28: Emotional Potty Training: Healing with Humor and Self-Love with Rachel Kaplan

Artwork for podcast Elevated Life Academy

Episode 28 • 21st October 2024 • Elevated Life Academy • Cherie Lindberg

00;00;07;24 - 00;00;39;01

Narrator

Hello and welcome to Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of hope and healing. Through raw and heartfelt conversations, we uncover the powerful tools and strategies these individuals use to not only heal themselves, but also inspired those around them. Join us on this incredible journey as we discover the human spirit's remarkable capacity to heal, find hope in the darkest of moments, and ultimately live an elevated life.

00;00;39;04 - 00;01;01;07

Cherie Lindberg

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Elevated Life Academy. And I'm Cherie Lindberg, your host. And today we have Rachel Kaplan, and I'll have her introduce herself in just a second. And I want her to share a lot about her book that is going to be coming out that she just produced. And I want to hear some stories of hope and healing, obviously.

00;01;01;07 - 00;01;02;25

Cherie Lindberg

So welcome, Rachel.

00;01;02;27 - 00;01;05;14

Rachel Kaplan

Thank you so much for having me. What a pleasure.

00;01;05;16 - 00;01;13;26

Cherie Lindberg

You're welcome. You're welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself and who you primarily serve. And then of course, tell us about your book.

00;01;13;29 - 00;01;41;08

Rachel Kaplan

Okay. Well, I'm a 44 year old psychotherapist living in the San Francisco Bay area, and I have lots of Wisconsin love if you have Wisconsin listeners. I spent my undergrad there, and I consider healing and being a catalyst or a companion for those healing. Really, my life calling, starting from, tragedy when I was 14. So my first love took his life, and that was more than I could possibly tolerate.

00;01;41;08 - 00;02;19;11

Rachel Kaplan

And so I went on a huge journey of initially becoming incredibly numb, and eventually fighting my way back to my own aliveness and self-love and self-worth and the book and what I'm really focused on at this point in my. It's been about 18 years of of being a therapist at this point. What I'm focusing on teaching is the the tools that made the difference for me between kind of walking around looking like I had a great life, looking like I loved myself, but really plagued by deep down, you know, issues of I'd call it, you know, it's like just lack of self-worth, shame.

00;02;19;13 - 00;02;39;13

Rachel Kaplan

And what made the difference between feeling like my baseline is really self-love and resilience. And so because that happened for me, you know, a decade into being a psychotherapist and because I've done so much work with people, I think that people actually getting to a place where they have that baseline is kind of rare, even in the field.

00;02;39;15 - 00;02;55;04

Rachel Kaplan

And so I really made it my mission to share what, what, what were the absolutely necessary tools that made the difference. And that's really what my book, which I'm sure we'll get to is about and what I'm standing for in my life at this point.

00;02;55;06 - 00;03;06;05

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. And I love how you have humor with it as you guys are sharing. So go ahead, share your title of your be a spoiler alert. Go ahead and share your title and talk more about that, please.

00;03;06;07 - 00;03;10;17

Rachel Kaplan

So my book is called Feel Heal and Let That Shit Go.

00;03;10;24 - 00;03;11;15

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah.

00;03;11;17 - 00;03;38;20

Rachel Kaplan

There guide to emotional Resilience and Lasting self-love and you know, I'm definitely someone I, I think of what is the point of healing if we can't enjoy and have fun? And I think humor is a big part of just how I've always processed lies. But really the, the catch in some way with my theme or the humor, is that I found that the single most important way to teach people how to relate to their emotions is to look at how we relate to our poop.

00;03;38;23 - 00;03;56;13

Rachel Kaplan

And if this isn't a G rated podcast, you know, if I can say my title is Art shit, right? There's so many immediate kind of messages. It's like when we get the sensations from our bodies that we need to use the bathroom. We know that there's no other thing we can do that will relieve us of that sensation.

00;03;56;13 - 00;04;24;22

Rachel Kaplan

You know, we don't we don't turn to validation or distraction or food or consumption in the same way we do when we get signals from the body that we have emotions that need to move through. So most of us were potty trained and not emotionally potty trained. And so at the most basic level, this book, you know, at the heart of it is emotional potty training, teaching you how do you respond to the signals in your body that you have a feeling coming that you need to cry, that you need to move?

00;04;24;22 - 00;04;42;18

Rachel Kaplan

Anger. You know that all emotions. If you take the E off the word, it means motion. They move pretty quickly once we get out of their way. And for most grown ass adults, we are really in the way. And so the if it was as simple as just being like, let your feelings move, we would have a bumper sticker.

00;04;42;18 - 00;05;14;07

Rachel Kaplan

But because we've been so conditioned to fear our emotions and to just compulsively avoid them, there really are many steps to help someone bring that system back into balance, where it can be something that maintains homeostasis. I have found that it's just impossible. Not that everyone has the same degree of sensitivity or emotionality, but anyone who's not having their feelings move through their bodies is at some level as sick as someone who would eat and not shit, right?

00;05;14;07 - 00;05;39;25

Rachel Kaplan

Like you would die eventually if you never took a shit left to shit. Actually, I've learned in my many years of doggy well-being that we don't. We don't take them, we leave them. But anyway, similarly, if you're moving in the world where we're inundated with intensity and, you know, whether it's based in politics or climate or family or relationships or money stress like we all are being constantly triggered toward emotion.

00;05;39;25 - 00;06;04;04

Rachel Kaplan

And if you don't know how to let your body just have your feelings, you're going to be quite sick. And usually that looks like addiction. And yeah, just all kinds of relational challenges. And so I kind of break it down as simply and relatable as possible. I'm not trying to sound smart in the book. I'm trying to have anyone, no matter how much therapy they've done or not, be able to pick it up and be like, oh yeah, that's what I'll do.

00;06;04;04 - 00;06;10;25

Rachel Kaplan

And I feel really comfortable being a beginner and like flailing because it's hard.

00;06;10;27 - 00;06;38;09

Cherie Lindberg

I would say that you reach that goal. So I would say it's very, you know, layman's terms. Anyone can pick it up and can really understand it. I really like reading some of your ideas with the humor that you have, and to give practical tools because you again, you're sharing about how we have been conditioned to avoid or conditioned to not know how to just let the emotions, you know, move through our body.

00;06;38;12 - 00;06;46;13

Cherie Lindberg

And so you really feel like when your first love completed suicide, like this was what took you on this path.

00;06;46;15 - 00;07;08;27

Rachel Kaplan

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, I really like fashion and design, and I think if I didn't have such an early intolerable drama, I might just be, you know, more vain and more just doing that work. But, you know, by 18, I had already kind of come back from the dark side. I had realized how numb and dead I was, and inspired and started therapy.

00;07;08;27 - 00;07;28;29

Rachel Kaplan

Actually, the foreword of the book, which I'm not sure if it was in place by the time you got to read it. Really lucky that you were willing to read it and give me an endorsement. But the foreword of my book is from my first therapist, who I found out kind of a few years ago. I didn't know this, but she was mandated her mandating her patients and that is what she calls them.

00;07;28;29 - 00;07;54;29

Rachel Kaplan

I say clients, she says patients, but she is mandating them to listen to season one of my podcast, which is the healing Feeling shit show. And that's kind of the first way I put this body of work out. That was really full circle. But yeah, I found her and she, she actually she was trained in Adlerian psychotherapy. And so, you know, I was this tiny little over intellectualizing talking head and she'd ask me how I'm feeling and I would use ten words.

00;07;54;29 - 00;08;17;06

Rachel Kaplan

And she was like, nope, you have four options. And so you know that is how I started slowing down and moving below my neck. And I think what was interesting is by the time I was 18, I thought, oh, I have it figured out. And I was already, you know, jazzed up about being a healer, being someone who would help with that, but just the level of devastation that came through that trauma.

00;08;17;06 - 00;08;43;13

Rachel Kaplan

And I think this is something that might be helpful for some of your listeners. It's like when we've gone through something truly traumatic, you know, it's like it can take decades and really we can get to a place where we've plateaued or we're functioning. But to really excavate the pattern of of the wound out of the body, it really it either takes incredible skill, which I hope is what my book is bringing, or it can take a really long time.

00;08;43;13 - 00;09;11;02

Rachel Kaplan

For me, it took decades, and I think I'm like invested in it being quicker for people. The other thing I would add, just that I think is the other component. It's like we can't feel our pain if we don't have access to the parts of us that are in pain. And so we had one of emotional potty training is how do you find the parts of you that most likely you repressed or have cast out of your daily experience that are holding all the pain?

00;09;11;04 - 00;09;32;14

Rachel Kaplan

And I go into a lot of explaining how this happens. For most of us, it's very natural that we would try to not express parts of us that make us lose love when we're little children, right? We want our parents close. We need them close in order to survive. And then as we go through life, there's all these messages we all receive from society of how we should be and shouldn't be.

00;09;32;16 - 00;09;58;08

Rachel Kaplan

And so some of our most sensitive parts that are carrying the pain of feeling like there's something wrong with us, or the pain of traumas we've been through acute and, you know, more systemic. Most of us, you know, at some point won't even feel them. It's almost like they're cast out, you know? And so the first step of this work of learning how to whoop your feelings, your pain through your body, is finding the parts of you that are in pain.

00;09;58;08 - 00;10;19;13

Rachel Kaplan

And for most of us, we have to caught those parts back. We have to kind of establish trust with them after having ignored them for decades. Right. And so with those two parts, if you can find and create a relationship with the parts of you that are hurting and really learn to care for them, and I would say that is the missing link at a level was like, just how do you give care?

00;10;19;20 - 00;10;40;02

Rachel Kaplan

Because if someone comes to this work and they're like, I need to squeeze out a feeling, you know, not only would that hurt you if it was a pube, you might strain and get hemorrhoids or whatever. It hurts you when you're doing that to your sensitive emotional parts. It's really not about forcing or exploiting emotions, but just allowing caring and giving permission.

00;10;40;02 - 00;10;53;11

Rachel Kaplan

And so if you can find those parts, care for them, welcome them back in, say, I want to know you and then allow them to feel how they feel. Eventually you kind of get a lot lighter and a lot more authentically you.

00;10;53;14 - 00;11;06;15

Cherie Lindberg

Do you have a story that you could share about how you courted those parts of yourself, or even a client that you worked with that you together discovered and courted those parts?

00;11;06;18 - 00;11;25;29

Rachel Kaplan

Yeah, I mean, it's a little tricky to think about the clients because there's so many of them. But one thing I can say in my own journey was that for me, actually, I think, you know, I think the, the deepest root of the onion of wounding for most people is this question of are they worthy? Are they okay?

00;11;25;29 - 00;11;59;23

Rachel Kaplan

And so the wounded version of that might be shame, right? Some feeling of there's something wrong with me, I'm not enough shame, not enough ness. And for me to find the part of me that felt like it was okay, I really had to be willing to sit with that. The shame of not feeling okay. And for me, that was really linked to being willing to feel rage and anger toward my dead boyfriend because he was my first love and I was obsessed with him through many decades, especially, as you know, it seemed like it provided this purpose in my life.

00;11;59;23 - 00;12;23;29

Rachel Kaplan

It was hard to be angry with him. It was I had a lot of tenderness. I would grieve for him. I grieve for myself, for having lost him. But it wasn't until a mentor of mine really helped me pull back in the part of me that was like, hey, fuck that. I'm assuming it's okay. I'm swearing, right? And you know, to find my fight for my life and to really, like, work with angry energy.

00;12;23;29 - 00;12;47;13

Rachel Kaplan

And I think, you know, it's interesting that that's what I end up sharing right now, because I do think it's one of the most taboo emotions, both in the mental health field. But also, you know, in the new Age world or the mindset world, it's like people are afraid to run angry energy because if we're, you know, if we're creating our reality, we don't want to generate all this anger and create more anger.

00;12;47;15 - 00;13;05;16

Rachel Kaplan

And so I think that the emotion gets it's misunderstood. Like, I don't think that the only purpose of, you know, anger is to manage it. I think we need to learn how to how to work with it in a healthy way. And so for me, that was really game changing, was finding and welcoming back in this part that was like, no, I didn't deserve that.

00;13;05;16 - 00;13;32;07

Rachel Kaplan

And fuck you. And yeah, and there were a lot of pieces. I mean, I think for most people there's it's about grief, like the pain that their everyone's hearts carry from being a human and from having uncountable losses, whether it's like a friend or a romance or your childhood favorite tree or whatever, the losses, I mean, hearts and the losing and hurting, that's just the cost of being a human.

00;13;32;09 - 00;14;04;08

Rachel Kaplan

I think most people can get pretty afraid of that. And then I think really at the heart of it, for most people, it's about bringing in whatever the part was that they thought made them unlovable, that until they're willing to sit with that part and and I think, like, maybe the best thing I'm offering to the therapeutic world is that, like, the secret is that I think the difference between hobbling around, compensating for your wounds, and feeling worthy involves actually letting the part that felt like it was the problem, or it was the cause.

00;14;04;08 - 00;14;24;05

Rachel Kaplan

It was the reason you lost love. Letting it feel that pain as a truth. I think so much of what we're doing is therapists and, you know, in the mindset world or the manifest reality world is saying, oh, those it wasn't true that there is something wrong with you that was your mom's fault or like, that was trauma or.

00;14;24;08 - 00;14;45;29

Rachel Kaplan

But the truth is, is that when we were little and we felt bad, we were usually by very benign, loving parents. We were told, you know, there's nothing to be afraid of. You're fine and from from a place of love. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not a parent. It's the hardest job around. Of course you're going to try to tell your kid they're okay, but it's like in the deeper ways we've been dismissed.

00;14;46;01 - 00;15;09;24

Rachel Kaplan

And so even if we're coming from wisdom and from the ultimate truth that we aren't our feelings any more than we are our poop, that is ultimately true. But the part of you listener that feels like there's something wrong with it is so positive that it's the truth that it will think 99% of you as a cover up, you know, as a compensation, is a lie.

00;15;09;24 - 00;15;12;06

Rachel Kaplan

And so until we let it be like.

00;15;12;06 - 00;15;14;01

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, I know.

00;15;14;01 - 00;15;36;29

Rachel Kaplan

All I know, you know, it's like until it has though, like the emotional release party from the place of it is a problem. It's going to be holding that pain. And so I'm what I'm really ultimately teaching people about is how do you find the part and become the part in a very contained portion of time? You know, a little feeling party or feeling session that is positive?

00;15;36;29 - 00;15;58;06

Rachel Kaplan

It sucks and really feel the pain of sucking from that perspective and then come back to your wiser self that can say, okay, it's true. And I think that that is the move that is misunderstood and that will make the difference. That's where we can actually release from is when we're not talking ourselves out of our pain, but letting ourselves be like, yeah, this is excruciating.

00;15;58;08 - 00;16;10;22

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. Because if we don't, it's unresolved and we're carrying it. Yeah, we're wherever we go. And then it just gets buried further and more difficult to access. Yeah.

00;16;10;24 - 00;16;35;22

Rachel Kaplan

Yeah. And I know, I know like the brains body in the eMDR, you know, kind of gets at that emotional release from a very different place where it's just like suddenly it's just happening. I mean, I think there are amazing techniques in the field already that help people access and clear those deep feelings. But I still think there's a lot of kind of talking ourselves out of pain that we just need to stop doing it.

00;16;35;24 - 00;16;38;05

Rachel Kaplan

The pain is not your problem.

00;16;38;07 - 00;17;01;19

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, well. And let ourselves feel it. Learning to be with whatever is versus what we want it to be. Yeah. And I hear you too. You know, we're already a blame society, not blaming others for how we are feeling. Because again, when some of that stuff happens to us, when we're children, how we interpret it, the stories we tell ourselves, they're very basic and simplistic.

00;17;01;19 - 00;17;09;24

Cherie Lindberg

There isn't a lot of wisdom there that we could tell ourselves a more sophisticated story. Our brain isn't even fully developed.

00;17;09;29 - 00;17;32;16

Rachel Kaplan

And also, that feeling like it's our fault when we're children is the more empowered choice that we have. Because, you know, if it's our fault, then maybe we can do something differently. And so there's this false sense of agency that comes with blaming ourselves as kids. Whereas for a child to be like, wow, I'm innocent, but I'm living in a world where the people in charge are causing me excruciating pain.

00;17;32;18 - 00;17;50;14

Rachel Kaplan

That's actually harder for a little vulnerable, dependent being to sit with. And so I think that's one of the early chapters of the book, is like, look, it makes sense that you think it's your fault and everyone you know does too. That was the winning strategy when you were three and couldn't get your own apartment. But now you can.

00;17;50;17 - 00;17;56;17

Rachel Kaplan

Yeah, it's a dance of knowing it wasn't our fault and then being willing to feel how much it felt like it was, you know?

00;17;56;19 - 00;18;14;26

Cherie Lindberg

Sure. For sure. So can you share, you know, on all the clients that that you've worked with, where you've used these strategies, you know, maybe where a fine story that you have without identifying information of just where you saw it making a difference in someone's life.

00;18;14;29 - 00;18;34;18

Rachel Kaplan

I mean, one thing I can say that I've seen across the board is that when people start doing this work, what's really fun is that you go from feeling like the thing that is the most terrifying and destabilizing, and what you're most trying to avoid becomes the goal. And so it really flips the whole thing on its head.

00;18;34;18 - 00;19;01;16

Rachel Kaplan

And I will have countless clients come in and say, I had an anger session, and I was vile and murderous, and I was able to sit with it for this long, or like I felt like absolute shit and cried for an hour. And they're just so proud of themselves. And so by doing that, by kind of making the the scapegoat or the thing that you're avoiding, the thing that you're pursuing, it can just open up the entire field like people no longer are afraid of themselves.

00;19;01;16 - 00;19;28;28

Rachel Kaplan

And so I've just seen countless people find the strength to leave unhappy marriages or leave dogs that didn't fit them, or just have this kind of unshakable sense of worth that enables them to go for their real lives, you know, versus like the life that keeps them comfortable and out of emotional pain. It's like once you're no longer afraid of having hard feelings, like, that's really the thing that's like, hard in our lives, you know, of course there's death.

00;19;28;28 - 00;19;52;25

Rachel Kaplan

We're going to die. And our feelings about that. But usually, like, you know, as they say, you know, wisdom wise, it's like your reaction to your life is a bigger deal than what actually happens to you. It's like our fear of the pain of losing that keeps us living small. And I think that once people, if you can liberate yourself and realize I know how to handle every feeling in the book, I know how to move fear.

00;19;52;27 - 00;20;04;02

Rachel Kaplan

You know how to move, grieve. I know how to safely move anger without pissing off other people. You know, there's this empowerment that comes where I think people just take off in their lives real fast.

00;20;04;05 - 00;20;23;23

Cherie Lindberg

So as you were talking, I was just thinking about because I know a lot of healers talk about this phenomenon. I was just wondering how you've managed it in your life. You've come to all these realizations. You you're learning how to do all this, but maybe your loved ones or friendships around you are still doing the old way, right?

00;20;23;23 - 00;20;27;21

Cherie Lindberg

They're still repressing and so forth. Advice or how have you managed that?

00;20;27;21 - 00;20;54;12

Rachel Kaplan

Rachel Yeah, well, the whole last chapter of the book is all about how do you deal with the changes in your life, because that is really part of what happens if we cultivated like a good example is like someone who has learned to get love through people pleasing and over giving, like as they start to pull their energy in and take care of themselves versus try to just martyr themselves, which is something that, you know, definitely, I'm working with my clients on.

00;20;54;12 - 00;21;23;28

Rachel Kaplan

But, you know, I think will naturally happen is you start to learn to care for yourself is you don't need to give yourself away to try to get that little scrap of affection back. You're starting to give yourself that love. You bet your butt that all the people, all the parasites who came around looking, you know, for free cookies are going to be upset and those relationships won't work as well, you know, as you change shape, the contracts you made in these awkward kind of shapes won't fit you.

00;21;24;01 - 00;21;46;12

Rachel Kaplan

And so, I mean, I think that's actually a really important point in the healing journey, because when we decided to try these maladies captive strategies of being really good or being, you know, not having any needs, those really for men were pretty young. And so when we do that as kids, it might have been lethal to lose love.

00;21;46;15 - 00;22;06;12

Rachel Kaplan

You know, if you piss mom off and she left you your guns bed, you're on. You know, it's like. So I think actually, as adults, once people start healing that point or they're willing to lose a relationship in the name of the truth enables them to see, oh, it's not lethal anymore. I'm this isn't going to kill me.

00;22;06;19 - 00;22;31;00

Rachel Kaplan

I'm going to have hard feelings, which I know how to handle. And that's kind of what actually liberates people to continue being their new selves. I don't think that you can actually create a life based in your authentic self until you realize that there's going to be some fallout or loss and, you know, there's various tools like I think that luckily it's the relationships that we lose are the ones that didn't really fit us that well.

00;22;31;00 - 00;22;52;19

Rachel Kaplan

If you're honest, you know, and then you use your feeling techniques, you use your tools to have your grief party if you need to. You do a lot of reality testing around, you know, is this lethal? Can I tolerate this? And hopefully look for creating relationships that are based more in equality? And there's a lot of like very practical tips about this.

00;22;52;21 - 00;23;15;09

Rachel Kaplan

Also, I think one other thing that happens is people's fear of what will happen. Ten steps ahead if you start doing this. You know, especially and I did leave a marriage actually in this journey. Interestingly, on, without effort, I left the marriage on the 22 year anniversary of my first boyfriend's death. And I will assure you that while my husband, that's what I call him, was, you know, precious human, I care for him deeply.

00;23;15;09 - 00;23;34;15

Rachel Kaplan

Still, as a friend, he was like the spitting image in a way of like this old archetype of the boyfriend. And so, you know, and and our marriage was so dysfunctional based on both of our limitations. That was really the cauldron in which I did the deepest healing was realizing, oh my God, I'm in a dysfunctional marriage. It's not going to work.

00;23;34;15 - 00;23;56;27

Rachel Kaplan

And so I worked with this mentor who was scathing and so challenging and got stronger and stronger and really learned this practice of moving my feelings quite actively and then finally had to leave. But what I will say is my fear of that outcome was crippling in the beginning. And, you know, most people are afraid. They're so afraid of what might happen if they start speaking up more.

00;23;56;29 - 00;24;18;27

Rachel Kaplan

And so what I teach is that, you know, if you're really ten steps ahead and you notice you're what I call future tripping, what that means is you're scared. And so recognizing I'm scared, I'm going to come back to this moment, give myself permission to work with the fear I'm feeling right now is going to be a lot more helpful than trying to solve a problem that you're nowhere near having.

00;24;19;01 - 00;24;41;01

Rachel Kaplan

Because, and this is true for me, by the time I left my marriage, I was so strong, I wasn't having all those terrifying, you know, experiences I thought I would have if I ever left it. And that's usually true. By the time you reach the crossroad where you're going to have to make that hard choice, you're not who you thought you were when you were fantasizing about it with terror.

00;24;41;03 - 00;24;58;13

Rachel Kaplan

And so just deal with the terror. Take the next step. And by the time you make a huge choice like leaving a job, leaving a partner, finding a new career, whatever it is, you'll have the tools you need, and it doesn't mean it will be easy, but you'll be able to do hard stuff because you've been healing yourself and having your pain.

00;24;58;13 - 00;24;59;29

Rachel Kaplan

And it's not a big deal.

00;25;00;03 - 00;25;14;07

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, I mean, I'm just listening to you. I'm just thinking about the anticipatory ness of making that big decision. Working with that energy gives you what you need so that when that time arrives, you have what you are needing.

00;25;14;09 - 00;25;33;16

Rachel Kaplan

Yeah. And the last thing I'll say is, I do think that, like, there can be some intentional kind of rite of passage work, which I talk about at the end of the book also, which is like helps us come into trusting ourselves. I think as people start healing, a lot of what lags is the self-concept that you're actually this strong person.

00;25;33;18 - 00;26;10;11

Rachel Kaplan

And so we have to do some intentional work to take in how we're getting stronger and to really notice. And so there's a lot of focus on savoring the the change and sensing, you know, from a emotional, body based place, what you're capable of and sometimes choosing challenges that you know, would, you know, make you feel really strong, but also challenge you, you know, put all of these tools that you're learning through the book to the test and then really savoring and noticing how well it goes, like creating a little intentional rite of passage can help people own their empowerment.

00;26;10;14 - 00;26;46;20

Cherie Lindberg

Honor the empowerment. Yeah. What do you think is because really, I mean, I'm listening and I and I think there's going to be a lot of people that do not make this choice just simply out of fear, you know? Yeah. And I'm on the same path that you are. So it's kind of like, I, I, I completely understand and but we're asking people to go into uncertainty and to bring these parts of themselves that we've repressed or submerged because of the fact, you know, that's how we adapted, that's how we how we survived.

00;26;46;22 - 00;27;11;26

Cherie Lindberg

Not that we can convince them. That's always a personal choice, right? Everyone has to make their their own personal choice. But how would you if you had a friend that was repeatedly being stuck in those old loops, right, of and not being able to feel what might be awaited, that you might be putting out an olive branch or a compassionate way of like waking them up.

00;27;11;29 - 00;27;35;26

Rachel Kaplan

Well, I think like that's why the book starts with really looking at how do we get here? And I think the simple truth is that we're trying to avoid our emotional pain, to avoid suffering. But the ways that we have to maintain the patterns of numbness are all suffering. And so I think like if someone really honestly looks at, well, how well is this strategy working for me?

00;27;35;28 - 00;27;58;29

Rachel Kaplan

If they can feel the suffering they're in from either being addicted to, you know, who knows anything? Their drug of choice is what I call it in the book. It could be a substance or, you know, gambling, internet pornography, you name it, food. It's like usually there's already a lot of suffering. And so I think, like the olive branch in some way is just recognizing maybe I don't have to suffer as much as I am.

00;27;59;07 - 00;28;17;23

Rachel Kaplan

And so when people really feel seen in the pain they're in trying to avoid their pain, and that there is another way, I think it takes the taste of the relief, you know, and in my work as a clinician, I'm like, keep fumbling with this until you get that sense that, wow, I had a feeling and I feel a little better.

00;28;17;29 - 00;28;39;25

Rachel Kaplan

And that once that comes and there's and it's happening at two levels, there's like and I do talk about this in one of the chapters. There's like kind of what is our baseline or what is our basic sense of well-being at a deep level. And, and part of what we're moving from a place of woundedness to like balance or stability is that deep sense of worth or well-being.

00;28;39;27 - 00;29;06;11

Rachel Kaplan

But then also that is achieved through day after day, having the feelings, releasing the old pain, right, bringing the parts, the cast out parts in. But then there's also the like just daily, you know, reestablishment of a baseline. Like you go to work, you have a hard conversation with your boss, you have a fight with your partner, you feel bad if you step to the side or get to a safe place and let yourself cry or let yourself hit your bed.

00;29;06;11 - 00;29;33;03

Rachel Kaplan

Depending on what the need is, you know you'll feel better. And so there's the daily relief that comes. I think that usually happens first is just recognizing instead of avoiding pain, you turn toward it and you have some relief. Like that is what is most motivating. And so for the people who are most afraid I'd really be looking for, how can we get them a taste of wow, this works because until you have that for yourself, it's all just like hearsay and it's scary.

00;29;33;06 - 00;29;56;12

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. So to actually have an experience of doing it the other way, having some relief from it, and then that gives you courage to keep going. Yeah, I think I do path because the other path we know isn't really working either, at least on this side of the path. Oh, I had this relief feeling and what might be possible now.

00;29;56;14 - 00;30;17;06

Rachel Kaplan

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know that everyone's is aware of how much suffering they're in. Sometimes the people you know who aren't willing to do it, they're just not at their breaking point yet. And so there's not a ton you can do with that. But I think like also just leading by example, you know, it's like it's best if it's not a client relationship but a friend relationship.

00;30;17;06 - 00;30;24;02

Rachel Kaplan

People being like, wow, you're you are so much happier and freer now. It's like, yeah, because I feel my feelings.

00;30;24;04 - 00;30;46;23

Cherie Lindberg

And I would agree with what you're saying because there are so many of us and I'll speak for my own self early on in my career, wanting everyone else to have that relief that you're speaking about. And so trying to give advice to family and friends and so forth, and just finding out that they weren't deciding to do that.

00;30;46;23 - 00;31;11;02

Cherie Lindberg

And then listening over and over again to the same, like different, maybe different topic, but same story and realizing, okay, they've got to make their their own choice here, and I'm not going to be telling them ad nauseum, do it this way, try it this way. Do that. You know. No, because that is a waste of energy. So just like you said, being the role model, hopefully they'll get it that way.

00;31;11;02 - 00;31;25;21

Cherie Lindberg

And if they and if they don't, you know, love them anyway. And boundaries. Exactly. And I don't know about you, but there are folks that I have to minimize contact with. I still love them and care about them, but I'm also protecting my own energy.

00;31;25;24 - 00;31;46;07

Rachel Kaplan

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's so common with the people who have decided to be companions to those healing, because so much of it can come from this. You know, I think in our own wounded ways. I know, like, for me, around maybe 20 or 21, I realized, oh, I'm meddling in all my little college friends spiritual development because I feel so guilty.

00;31;46;07 - 00;32;09;13

Rachel Kaplan

I wasn't able to save this other person, and I took a couple of years off trying to be helpful adults. I was like, this is I'm actually taking from people, and I think it's so normal. You know, what often leads people to be healers is like this pain. And so I remember that actually, in your training, that's when I first met you, was it felt like you had already been on a big journey of like having more and more boundaries as a clinician.

00;32;09;13 - 00;32;29;08

Rachel Kaplan

And, you know, I think that's important for anyone who's listening, who is a, you know, healing companion or therapist of any kind. It's like how to just tend to our own grief, that we can't help people save people. And just be willing to feel our own pain about it and find what is the healthy relationship or boundary to have with people.

00;32;29;10 - 00;32;49;06

Cherie Lindberg

Absolutely. And that sometimes it's witnessing people that we love and care for who choose to continue to keep suffering because they don't realize that they're suffering, like you said, and they don't realize there's a way out. They keep doing that, that conditioned pattern. Yeah.

00;32;49;08 - 00;32;52;12

Rachel Kaplan

But they wouldn't know to go to you or me if they were ready.

00;32;52;14 - 00;32;54;04

Cherie Lindberg

Exactly right.

00;32;54;06 - 00;33;11;17

Rachel Kaplan

And the nice thing about this book is, like one of my prayers for it is like, you know, it's very expensive to, you know, dive into deep, effective therapy for most people. It's can be out of reach. And I know that for me, the real help that helped me kind of break through wasn't found in the therapeutic world.

00;33;11;17 - 00;33;28;21

Rachel Kaplan

And I think that. So it's like my trying to distill this and put it in really basic terms is like, you know, if you can afford a $19 book and you really try this out, I think it'll get you somewhere for those family members, you just they're not going to actually invest. But maybe they'd read the book. I don't know, they probably not.

00;33;28;21 - 00;33;32;16

Cherie Lindberg

You know, the title is catchy and it's like, maybe. Let's see.

00;33;32;18 - 00;33;54;22

Rachel Kaplan

Yeah. And the title was The Journey. I wanted it to be called Emotional Potty Training for grownups. The ladies of the publishing industry were like, we don't talk about poop, dear. I was like, oh, we don't forgive me. But I sometimes laughed at myself like, like, what kind of marketing disaster am I? I'm selling people their own emotional pain in the metaphor of poop, like, oops.

00;33;54;25 - 00;33;55;18

Cherie Lindberg

But it is how.

00;33;55;18 - 00;33;56;28

Rachel Kaplan

It is, you know?

00;33;57;00 - 00;34;18;14

Cherie Lindberg

Well, and there's lots of stickers out there. I actually have one in my office and it's a sloth and it says, let that shit go. I mean, you know, yeah, it's a reminder, the mission and what we're what we're trying to do here. So anything I haven't asked Rachel or that you anything that you would like to share?

00;34;18;14 - 00;34;19;24

Cherie Lindberg

Maybe that I haven't.

00;34;19;25 - 00;34;40;28

Rachel Kaplan

But just like how people can find me in my work, I do have a lot of kind of a DIY course that guides people through this. I have a home in the desert down in Joshua Tree, California, and I'm leading retreats twice a year. If people like the in-person kind of group experience and all of everything that I do can be found at the feelings movement.com.

00;34;41;00 - 00;34;58;15

Rachel Kaplan

And yeah, and the book is out. We'll see when your podcast releases, but it comes out October 15th. I just got a Ted talk the following week, so I'm excitedly kind of trying to, you know, be a champion for this message. But everything that people would, you know if you want more the feelings movement.

00;34;58;19 - 00;35;25;20

Cherie Lindberg

Com yeah, we'll make sure all your social media sites are included with the podcast so that people can reach out. But thank you so much for coming. And yeah, it was a very lively conversation and I appreciate hearing how other folks are doing this life path as a human being and how you got there, and how you're also trying to serve the community and share your wisdom so that others can follow in your footsteps.

00;35;25;23 - 00;35;29;08

Rachel Kaplan

Thank you so much. Really fun to talk to you and great to see you.

00;35;29;10 - 00;36;03;28

Cherie Lindberg

Take care. So I hope you enjoyed our time together. As we were talking about how we can feel our feelings and how they can be, we can learn how to do it a different way. As children, oftentimes we suppress them. And this book can help you talk about how to feel your feelings, how to build a relationship with the parts of you that are holding old wounds, or holding and repressing feelings.

00;36;04;00 - 00;36;25;28

Cherie Lindberg

I hope you could see how this discussion highlighted the importance of acknowledging our emotions and understanding their origins, and finding healthy ways to process them and release them. And I really enjoyed the humor behind the potty training and letting, just like how we let go of our waste in our own body. I found that quite amusing and and hopefully you did too.

00;36;26;04 - 00;36;50;06

Cherie Lindberg

And clever. All these things that we talked about today can lead to personal growth and improved mental well-being. And maybe this will be able to reach some of our friends, our family or others that don't even really know that they're suffering. So hopefully you will share this podcast with others and you will continue to come to the episodes that we offer.

00;36;50;09 - 00;37;03;16

Cherie Lindberg

As we are trying to teach people how to have an elevated life. And as always, we want to share stories of hope and healing. Thank you until we see you next time.

00;37;03;18 - 00;37;22;13

Narrator

Thank you for joining us on another uplifting journey on Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of Hope and healing. If you found resonance or connection with what you've heard today, we encourage you to share this episode and consider becoming a subscriber. Please spread the word so others can live an elevated life.

Share Episode

Shownotes

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube