed this and then pointed it out to some young people I was working with, they said, oh, you mean the call-out culture? I was like, y’all have named it. And this young person said, oh yeah, we deal with this all the time. I said what are y’all doing about it? And she shrugged and walked away.  So I began processing my 50 years of activism back in the seventies. We used to call it, trashing each other and claiming people weren’t relevant. And that was the worst thing we could call somebody “irrelevant” and learning and really revisiting all the experiences I’d had in mind when I called people out, but also when I got called out myself and what I learned from other people about giving people grace and forgiveness and calling people in, an icon of the civil rights movement, Reverend Joseph Lowery used to say all the time: “We’ve got to learn how to turn to each other, not on each other.” And this was being said in the 1960s. So obviously they were dealing with the call-out culture too. And so I began writing a book about six years ago on calling in the calling out culture. Unfortunately, my son died right after I had begun writing the book, unexpectedly of a heart attack. So I put it aside for a couple of years because I just didn’t feel like writing a book. And while I dealt with that, that unimaginable pain, I put it away. But I picked it up a few years ago and started writing on it. And then because of COVID, I started teaching my techniques online for $5 a class. The next thing I know I have 700 people enrolled because I had really tapped into a frustration. A lot of people are feeling that we’re being too mean to each other. We’re too quick to judge each other. We’re calling each other out. We’re blaming everybody. We think that we can change people when we can’t. And so I just walled into adjusting all that was happening at the time. And the success of teaching it online and I continue to teach it online. Now I have a staff of us teaching it online. This led to an inquiry by Simon and Schuster. So they offered me a pretty generous book deal to finish my book. And so that’s where I am, but I’ve taught calling-in techniques to eighth-graders and to C-suite executives. It’s really about making different choices about how you pursue accountability with other people. It’s not about letting harms and injustices get a free pass. It’s about making choices about how you seek that accountability in a way that’s more likely to be effective.    We get called out all the time, even though I’ve been an activist in my life and we’ve done a lot,  as far as from the gay and lesbian world, and as parents, gay parents, things like that. We’re aware of it, but according to our children, we are in the stone age and you talk about woke and, we are constantly being pointed out how un-woke that we are. And in some ways wonderful, but there’s this certainty! And, I was curious for you, what do you think is behind it and how can we hold people accountable, not to silence yourself, but be effective in your communication is what I’m hearing. But do you have a sense of what’s driving some of that? It’s both mean –  but these aren’t mean people, but they’re behaving in this way that is really cutting, extreme, and polar polarizing.  There are a lot of motivations for the call-out culture. Some people are doing it in good faith and I, those are the ones I care about and some people are doing it in bad faith. They’re weaponized. The fact that they don’t want to be held accountable for the harm that they do, for the policies that they promote, for the lives that they perpetrate, like the entire Republican party. And so I tend to distinguish between whether or not the person is operating in good faith or bad faith. If I actually believe that you are making a sincere attempt to do the right thing, but you’re going about it the wrong way, then I’m going to invest my time and attention in you, because I think you are willing to learn how to do what you want to do better.  If you’re doing it in bad faith and you’re trying to cause harm, or you’re trying to shut people down, or you’re trying to evade accountability and double down on the harm that you’re doing, that I’m going to use my favorite call out tactics on you, because I do reserve the right to call out racism, bigotry, fascism, homophobia, and transphobia with glee. If you are dedicated to harming people and you’re doing it on purpose, I don’t have to believe your Milly mouth lies. I choose not to be that credulous, that naive. But I don’t think that’s the majority of humanity. I think most people, particularly young people, are so earnestly trying to do the right thing. And so we’ve given them this radical consciousness without the radical tools to handle it responsibly. The weight of the world is on them because we didn’t fix racism and homophobia and sexism and transphobia before they came and now they feel an urgency to do it. And they’re going to call out everybody who they don’t think is doing it the way they think it should be done. So you’ve got radical consciousness, meeting useful eagerness. And no one is speaking to that. No one is helping people be able to integrate those things. And so that’s why I love teaching young people about calling in. The first thing I try to get young people to understand is perspective. Stop imagining that you’re the entire chain of freedom, the whole revolution doesn’t rest on your shoulder because the chain of freedom stretches backward towards all of our ancestors and forward into our descendants. So, our whole job is to simply make sure that the chain doesn’t break at us . You can be in the chain, do think that it all starts and stops with you. That’s lovely. Okay. So what if you get a response of  “There won’t be ancestors because of climate change”  and “This is different than it’s ever been” That’s of course, part of the lack of a time and event horizon. Of course, everything is different than it used to be. That’s called change. So yes, you’re right. This is different than it used to be. And guess what? Tomorrow it will be different than today. You got that, right? Good. Guess what will also happen tomorrow? You won’t think tomorrow the same way you think today, because that’s also called growth. And so don’t assume that the snapshot you’re taking today, the screenshot you’re taking today is the whole depth of that picture that you are looking at currently, it is not.  I love it, You’re taking care of them. This is another calling in really. Keep your fire, keep your spirit.  And so it starts with self-forgiveness. This is an important term to teach them because they can be so self-critical and that’s the key to why they’re so hypercritical of other people, because they haven’t been able to learn how to accept and forgive themselves for not being perfect. There’s this whole worship of perfectionism that’s really toxic. And so they tend to use that same rubric to judge other people for not being perfect and they think that’s what they’re supposed to do. And so it really starts with accepting themselves as works in progress, that will make mistakes and we’ll use every mistake as a learning opportunity, not as a reason for punishment or self-blame or getting down on oneself. Just because you’ve been through stuff that doesn’t mean you get the right to make harm happen to other people, you got to break that hurt people thing because that doesn’t justify what, you’re not accountable for yourself. So it starts with self-assessment and self-forgiveness, all calling in practices start with that.  What’s going on with you? Because what’s going on with you will dictate how you choose to call somebody in or out. If you’re in a sufficiently healed enough place, then you’re going to be in a space that is more predisposed to offer grace and respect and forgiveness to others. But if you are bleeding from your own emotional wounds, calling in or calling out will really only result in your bleeding all over the other person. Even if you don’t mean to. I love this. This is oxygen and an area that has none. It’s so beautiful. Do you get pushback from the left? Yeah. Yeah, because, and legitimate pushback from the left, by the way, because I am a human rights activist, calling out is what we do. We criticized governments, individuals, and corporations usually because private appeals don’t work. We tried to write a letter campaign to you to get you to stop polluting the river. Or we try to meet with your board of trustees or directors or shareholders to get you to change courses. And so we’ve been backed into a corner where they’re calling out is our best weapon, because the only thing left for us to do is to cause you shame. And so given our familiarity with that tactic, our problem is we think that’s the first weapon of choice and not the last one. And that’s where the pushback from the left comes back. They think we should always use shame as a way to create change in other entities, whether it’s individuals, corporations, or governments, when in fact it should be the weapon of last resort, not the first thing out of the toolbox. Do you think it goes back to what you said earlier, which I love, about self-examination and our own internal shame of not doing enough, so then if you catch somebody being too soft, then you’re going to stamp that right out.  And you’re going to project that shame onto them, all of that. And the other thing that I try to get young people to understand is that there are many pathways to the mountain top. Your pathway may not be someone else’s pathway. As a matter of fact, it will not. It’s guaranteed not to be someone else’s path because they don’t have your lived experiences, they have their own. And so we all learn things at different paces and at different times. We choose to go to the mountaintop a different way because of what we’ve been through versus what someone else has been through. I actually had this insight, long before I learned the calling out concept, in the 1980s, when I was on the staff of NOW, the National Organization for Women, and I had been hired to start and run their first women of color program. I spent my first two years at NOW  trying to convince white women to understand what the life of a black woman was like. And I gave up out of frustration, not because of what the white women were doing, but what I was doing wrong. It took me a while to understand. They didn’t even understand how to be appropriate white women and live in comfort with their whiteness. If they were uncomfortable being white, how the hell can I get them comfortable about understanding blackness? I’ve got a different project here! That is so insightful.  You’re going to love them through this in some ways. It’s like they need something first. Yeah. So I stopped being angry at them. I was like, oh, okay. And so I started thinking about the concept that I call appropriate whiteness. How do you learn to be proud of being white without white supremacy? How do you learn to not feel shame and guilt for characteristics that you have no damn control over, but you can repurpose in the service of human rights and justice. It’s a different project. That’s one of the reasons I get so impatient with a lot of what’s called DEI training, Diversity Equity, and Inclusion training, because it starts from a place of shame and punishment. And I cannot convince myself that any human being is going to be attracted to something that makes them feel bad about themselves. Shame doesn’t work. It doesn’t bring out our best selves. That’s right, exactly! The whole predicate of you fight white supremacy by not separating it from white identity is flawed to me. White supremacy is a body of ideas. It’s an ideology. Whiteness is just an identity, just like blackness is an identity. And, not all white supremacists are white and not all white people are white supremacists. And if you don’t understand those fundamental fact, what is going to be your approach to doing the work with people who have identities that you need to work with in order to defeat white supremacy, the ideology? It’s brilliant. I know some about your history. I know that you have a very painful history including helping people in the Klan and white supremacy groups. You’ve had to endure that level of violence and hatred in those groups and bridge to them. Where do you get this? Do you have a sense of your own, where do you, where does this bubbling well of compassion? I don’t know if it’s compassionate, it’s pragmatism.   If black folks could end white supremacy without white folks it would have been over a long time ago.  Yeah, that’s true. It’s effective. It’s about effectiveness. I know we need white folks to deconstruct white supremacy because white folks created it. And so we have an advantage at this particular historical moment because more white people have been turned off by the ideology of white supremacy because of the way Trump behaves than ever before in the history of America. And if we don’t recognize what a wonderful opportunity it is, when they say America is divided, no America isn’t divided, white America is divided.  And this is our opportunity to take advantage of that division and say, the white people in America who are repulsed by white supremacy and want to work towards human rights, those are our allies. And just because they don’t know the latest words or they’ll get gender pronouns wrong or whatever the hell you think is wrong with them, which clearly is a reflection of what’s wrong with you. But anyway, they need to work on get the F over it! Because at worst, they’re your problematic allies  The best way I tell it to young people..there’s a whole lot of conversation among young people about what they call performative activism. You just put up a black lives matter sign, but you don’t really mean it. Or you just put up love (hate) has no home here sign, but you don’t really mean it. And I tell them, first of all, you need to get over yours. Because you haven’t done any research, you don’t even know anything about that person you’re busily passing judgment on. So you’re making an opinion from an ill-informed place with just one of the hallmarks of stupidity, but leaving that aside, the fact that they put up that sign has told you the number one thing you need to know, and they all say what was that? This is not on the other side. No member of the hate movement has ever put up a black lives matter sign. So you already know they’re on your side. You just got to figure out how to work with them! Which is part of why they put up the black lives matter signs. This is something I can do.  Exactly! You know, I try to speak with love, cause I’m not into shaming people into doing the right thing. I don’t think it works, but I do use a bit of mockery and humor. Cause I’m like why do you think, everything you need to know about a person, just because you saw Facebook posts, you didn’t like? Where you granted that ESP denied to the rest of us? By the way, did someone have a cell phone recording your most stupid moment? The way that you’re using somebody else’s most stupid moment against them. Sometimes I can use a little bit of humor to make them reflect about whether they want to do things differently. It’s so interesting, as you are talking, we talk a lot about interpersonal neurobiology and attachment and things like that, and this is how I would describe what you’re doing.  You’re signaling safety to them that you’re okay through your general presence, certainly, but also the humor and things like that. Like you’re saying, it’s almost like on one hand, you’re saying you’re safe with me and I’m going to tell you how it is. Does that sound right? I don’t think that is what I was doing because I actually don’t believe in safety. These, you asked me about how I had a wonderful, loving family, so that’s not the problem, but my family was also marred by multiple generations of incest. And so safety was so situationally specific for me. There were times in my family situation when I felt safe and they were times when I felt decidedly unsafe. Then, when I was 10 years old and my mom and dad and the rest of us were moving from Virginia to Mississippi, we got shot at, in Mississippi when I was 10. And then, I was raped and all other kinds of stuff that happened to me. So safety feels Valhalla or someplace to me that never really existed.So it’s not something that I spend a whole lot of time worrying about not having.  I think that safety and comfort are privileged too much as a way to keep people from dealing with the reality of things as they are versus how you’d like them to be.  Particularly since I’ve spent a lot of my career working with white women, the first thing I have to disabuse them of is this belief that you’re entitled to feel safe and comfortable in every interaction in life because the reality is that, first of all, you’re neither safe nor comfortable. You just want the illusion of it. And then you want me to participate in the illusion for you. WhenI tell them, like I tell my students, do you want me to protect you from reality or teach you about it? You need to choose how you want this engagement to be.  So you’re leading them into the discomfort that’s already there and expanding their capacity to handle the discomfort. You’re more resilient than you think you are. I so appreciate you. So again, that was a tiny example,I think, of calling me in the sense that I was off base with that. I am so excited. I think you’re right about what you said. And as a matter of fact, as a therapist, I do feel that way in group like “this isn’t safe” and I’m like safe, what’s safe? You know what I mean, there’s no safety.  It is a privilege. It’s an illusion. I don’t know if it was a privilege. I don’t know anyone who is actually safe, even very rich people aren’t safe. My friends who’ve had multi-generational inherited wealth. That wealth became a barrier between them and their mother bond or whether they could trust the service around them. Whether they could ever secure a romantic relationship. Safe! What individual has actually experienced safety. Show them to me. Cause I don’t know. I love what you’re saying. I think that’s right. It’s a mental construct. That is an illusion. And yeah, that you’re resisting the invitation to participate in that illusion. Yeah. But that doesn’t mean that you have to feel scared either. It’s not a binary. And so certainly I feel safer if I choose not to walk down that dark alley half drunk, but even if I was totally sober and that alley was well lit, would I actually be safe? How do people like your students, how do they respond? They are incredibly grateful because the things they say are, “Oh my God, I don’t have to be on all the time. I don’t have to go around and look for the next fight I’ve got to have. I can wear this t-shirt and if somebody criticizes my t-shirt, I can stop and ask them what’s going on with you? That you would have a reaction to my t-shirt. You’re not wearing it. I am.” They really like having options because before they felt boxed in, that they had to say the precisely right thing or write the precisely right thing that stands up to the test of time that won’t be called out over social media, that won’t be weaponized against them in the future. Literally walking around on eggshells. And know that they’re going to make mistakes and their mistakes are okay. There’s nothing wrong. There’s nothing fatal about making a mistake.  When you make a mistake, and this was what one of my mentors told me when I was in my twenties, they said, “when you have bad news about yourself or read it, tell it so that you can control the narrative. If you tell it first, it can never be used against you. But if you wait and try to hide it, then you’re vulnerable to whoever gets that lever. And so they love hearing that kind of advice because they said they’ve been trained to hide and cover up mistakes. Instead, own them and learn from them. There’s something really powerful about your message. I can feel it myself. I know people that are listening to this podcast are going to be able to feel it. As you’re speaking, I keep thinking about the objective idea of safety is one thing, but there is something you go from inside your body, you go from threat, which is what you’re describing, which is “I’m not good enough” and therefore I’m going to be on eggshells, to more of a sense of inner security that “I’m a mess, just like every, we all are a mess and we’re all in this together”, and we’re going to do this together so I can step on the eggshells. Something like that. Does that resonate? I will step on eggshells and I will survive it. Not only that, I will be better next time. That’s incredible. So it’s wow, look how bad I am. I not only went through a crucible, but I kicked that crucible’s ass, and look at me now! That’s wonderful. So what are some of the techniques that you teach? I call it the five C continuum. First of all, to the calling in process.  First, there’s calling out, which is what we all recognize that publicly shaming people for something they’ve done or said that you thought needed to be challenged or they held accountable for.  The ultimate call-out is cancellation where you’re trying to get someone fired or deep platformed or punished in a very severe way for something you think they’ve done wrong. The third C is calling in, where you actually are choosing to pursue accountability, but instead of using anger, shaming, and blaming, you’re going to use love and respect and grace as your method of choice.  The fourth C is calling on, which is created by Sonya Renee Taylor. I love this concept she gifted us and that is calling on people to do better and to be better. So you’re neither calling them in nor calling them out, both of which require an investment of time, but you can call on people to do better. Like my favorite calling on sentences to say, look them straight in the eye and just say, I beg your pardon, and then just wait for them to figure out what they said, that evokes that reaction. And quite often they’ll walk their words back because it didn’t give the reaction that they wanted.  Oh, and I should mention that calling in, by the way, wasn’t even a really original concept by me. A trans man named Lone Tran invented that in 2013, I just happened to run across it after I started writing my book.  The fifth C is calling it off. You get a chance to decide whether you want to go down that rabbit hole. You don’t have to engage either online or in person. You could call it off temporarily, like saying, I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with this right now. Can I get back to you? Or you can call it off permanently and say, I will never want to have this conversation with you. So you can call it out, cancel, call in, call on or call it off. So I teach people the range of options that they have. And then I teach startups sentences that you can memorize that are easy to learn for you to use each of those options. So like I just used, “I beg your pardon?”  You can use a calling in sentences if somebody says something you think is a little problematic, you can say, “That’s a very interesting perspective. Tell me more.” You’ve not agreed with it, but you’ve invited them into a conversation instead of a fight. So that’s a great calling in sentence, “Tell me more.” Or if you want to call them out, like if I got” in front of someone who tried to claim that the election was stolen or something like that, I might think, “I can’t believe that you persist in parading how diluted you are right now.  Are you okay? Yeah. What is going on with you to make you feel that you’re smarter than the rest of the evidence that’s out here? What is your need to be the smartest person? Against scientists, against evidence, against everything. What does that say about you? And do you need some help?” That’s it. And then calling it off is like I said, those words seconds, “I don’t have the time for this”, or  “I’m not in an emotionally healthy enough space for this conversation” or, any kind of thing. So I teach people to start up sentences like that, and then we practice, but we practice in different ways because remember I was talking about self-assessment. The first thing that I have people revisit in their life is how mistakes were handled when they were children. As if you were severely punished and shamed for making mistakes as a child, then you think it’s quite normal to punish and shame others for making a mistake. But if you were counseled and forgiven for making a mistake and taught what you could learn from making that mistake, then you’re predisposed to offer that same grace to others. And so the question becomes, do you want to continue the patterns that you learned in your childhood or as an adult, do you want to make different choices?  I love connecting it to that because that goes back to what you were saying about self-assessment and self-evaluation. And then you’re not in the fight. You are pointing them inward. You have more choices. There is no law that says you have to act out the patterns of your childhood. You have to know what they are. And secondly, decide whether they’re working for you or not working for you. This is so great. And I love how practical your teaching is. So going back to the calling in, so when you say tell me more about that, and they do, and they explain to you how the election was rigged or how January 6th was a natural uprising of when your government is, whatever the thing that they believe, so they answer you, so then what? So then what can I ask them again? How do you feel about that? And what do you think you should do with those feelings. And has that perspective helped you grow closer to your children or helped you get along with your neighbors better? How is that actually working for you now? That’s again, you, and then I have one strategy that I call my uncle Frank strategy that I’ve used a lot. My uncle Frank, who’s neither my uncle nor named Frank, he’s still alive, so I have to protect the living, has a way of blowing up every family gathering by saying something racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic, because that’s uncle Frank’s way of getting a attention. And I used to go for the bait all the time. I was the kid that was always arguing with uncle Frank. I couldn’t help but give him the attention he wanted because I wanted to prove how wrong he was. And finally, I changed my tactic. And I told him, “Uncle Frank,” I said, “Uncle Frank, I know you’re a good man. And this got him, that I know you’d run into a burning building and you rescue someone who was in danger if you could, and you wouldn’t care whether they were gay or an immigrant or black. I know that Uncle Frank, I know you that way. So tell me, Uncle Frank, are you the good Uncle Frank that I know you are the bad Uncle Frank that had those words come out of your mouth.” “Tell me which Uncle Frank I actually have”. So that’s neither calling him in nor calling him out. That’s calling on him to tell you who he wants to be in his niece’s eyes. And it’s really a way of letting him say face. So that he can acknowledge it. But you’ve already given him the platform or don’t go in this direction, like you’re guiding him, this is who we want to see, not “I can’t believe you said that!” period.  It builds upon the absolute fact that most people think better of themselves than they display in the world.  I was thinking that appeals to their narcissism. So it first reinforces that good perception they have of themselves and make it work for you as opposed to pouncing on the bad stuff. Adrian Renee Brown says it beautifully. He said that what you pay attention to grows. So when you’re dealing with those problematic people, if you pay attention to the problematic aspects, that’s what they’re going to focus on. But if you pay attention to what you know is good about them, maybe they’ll focus on that instead and strengthen that muscle, that understanding, and live into that definition of self, more than the other one.  It’s like giving people what to do. Not what not to do. Exactly. I want you to think about how to be the guy who would be that selfless in rescuing somebody every day in life? Because the way I want America, I want my country to act as a natural disaster happens every day because we are so warm and so giving and so compassionate after a natural disaster. And as soon as the crisis was over, we go back to our normal selves. I want us to act like that natural disaster happens every day towards each other. Because you’re saying it’s there. It’s already there. We don’t have to grow it.  I’m a flood, Noah’s flood, it’s a habit. It’s there. All we have to do is build upon it as a normal way to be It’s so brilliant. And this is applicable, there’s going to be therapists from all over the world, listening to this. This is applicable to us, to our clients. You are just doing therapy on the world. I’m telling you.  I wish! I wish. I’m telling my own therapist because I’ve been in therapy for the last 41 years. But I’m convinced that people are much better than we’ve allowed them to be, and we’ve encouraged them to be, and I’ve seen the ugliest things humanity can do to each other. Both as a rape survivor, a director of a rape crisis center, a deep program or white supremacy. As specialized in looking at human vomit. I’m convinced we can do better because even the most terrible people are complicated and have good sides to them that sometimes you have to dig real deep to find, but it’s there and it gives us an opportunity to help them grow that part of themselves instead of the negative part of themselves. So when you say deprogramming, can you say a little bit more about that? Is it encapsulated in what you’re teaching, or is that a different animal? The deprogramming? It’s all related. My former boss, Reverend CT Vivian had been an aid to Dr. Martin Luther King used to tell us all the time. When you ask people to give up hate, then you need to be there for them when they do. He told me that, I was like, oh, hell no. If the Klan hated black folks, I was all right with hating them back and I didn’t see any problems with that quid pro quo, right? I didn’t start this hate game, but I’m going to win it. But when I worked at the National Anti Klan network, which was renamed the Center for Democratic Renewal, it was part of our mission to help people who left hate groups. And then it became part of my job to work with these people.  And I do need to say I have never seen an example of someone flipping somebody out of a hate movement. I’ve heard stories that it can happen. And, people seem to think that you could have a conversation with a Klansman and suddenly they repent. I’ve never seen any evidence of that. What generally has happened in my experience is that they have their own Epiphanes and they know they’re lost and they don’t know what to do. That they have lived in a nether world of one set of beliefs and they can repudiate some of those beliefs, even, not all of those beliefs, but some of those beliefs, and they don’t know where to go after that.  And what kind of thing causes that kind of an epiphany?  It could be a number of things. In Tennessee, I was working with a group of women whose husbands and sons were in the Klan and they didn’t want their children raised in the hate moment. Not because I think they were repudiating hate, but because they were doing so much criminal activity and they didn’t want their kids going to jail. And they knew in Apalasia, class was going to compromise their relationship to their beliefs, despite their whiteness. So they were scared for their children. And of course, I have a suspect though, I don’t have any evidence, that they were victims themselves. So a lot of domestic violence stuff as the story that they told was not the happy homemaker in a Klan robe story. Another person I worked with son was born with what his plan is not Nazi, but it’s called a genetic defect, a cleft palate, and his Nazi buddies told him that his son needed to be culled from the white race, because he was not a perfect Arion baby. And so that caused him to want to leave the Klan.  Another left because of criminal activities, the FBI was getting too close to some of the things that the Klan chapter was doing so the husband and wife team left.  And so there’s a variety of reasons that people suddenly figure out that these are not the people they want to hang out with it anymore. But it’s rarely because they fell in love with a black woman, or they suddenly discovered that Jewish people were human after all or whatever it is that those are the scripts that Hollywood portrays. Those are not the experiences that I have had.  Maybe other people have. But once they do make that break with the hate movement, usually they’re quickly exiled from that hate movement, if not killed because you don’t just quit the Klan-like the Kalamas club because you’re leaving with a lot of knowledge of criminal activities that people will kill to keep secrets.  And so they ended up calling. Organizations like ours for help to relocate. And we don’t have the FBI’s witness protection program. We can’t help you change identities or anything, but we can use a network of churches and synagogues and temples. And what have you to help you go to another town, get you some clothes, because quite often they leave in the middle of the night, they don’t get a chance to pack up and make an announcement by getting a pod pack planted on their front yard that they’re leaving or anything like that. And so our job is to help them relocate and restart life under their identity, cause as I said, we can’t help you change your name or anything, but we can give you a network of supportive people to help you restart. And just because it had an epiphany on one issue doesn’t mean they’ve had it across the board because a person who is fearful for their children may still be homophobic or antisemitic. And so by working with them, it becomes a process to help them recalibrate their thinking. It’s not like overnight, they just suddenly saw the light. We’re suddenly politically correct on every issue.  You’re also describing, like going through that cult-like behavior that if you stray away, you’re out, which is again, narcissistic, there’s one end. But also, even when you’re not in that, that I think some of the human rights movement is about you have to give stuff up. There’s this idea that you can’t be comfortable. You have to give things up and people don’t want to do that. Unless, like in these cases that you’re describing, it sounds like almost, it was like idiosyncrasy, like happenstance things happened a little bit more than like this internal change. Cause that there’s so much pressure.  Actually. The problem is that whenever you join a cult by definition, you’d have to turn your brain off. The question is how prominently can you keep your thinking from happening? And so it is usually, the ones I’ve heard describe, it’s a trickle. At first, you noticed one thing that doesn’t make sense. And then another thing that doesn’t make sense than another, and then it’s the cumulation of things you can no longer explain to yourself that lead to that mental shift, that mental break.  Yes, it’s really the one incident. But the people that I’ve mostly worked with are fairly intelligent people who just couldn’t take it. People were serving them bigger bullshit sandwiches and inviting them to take bigger bites. And at some point, they gagged.  Do you think that will happen in this tight community that Trump has his arms around?  There’s a difference between true believers and opportunists. Trump is surrounded by a bunch of opportunists and they don’t even believe the crap that they push out their own followers. That’s why they’re vaccinated. And they’re telling their followers not to get vaccinated. That is so clear that they are using the gullibility of their followers. They don’t actually believe the crap that they’re putting. Ted Cruz has a degree from Harvard, I believe. And you’re going to tell me he’s as stupid as he manages to sound every day. I don’t think so. So that it’s opportunistic. It’s not faith. It’s not faith-based. You’re not believing in the cause.  That’s right. So when people are peddling lies because of raw ambition, they’re impervious to the truth. Now I did have this conversation yesterday with a reporter friend of mine. I did an interview yesterday about January 6th and this friend of mine asked me, how could I keep hoping optimism up in such a time? I said, actually I don’t have to be very optimistic or very hopeful because I try to be pragmatic. Think about what our opponents are fighting. They’re not just fighting us. They’re fighting the truth. They’re fighting evidence, they’re fighting history, but most of all, they’re fighting time. Any one of those four forces could kick their assets without any help from anybody else. How the hell are you going to overcome truth and evidence and history and time? That’s what they’re actually up against. Now, a lot of wasn’t going to get harmed and chewed up in the process and I’m sorry that’s happening, but I know victory is certain because of who they have raped themselves. Again, I failed to believe that it is possible for mankind to defeat time, truth, evidence and history. I don’t care what your political perspectives are. I’m just breathing you in right now. I am just breathing in this message. And, it’s not hopeful, It’s just true. It’s just pragmatic. Because then it’s not hopeful, and then I’m going to lose my hope. It’s just, you’re saying this is just the truth. And even your example earlier, when I followed up with what would you say if they answered you, you are saying exactly the same thing you’re saying now, which is, there’s an active process of delusion to be able to stay in the ranks. And that’s just a matter of time when you begin, the sandwich gets too big. Is that right?  Yeah. And at some point, you either got to start thinking again, or just accept that you delight in insanity and that feels safer. So I consider sanity a choice I make every day. I think it was a joy to be able to know that choice and make it.  So is there anything that you would say to the folks that are trying to hold it together?  Again, it’s like this army of people, I really love the idea of everybody’s in their own place, everybody’s flawed. There’s no purity. Nobody’s pure.  I wonder if you could speak to hanging in, something about hanging in or where to go with these pressures, with COVID and with the climate and with all of these things, I just know, I can see it, and I can hear it. Murder-suicide is up. Anything, any negative, anything right now is just terrible. Like we’ve been under this crunch for quite a while and I just see people deteriorating. What are thoughts? I don’t know if any of these things are up or just being more reported? So that’s part of, when I ran a rape crisis center because we advertise the hotline for people to call for help, we could never figure out whether more rapes were occuring and or more reporting was occurring. And so I’m asking the same question when we get into the statistics of how bad things are in life. We need to examine what that data set we’re looking at. Is it more reporting that we’re looking at or more occurrences that we’re looking at? Because we never actually had good baseline data. Sorry. That’s my look that’s my science mind.  You’re being consistent because that’s the whole thing is perspective. And it’s exactly what you said that you would do with folks. You think you know something, but do you really?  But nevertheless, whether it’s more carrots or more reporting, my answer would be the same, to survive this world you need a toggle switch. You need to be able to turn that consciousness on and off. There needs to be a time when you turn when you toggle your consciousness off and you just sink into enjoying Twilight the film, or are you sinking into watching those westerns?  I have a friend of mine, his wife has watched every episode of Gunsmoke for 50 years because that’s how she toggles her consciousness off. Yet, when she toggles it back on she’s a hardcore activist.  You need to give yourself permission not to be woke, not to be on, not to be hyper-critical, not to be able to provide an analysis of all the gender dynamics of every romantic comedy in the world. Sometimes you just have to watch the damn thing and enjoy it! And so that starts with not taking yourself so damn seriously! Again, you are just a link in the chain, you ain’t the entire damn chain. And so it is okay to turn it off and take that vacation to the Caribbean where you just lay on the beach and do some healing. It is okay to gorge on your ice cream one day, because that’s what you feel like doing without beating yourself up because you ate the whole cart. And really, we were forgetting to give people permission to be basically human.  And you speak about it, that it should be fun.  Yeah. If you’re not having fun fighting injustice, you’re doing something wrong. My mentor Leonard is the one that framed that for me, he said, Loretta lighten up! Fighting fascists should be fun, it is being a fascist that’s bad. And I’ve taken that to heart ever since he told me.  Walking through life immersed in a hate movement, that’s the part that sucks! Being immersed in the human rights movement, why am I not having fun? Again, oxygen! Nobody is saying these things. This is not a message that is being delivered very well, or at least very effectively. The message is more the drumbeat, the drumbeat! This is happening. What are you doing about it? And I think that it’s pragmatic to allow people to be themselves in their flawed selves, they’re sometimes on and sometimes off, sometimes doing the right thing, sometimes not.That’s the most powerful thing that you can do. It keeps people engaged instead of dissociating and just never watching the news again. You’re saying toggle, toggle it down, turn it down a little bit, turn it up a little bit.  It’s a come as you are invitation where you really mean it.  Ah, it’s so inviting. It’s wonderful. Is there anything else? There are a couple of books that you’ve written. Reproductive Justice is an anthology that I edited with a team of four other writers. And then I wrote Reproductive Justice with Ricky Solinger. And then Undivided Rights, which is also a book on reproductive justice that I wrote with other writers. So the calling in the book is my first solo fully authored book. And even then I’m overstating it, even though I’ve written, the 500 pages have been influenced by centuries of history, the great mentoring I’ve had with a lot of elders who didn’t give up on insufferable me. That is really wonderful and we’re going to put all of those in our show notes. Are there other resources that you might guide people towards?  I love everything that Adrian Marie Brown has written. She is one of those young people that I’m awed by. I think Adrian’s 20 or 30 years younger than me and everything she writes, I eagerly buy and inhale, like it’s, one way that I called Adrian, I say, some writers take your breath away, Adrian gives you your breath back. That’s how strong she is. So I love reading her work. I don’t agree with everything she says, but then I’ve never read anybody I totally agree with. But that I take from it, that which I find resonant and useful. I would recommend it to everybody.  I found some other resources that you had mentioned on another page. And so we’re going to fill the show notes up with all kinds of things that you can do if you’re motivated by this and you’re interested. I also like human rights as the umbrella and that there are these different wings if you will. But that’s the one mountain. That’s the north star. There are many pathways up the human rights mountain. You might go on the LGBT path. I’m going to go on the racial justice path or the disability path. Women’s rights, That’s right. We’re all in the same movement climbing the same mountain.  I love that. That’s again a calling in that we’re all in this together. Everybody can be differentiated and different and there’s room for argument about what’s the best way. I hope we argue. Cause it’s only in that crucible of argument that we arrive at the best solutions! Group think is actually the poorest thinking humanity can do. It’s so lovely. And if people wanted to reach you how would they do that? At my website LorettaJross.com.  All right. That sounds good. So we are going to fill this up. The level of resource and the idea of giving this breath is just so powerful. And I can imagine people that are listening to this that are feeling the same thing. And, I know, you’re leaving this wanting more. So that would be where to go. You would go to therapistsunsensored.com/episodes, and you’ll find this there, and that will link you to many of these resources. If you don’t go directly to Lorettajross.com. Also, we would highly advise you to get these books. Is your new book out yet? No, it will be out in the fall of this year. Simon and Schuster signed the contract with me last April and I didn’t realize quite at the time that it meant that they controlled this release date, which is fine, cause they want to build a market up for it. No, I’m working with a lot of vice presidents there. So they’re giving it a good investment in time and attention. And the other thing I want to appreciate about them is that they pointed out when I was concerned about the delay in publishing the book, and I had largely written it before we signed the contract, they said, Loretta, this is an evergreen topic. Do you think people are going to stop calling each other before we get the book out, and I said, you got a point there.It will be timely. Let go of that anxiety.  Is there any reason they’re holding it back?  It’s their developmental process, I talked to their marketing team, their young adult team. They have a whole strategy involved in it. I appreciate not getting that high level. And, you do have a Ted talk that is fantastic. And it’s relatively recent. So I would really direct people to go directly to the Ted talk and there are other YouTube videos out there and there are more presentations that you’ve done. We’ve just only scratched the surface. Yes, the people in charge of social media, they keep posting stuff. And then I have a team that makes sure that stuff is up there. And I’m old school, I’m almost 70 years old. So I keep telling people my twat don’t tweet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about social media, too. Young people handle it.  That is wonderful. But rest to say that the people who are laughing with us and they’re delighted by this, there’s a lot more of Loretta Ross out to be found and we just scratched the surface. In particular, I loved, and sent to my son, your commencement address. That was just wonderful. And so there’s lots more, please find her, follow her, buy her books. And is there anything else you want to direct folks to do? Again, have fun joining the human rights movement. Because we are stronger than anybody who thinks that they can defeat our dream of human rights for everybody.  That’s a perfect place to end. Thank you so much for spending time with us. I know that you don’t always necessarily do these interviews and things like that, or may, I don’t know, but I was just so grateful that you said yes.  You’re right, they’re getting rarer because my publicity team says that I make myself too accessible. And so what I used to give away and just like the professionals are saying Loretta, clam up till after the book is out there. They’re really monitoring me now, which is fine. But what they get wrong is that I’m doing this to build a movement. That’s right. You’re doing this because it’s profitable for you. You’re helping me out, but don’t get my motives mistaken for your motives. I’m doing this to build a movement. That’s why I started that and I’m still on that, even though that means that you’ve got this intellectual property, going off, that is not my motive. And I can’t become that just because it works for you. That is fantastic. Love it. So thank you. Thank you for that.  Yeah, but they are getting less frequent, not because of the profit thing, because I just have to finish the book by April, but my available time is actually getting more limited to fulfill the contract. That’s wonderful. Having the privilege of the mic and having this kind of an audience, is there anything that you would say to me or to people that have just some privilege of a voice?  I can basically say anybody that makes you feel bad about being yourself, doesn’t have your interest at heart. Trust that, we all have something to learn. We all have places we could grow, but anybody who really cares for us is going to offer that through the lens of love and respect. If they offer it in any other way, it really ain’t about you. It’s about them. That’s how I really feel. I teach through that lens. Teaching should not be punishment. Teaching  should not be hazing. Teaching should be the joy of learning. So I’m not letting you have fun learning, I’m doing something wrong. And I teach a course called white supremacy and if we are not having fun talking about white supremacy, I’m doing something wrong.  We sometimes talk about light bulbs, like those light bulb moments and I’m there just sparking through this whole interview and through, I just know people are like, oh yes. Oh yes.Well, we will do anything to help promote your message. Thank you for being on our show. This kind of good content only goes so far as those who hear it, so the best thing you can do for us is to share it and talk it up.  Word of mouth is the most reliable way to spread the word about growing security.  In that vein, ratings and reviews help people find us as well.  We are so glad you are here with us.  Thank you.