 This is Startup of Storefront and on today's episode, we're unpacking the science of how to get unstuck It's no coincidence that that's also the title of the book written by our guest today Author, psychotherapist, and trauma specialist, Britt Frank Britt knows a thing or two about getting unstuck. She has battled with everything from meth addiction to sexual abuse She emerged from that trauma with a new outlook on life, a master of social work degree and a desire to help others overcome their own hurdles These hurdles vary from individual to individual, but when it comes to entrepreneurship It's not uncommon for someone to put up a mental blockade that prevents them from moving forward Getting over this mental blockade that inhibits you from regressing forward is what we are dissecting today In today's episode we discuss why you don't need every friend to be a best friend How COVID didn't create a mental health crisis It just exposed the one we already had and the power behind changing your whys to what? So roll up your sleeves and let's start the process of getting unstuck All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to Britt Frank author of the science of stuck Thanks for coming on. Hi. Thanks for having me. I want to talk to you for a number of reasons one My buddy to my right is stuck. Hi I think I think every entrepreneur the reason I like entrepreneurship and I think our listeners Enjoy it is because really to me It's like a personal journey of you discovering yourself And that means you dealing with all of you and I think when you create a product and you try to bring it to market That's really a reflection of just how big you're thinking or how small you're thinking and it's totally okay And I think in every entrepreneurship Company product, whatever it is, there's a journey and it's certainly usually evolving and usually directionally forward and up Sometimes linear sometimes exponential, but in that you have to do a lot of like mental gymnastics Which is something you are an expert in more like mental Contortionism I don't think people realize that entrepreneurship is gonna hold up a giant mirror to every single thing about your personality You can't hide as an entrepreneur Like you're gonna face it all the good the bad and the what the actual fuck about yourself Yes, which is great. Yes, and until until it happens to you Yeah, what made you want to write the book so I wrote the book because I wish someone had written like a Brain owners manual just like here are the bottom lines because a lot of the books are really fluffy and they're really academic Or they're just really simple I just wanted someone to say here are like the 10 things you need to know to get moving So we don't need to get from stuck to awesome We just need to get from stuck to go and then from go to a little bit further But we all want to go because social media from stuck to here I am and there's a lot of stops on the way. Yeah, let's talk about your story And so obviously you're writing a book to some way solve your problem to share it with the world as we do That's our product. Let's talk about your story So I have my shiny story that and I'm a trauma specialist And I'm a licensed psychotherapist and I wrote the book and then my sorted story is you know childhood trauma and out of that Trauma terrible life decisions drug addiction sex and relational addiction and just a huge hot mess of a You know of a situation and then I got better Well, I joined a religious cult for a while first and then I got better and then in the getting better I sort of accumulated all of these pieces of information about the brain and it was like god damn it Why didn't anyone tell me this it's sort of like driver's ed if you don't know how to drive a car Driving is not going to make sense. We have these brains that we walk around with all day and like did anyone ever teach you? Hey, here's how your brain's gas pedal works. Here's where the emergency brake is So if you don't know that you're gonna drive into walls and then think you're crazy When you join the cult was there anything in the cult that was helpful that you learned? So I know it's a weird question, but but I think in some ways usually cults stem from same thing There's a problem. They're trying to solve if they have a hot take or a different take but sometimes they're you know We could maybe get destructive As some things do so oddly enough cult life was a really nice resting place It's not sustainable and to be clear not all cult are like Westboro Baptist that are hate groups Not all cults are sex cults not all cult are murder cults. However, the name carries a stigma with it I mean cults are not good. No cult is good, but there's a spectrum from like generally dysfunctional people are now dying So mind skewed more towards you know, the not people are dying side Okay, but cult life is incredibly appealing because I didn't want to be a human I didn't know how to be a person So someone said if you read this wear this eat this think this say this You're good and we will love you and we will feed you and we will give you mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and Any problem that you have is just something that you can pray away. Just pray it away. You're anxious pray it away You know you have trauma pray it away Sign me up anything to avoid what was actually happening in my mind What was the moment for you where you realized you had to start doing the work and looking inward? Like what was the thing where you're like, okay? Some people talk about hitting a rock bottom, right? I don't think you have to necessarily do that. I think it sounds a little much But some people do I don't like the framework of rock bottom because it's like you can get to the bottom and keep digging as long as you're alive They're like rock bottom is death. So I don't like rock bottom rock bottom is wherever you say, okay I'm done. I'm ready to do something different for me. That was meth meth drove me to the end pretty quickly It was like, okay, you're gonna die if you don't figure this out. So figure it out So I did did you get close? Yeah, yeah, oh god. Yeah, okay Yeah, you mix meth addiction and sex addiction and love addiction altogether. That is a recipe for some serious What the hell dateline NBC kind of stuff? Yeah, for sure. So then what did you do? So you recognize? Okay, something's got to give so then I started admitting to myself truths about myself that I didn't want to deal with You know everything from a wow I have like this monstrous closet full of dark shadows to hey I don't like being sad and in my effort to not be sad I do x y and z. You know human being really is can you tolerate your body sensations? Entrepreneurship is can you tolerate all of the stuff that's going on in not just your mind But in your body because this mental health thing is not about your mind It's about your body like your brain's gonna go to weird places If you don't know that you have a body and it does things explain that give an example of that of something Yeah, maybe from the book. So and I really make this really reductive. It's you know more complex So if neuroscientists are listening to this don't get mad. This is not literally Save your angry emails. Exactly. Don't DM me. So, you know, there's a part of your brain That's responsible for logic. So if you're trying to make a good decision You need that part of your brain accessible but the problem is if you are in a state of fight or flight if your brain for whatever reason feels unsafe or feels Overwhelms the logic part of your brain goes offline and the emotional irrational part of me knows I should do this and yet there's this other part of me that does that takes over and We need to know how to work with those parts. So I did and I learned it and then I got trained in it How did you learn it just from like trial and error or just like almost having conversations with yourself? That's something I've developed. It's like I'll just talk to myself Like I I think personally I dealt with imposter syndrome when I started real estate development company because I was like Who is this kid doing real estate development when I didn't know anything about anything and I was I was probably depressed for like Three weeks and I'd wake up depressed like I'd wake up super sad And I and I was someone who didn't really acknowledge these I'm a person that if you believe it and if you say you're depressed You've now given it a life and so I was very much always like I'm not using the words. I'll just be I'm in a funk. I'm you know, I'll go to the gym like I'll try to get myself out of this cloud And so what would happen is every time I went to bed this this thing came back up like this this guy this this dark room and After probably two and a half weeks of this I and it was in my dream And so I I just decided to talk to it in my so I'm dreaming so I'm dreaming the conversation And so it's this dark room and I'm like, why is it that you're here like why what is this? And I just started talking to it which was really strange But I realized like I had to do that to get it's like a video game Like I just have to keep going back to the to the boss to defeat the boss and After probably three or four nights of talking to it I was like I see what this is if I stay in this space the world doesn't get better I'm basically being selfish and I was like you're a part of my ego that wants me to do nothing And I'm good with you now and that was it and I woke up the next day and I was like fine It's like I had made peace but it's not like I didn't acknowledge it didn't exist. We I just recognized this is real It's not going away and now I have like a name for it and we call it a buddy now but you did something really profound in that that took me a lot of years and fighting was you extended curiosity and Most of us are schooled at beating the shit out of ourselves and oh my god. I'm crazy. I'm lazy. I'm unmotivated I'm depressed. What's wrong with me and you sat there and said hey bud. What's up and Extending curiosity to all of these parts of ourselves is something. We're not taught how to do I don't know where you picked that particular skill up, but like it's the entire therapeutic model I'm trained in so well done. I couldn't figure. I don't know about you. How'd you figure it out? Did you figure it out? What's your story? How do we get Nick unstuck? I mean my sir wire stuff. Yeah, what's going on? Well, if we can identify the problem, it's paralysis analysis It's just I I overanalyze things and I because I At my core I want to break things down and understand the ins and outs of everything before I do something so that I can Be the best at it But in order to be the best sign I feel like I need to know every little thing about it and that often leads to hesitation and And inaction because I'm just I want to make sure every step is thought of along the way I want to think things through and you know in doing this podcast I learned that you you really like we've talked to so many people who You can't know You can't possibly know every single outcome every single path or or fork that the the road is going to take and I I would like to think that I'm getting better at it. I'm making steps towards just Moving in a direction and then figuring things out, but there is still a big part of me that Sees sees this path and wants to know exactly where it goes before I set out on because what will happen if you don't Welcome to there Let's solve this what will happen if I don't I think I'm worried about failure the failure of not achieving a goal of of being less than Living up to my potential in that goal And so it's it's strange like when so my background Growing up I got I was always an athlete and I I view the world and sort of that lens, but That lens is like very much you know do do like trust the process and just take all the steps along the way and you'll meet your goals and For some reason I don't like I have no problem just starting out like building into something when it comes to like an athletic goal but when it comes to anything else I Have yet to like flip that switch and and just start out when it comes to anything else I don't know that I have the confidence in myself to to just trust that I'll find it along the way I I think that comes from a confidence issue of Just Not believing that I will find it along the way if I if I don't know it ahead of time How cute is this? You're not my client, so I'm not gonna go all the way down the rabbit hole that I want to go down What you're describing is very much a body sensation that we call freeze So like in your nervous system you go analysis paralysis is a state of shutdown So we think it's a confidence issue. We think it's an imposter issue, but it's like you're neurologically your brain is seeing a lion Staring at you the lion is called failure and as long as your brain perceives failure as a existential threat You're gonna stay stuck. We need to read You know reconfigure what failure actually means because if failure becomes a necessary Component of any kind of success your body won't react to it. Like it's a tiger about to kill you Mm-hmm. How do you do that? How do you how do you get to understand like failures? Like that's the same before right? It's like sometimes on the road to entrepreneurship or just personal journey always you have to fuck up Like there's gotta be a part where it's yeah, oh, what did I just do yeah? Well, I would say to Nick. Where do you feel this ick feeling in your body right now because as we're talking Do you notice that you're clenching? Sweating So magic work would actually have you get to really notice like kind of like you extended curiosity to that part of your ego Extending curiosity to your nervous system. Hey, but hey, you have a body, you know Really thoughtful analytical people generally live like neck up. It's like welcome especially athletes Because you have to train yourself out of noticing discomfort and pain So welcome to your body you have one and it's doing things that are important And so we would have to sort of de-fear the whole failure thing and there's lots of ways to do that One of which would be go out and fuck up three times today On purpose on purpose. Yeah, see that you don't die. Yeah, how do you how do you tell people do that? So so I think about it like this like maybe he goes to the coffee shop right here knocks over a cup of coffee Knocks over a cup of coffee and then and then says you clean it up to somebody else And then maybe he orders like something that's totally not on the menu. I'm so sorry Nick I get a beer and they're and then just keep asking for it until they're like, what's wrong with this guy? See that that makes me Uncomfortable to my core right because I think the other part of it is it's the exercise. Yeah, it's just the process now It's just different now. It's getting comfortable with discomfort, which I wouldn't have you knock over some stuff and tell Them to clean it but we need to do little teeny tiny. It's okay. I mean go big or go home We need to do little teeny tiny they call titration We need to basically teach your system how to tolerate the discomfort of not being on point And then after a while your brain will kind of get on board with that Oh, it's okay to have this, you know It's more important to go than to go in the right direction like GPS if you make a wrong turn it'll reroute you But your brain is like no neurologically failure is going to kill you So we have to give you little micro doses of discomfort and you can start that today Well, I'm in one right now That's good the cold plan I just as you were saying I was like the cold plunges like I do the cold plunge And the reason I love it is it's for that reason some people will say obviously there's a lot of physical benefits Which there are but I just like the mental the mental thing of you preparing yourself to sit Which is not a net like that is not a fun experience Nobody's like I want to do that But if you trick your brain enough you can get to that point and it's just like it's just sitting in cold Well, we trick our brains all the time we do we just trick our brains unconsciously And then our lives go off the rails and we're stuck or we use this wonderful brain We have trick it intentionally and consciously and then life starts working again So yeah, I had a therapist give me the go fuck up three times thing and it was awful. I don't only do it What did you do? I dropped a giant plate of food in the middle of a very loud restaurant like Crack and everyone stopped talking and froze and stared and I was like I'm gonna die I'm gonna die. I didn't die and then the other one was I walked into the wrong locker room. Oh my god I'm here. So sorry and it was awful. Those are good terrible. Did you think of those on your own or were they for sure? Yeah, and the third I couldn't do because I was so just frazzled by the two So I fucked up not doing the full three that I was assigned. This is interesting when I think about like so Mo She'll put us in touch on the negotiation thing This is a part of his thing where he's like go when learning how to negotiate go ask ten people for things That you'd never ask them for and during the class, you know Somebody asked his wife for a threesome somebody was buying a car and so they were like can I get this for free They ended up getting it for free and so it was more of like a means to an end type negotiation But making them really uncomfortable similar exact same thing. Yeah, which is actually really cool. I Like this part of the book where you mentioned shallow friends. Yes, I think like I think like so my wife owns her own company Also, and I think one thing that she struggles with this is friend thing when we're both super busy individuals And so the notion of having shallow friends and giving permission to do that is amazing Can you just speak on that? Yeah, you know, we're not taught as adults that like the rules of childhood friendships Like I have a best friend and we tell each other everything and we're gonna be best friends till like those rules do not apply as adults And we're not taught how to transition into a very adults realistic way of looking at friendships You don't need every friend to be a level 10, you know, it's like I have I put in the book I have a friend that I like to hike with and they're not really trustworthy and they're not really into depth But they're really fun to climb things with so it's like why where do we learn? That only things that are deep and meaningful and you know are on this end of the spectrum provide any value I could try to force my friend into a role that they're not gonna fit in and then I'd be pissed off and it'd be high conflict But as long as you are like I think of it like casting a movie Like are the people you're trying to cast are they available for that role? And if not you need to find someone new that sucks, but like you can have shallow friends I don't know where we learn that that's not Appropriate and not okay, but childhood rules of friending do not apply as adults Yeah at all and yes social media friends count as friends, you know We talk a lot about productivity on this show and I think there comes a time of day where it's really hard to stay productive And and for me it comes around like 2 3 p.m. In the afternoon. I know a lot of people turn to coffee I don't I don't like coffee. I never liked the taste but the other thing is like when I have a lot of caffeine I tend to crash really hard and Whatever gains I get from that in the meantime are are erased once I hit that crash You know this this product that we have today magic mind I've actually found that it doesn't give me that crash. It gives me the boost of energy I need without the crash all of these energy booster drinks I'm kind of skeptical on cuz like a what's in it and B does it actually work, but here's the deal Here's the truth James Bashar the founder of magic mind came on the podcast in season 3 He talked all about the what goes into the dream episode and honestly He was right like these magic minds do make a difference aside from matcha. It's got adaptogens Neutropics and honey and really like all of it natural clean ingredients It's just a great little energy boost that you can take some people take in the morning I prefer it now, you know around lunchtime and I find that it gets me through the rest of the day You know the the one thing I will say is like you do have to shake it pretty well though and Like that doesn't that sound so good But yeah, you There goes Owen's chugging it start up storefront approved We have a discount code for you It's storefront 20 and that's for 20% off your order But if you want to get the subscription, we haven't even better deal for you and it's 40% off But it only lasts for 10 days after this episode airs. So you got to be quick about it So you're saying 40% off 40% 40% off almost almost half. Yeah, wow I can't believe it check it out storefront 20 magic mind dot-co slash storefront Wait, hold up. It's taxed up So hold on so hold on it also stacks with the subscription discount from the website for a total of 45% off I recommend it. This has been tried and tested many many times over on the podcast Storefront 20 check it out up to 45% off in the first 10 days after this episode airs Crazy discount 45% check it out as you're going through like, you know, you're writing the book you're learning about yourself You're very educated in this game. Are you ever like, why do people get married? How on earth? Are we still? functioning as a society in any capacity because that's what I think about like the more I dig into all this I'm like, we are so lucky Because I think we're all either that or we're just all on the edge and cove it didn't help Well, I think cove it exposed it more than created it Okay, cove it created this massive mental health crisis and certainly there are lots of problems there But more than anything cove it exposed when we didn't have our nummy-nums Available to us that we're all alone with our thoughts. I'm amazed that people walk around not understanding that you have parts of your Personality, it's not just one thing It's like you have your shadow parts and your dark parts and your people please your parts And it's like having a family of people inside you that you don't know are there and so walking and I didn't know this until I knew it So walking around thinking it's just me in my head. Holy shit. That sucks So I want to shake everyone to be like it's not just you in there It's all those voices and they're all friendly even the scary ones are friendly So what's what's the the method with? Acknowledging them and embracing them. Is it like that they are situational or that that they exist in you at all times I want to think of like the the different aspects of my own life, you know There are situations where I feel comfortable There are situations where I feel uncomfortable and how I react in those situations is very different than what I would view myself And so my self-image is not all of those people all the time it's it's like I would say like the the dominant ones and is your Philosophy that all of them are you or is it that you can be a different person in different situations? That's such a good question. And so first of all, this is not my construct I use the internal family systems model Dr. Richard Schwartz and there's lots of versions of the Multiplicity of the psyche theory like young hat. There's tons So I think that it's kind of like your physical body like you don't need to be aware of it I couldn't even name every single body part like if you drew me an anatomy thing I would fail that test. So it's like I don't need to be aware of every body part unless I use them often or unless something's going wrong So with your personality, it's the same thing You've got your main parts that you use and if something is going wrong with one, you'll know and that's the part to attend to I don't believe that you are your parts I believe that there's a self that's sort of like the collective Conscious we went way down this rabbit hole the collective consciousness and your parts need to be essentially Parented by the self, you know, some people call it the higher self Christ consciousness the divine Whatever you want to call it the voice of reason inside your head Did this journey for you make you spiritual anyway? Or a science spirituality to anything that you may have learned Well, you know the whole like science and spirituality is separate entities. I don't I'm not on board with that I'm like spirituality is just really cool shit that we haven't figured out the science for yet or that we don't understand So I don't Differentiate the science like to me science is incredibly spiritual like holy crap There's a nerve in your head that when it goes off you freeze and you don't do the things you want to do like that's really cool So yes, very spiritual but not in the religious like sense. Yeah, let's switch gears here for a second So when you write the book now, you got to sell the book. Yeah, what are you doing for anyone who's listening in ever? Which is everyone I think trying to consider maybe writing a book one day maybe about their life Maybe about something specific, but how did you go about either figuring out how to market it or you know? Your husband mentioned you had a really good story around around a publicist or a PR company So I have lots of stories around publicity in PR But really people who want to write books don't realize that you are not just a book writer But you are also your own business of bookselling because you're and I'm published by Penguin Random House And they're wonderful and they're huge, but if I want to sell books I need to sell books and so like anything it's learning what goes into selling books what goes into building a platform if you're listening And you want to write a book go build a platform because unless you want to self-publish No one will publish you if you don't have an audience onto which to launch your product Is that clear to you from the jump? Well from the beginning. I was like I want to write a book I don't know how to do it So I went to conferences and I went to workshops and I read books and every single one of those hammered platform Platform platform you have to build a platform. Don't even worry about writing a sentence down Put all of your efforts into building the platform get known in the building of the platform half the material from the book emerged because I got my message honed and I got my voice figured out and as I was Writing every day to build the platform. I'm like, oh, this is actually what I want to say and I could test ideas I'm like, I don't really like talking about that I really like talking about that and so I could sort of clarify my own message and then by the time I had a platform then it's okay Now I need to like put a book proposal together and get an agent and pitch and do all that Okay, how did you go about building a platform? What did you do? I used Instagram? I mean social media pick your platform. I don't know all of them. I used that one and I just slugged it out I researched and I spent hours and hours and hours every day. I wrote original content every day I talked to people who were doing it and asked them how they did it You know most people unless they really suck are happy to share. Mm-hmm. That's true It was their monsters will tell you how they did what they did. Yeah, okay So then you build your platform you have this book and then do you set a specific date in terms of selling it and then try to like Do a bunch of awareness prior or like obviously you had a PR firm at the beginning of this Yeah, like how does the book publishing process work? Yeah So you get your book deal and then your publisher says turn it in on this date and then wait a year and a half or to come Out so oh, yeah, so during that year and a half That's when you hone your marketing strategy and you talk to different publicists and figure out what works And what doesn't work and how you want you know what feels good to you a lot of the things I was told to do don't feel really good to me And so I don't want to do tick-tock and I don't want to be making videos on LinkedIn nothing wrong with it I just didn't want to do it So figure out what you're comfortable with because if you hate, you know you can be uncomfortable But if you hate what you're doing every day, it's gonna show in your work. Yeah, and people aren't gonna want it Why not tick-tock? I'm just curious. It's I'm like dating myself here. It's so overwhelming to me I spent all my time learning Instagram and now that I have a handle on how Instagram works tick-tock is like I don't know how it works. I don't get it. It's interesting. I'll just say this much to just from a data perspective It's mostly Gen Z. And so I don't know if that's your audience I don't really have no idea but Instagram is certainly more millennial and so it seems more fitting. I'm like I'm not an elder millennial. I'm like a geriatric And then why not LinkedIn I just don't like it There's no rhyme or reason and my husband who's very business-oriented is like, you know You could do this and this and he's right But I have found if I am actually enjoying what I'm doing and how I'm doing it I haven't had a problem coming up with a book idea selling it and getting it published using one platform So yay. What are your goals for this book? You know my biggest thing was I thought I was crazy for so long And I have a private practice where people come in every day and the number one thing they say from across Every demographic is am I crazy? Is this normal? And it's like yes, it's normal No, you're not crazy. And so the world I mean, it's not altruistic The world is more fun to be in when people aren't walking around Feeling bad about themselves because people who feel bad about themselves are generally either hiding and you can't get to them Or their assholes and they're hurting people So, you know, if you know, you're not crazy and you know how to not be stuck like my life's gonna be better Your life is gonna be better. My business is gonna be better We're all gonna make more money and be happier. So this is how we need to get Nick on stock Come on Nick. What's next? Well, is it as simple as just Validating them that they're not crazy like when I hear that everyone comes into your office and asks are they crazy? Even if you were to say no, this is this is the human condition. This is normal I feel like at some level like some people might be looking for just that validation But there's there's more to it than that and how would you like break that down? From okay, why do you think this is crazy? Like I'm I'm just psychoanalyzing this on my own here with no background whatsoever in in that but Yeah, when I think of am I crazy for doing this? We all ask our friends. We ask our family that question But there's there's that level of even if they say no, you're not crazy You're still gonna have that moment of self-doubt So like and this comes back to like the getting unstuck like is it Is it as simple as hearing no, you're not crazy or is there a lot more steps to it? No, it is absolutely not that simple only like people come into me see me for one session It's like no, you're not crazy. You make sense. Okay off you go. Bye. Have fun Yeah, so no, that's the starting place and really we have to rule out, you know privilege access to resources Assuming someone is in a my people that I work with generally are in a safe enough environment with multiple choices and access to Resources if you don't have those things then we don't even need to talk about the why is your psyche constructed? And what is consciousness? It's like we need to get you food and a safe place to live however Assuming that you are in a safe enough environment the question of validation is number one number two and this is for you Nick I would say your assignment is never again for the next six months ask a why question Because why is gonna create more analysis paralysis? Why is my favorite? It's not so change your why's to what's instead of why am I thinking this it's what are five choices available to me right now And of those five what can I say yes to and if of those five you can't move then make them smaller and keep going and keep Breaking them down until you can get one. Yes, like a micro step forward is Preferable to spinning so change your why to what then five choices pick one and go and then orient look around Am I still okay? Is everyone okay? Like everyone's okay? No one's dead cool. Okay. Do it again five more choices go You're gonna hate this so much No more why just just the fact that I can't ask why any more wise everyone in this room much I've been dependent on why like see so Don't let Nick ask why questions anymore like I have a bell in my office that I will ding people when they start doing that I mean that'll change your life because again you've hung on to this why but really you can answer all the why's in the world And why doesn't create momentum? You're still gonna stay in that state of inertia even with all the under I mean why it can be useful But why is only helpful after you're in motion? Why will not get you from stuck to go? What are my choices will get you from stuck to go and then your nervous system and all these other factors that need To be addressed sort of get funneled in to that assignment when you're asking What are my choices your brain likes that the parts of your brain they're on fire that don't let you move will go Oh, we have choices. Okay. Well, what none of those I don't like any of those Okay, we'll make them smaller make them smaller keep breaking them down once you get going You're gonna build compound momentum very quickly. Yeah, I can already like he sounds like he feels better. Yeah Like I'm already breaking down scenarios in my mind of like, okay, so just why what? Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna try that right and not what well what might happen if this happened like no no no Because that's a why hiding what should be followed by actionable steps again. I'm like I love to analyze I love to dig in the abyss of the psyche But most people just want to do their things and live their life and go so change why to what it'll change your life Okay, I'll check back in with you in six months Do you have any advice for people who or do you have do you have any belief in manifesting? Yes, I get into so much trouble when I veer into that arena. I can't even talk So manifesting assumes that every single thing in your life you have because your thoughts created it So correct the thoughts create the reality So if you have a million dollars you created it if you're sexually assaulted you created it if Something happens and someone you love dies you created it. I do not subscribe to that to any form of it Positive or negative to any for well, you know, I guess you don't give it credence because if you do then you have to accept all of it There's a degree to which yeah The thoughts you think are gonna influence your choices and that's going to influence your environment Which is going to create things that are either helpful or not helpful But the victim blame me like you know if everything wrong with you is because you're not thinking good enough thoughts Totally bypasses the reality of your brain and your body like if your central nervous system is stuck on off You're gonna manifest depression, but that's not your fault That's your brain and so I don't like any there's always nuggets of truth at almost any body of belief But I don't like this all-encompassing Think it and have it think it and be it. It's like, yeah Well, what about free will and what about geopolitical unrest and what about a gloat like who manifested? COVID like whose fault is that who can we blame? Right and this question of who's to blame is a really useful way to bypass our own crap Because well if you manifested it that's on you and your other and I'm not like that It's like well technically we all have like a full set of personality characteristics from yay light and shiny and love and light To wow I want to I mean there's a reason that true crime is popular Why I can't understand my wife loves it. They all love most people do. Why do you think they love it? I? I Part of me thinks like they're in their head Everyone's watched a horror movies There's a fear of them being murdered and this is like the closest they'll ever get to understanding like oh if I'm ever in this Position with this guy all know why he's gonna kill me and I'll run away like a part of me Like they're just surviving through this narrative, but I'm also like why do we need to do that? I don't think it's anything that's made up. I did I did a post on this a while back There are lots of reasons people love true crime, but they're entertaining so I'm just entertaining The whole voyeuristic thing is one of the shadow qualities of that people don't want to admit like clutches at pearls How could you say that I revel in the misfortunes of others? I'm like look at what you're looking at on like the internet like the evidence is there So there's a part of the human condition that likes watching people suffer another one that is fear that this could happen to me Yeah, that hyper vigilance Yeah, but the training but the third is if you have any kind of unresolved trauma And you don't understand why and you don't understand there's the why and you don't understand well everything looks fine I don't know what's wrong with me watching things like true crime are going to put it like it's very easy to see She's being murdered murder is bad when it's your life That's complicated and chaotic looking at something as black and white as murder is bad is very comforting Because it's clear that was so interesting. Yeah. Yeah, so you're like I had such a bad day But at least I'm not getting murder. Yeah, right like this poor soul on television I'm gonna tell my wife you said that and I can't wait for her to have a different reaction I'll be like you need to deal with your trauma. Well, I had someone DM me a very long rant It's like no, I break I work in the criminal justice system And I watch true crime as a way of getting dead and have helping me. I'm like, okay Yes, this post is not for you. Please scroll on by yeah humans are complex. Yeah, but generally voyeurism Pain avoidance our own trauma avoidance or seeking comfort and someone else's misfortune tend to be the big themes that I see That's so fascinating. I used to be obsessed with it. I stopped after I started doing I mean for me personally not for everyone For me personally it was I don't understand what's happening to me because all of my abuse and trauma was so confusing That is comforting because it makes sense like that. Yeah sense to me Yeah, and so I lost myself in it and when I did my sexual trauma work I just stopped watching it not that that's true for everyone that was my truth at a high level when you think about Sort of like your journey, maybe my journey next Nick embarking on his journey How do we democratize the ability for people to start sort of leaning in and? Really doing the work on themselves without having to like like how do we do that at scale as a society? That's a question. That's that's the thing It's like I when I think about people's journey It's usually they have to have resources if you need to see a therapist that that's not free Right, not many people have that ability right right and so I just think about socioeconomically How do we get to a point where so like I'm on this board of Imagine LA there are resources available for them? But then there's this gap the low-class. Let's call it that may have funds to survive and eat but they don't have Access right and so how do we solve that and maybe YouTube? I don't know I'm just I don't have an answer to like how do we solve just like the social inequality problem But I can say if you're you know Everyone has their work in the world to do and our brains are not designed to be able to tend to every problem of every Population on every kind like it's just not physiologically possible to be of use to people All of the people in all of the areas and then we get stuck in well I there's so much going on and now my nervous system is frozen and now I've been reading the news for six hours Which doesn't help anybody so ask yourself what's your work in the world to do if you know You know what your lane is and you're good at it Then like that will be of service to people and if we all did our stuff that would sort of work itself out in the ends Can you turn it off? me you personally In what your ability to like analyze and and just kind of go oh I see this person that might have trauma But I'm gonna I'm not gonna ask like you personally turn because I don't think I'd be able to I think I would just Because you you are keen you can identify it from a mile away I would imagine and so the thing is like yeah, can you turn it off? Do you so okay? So with my clients obviously no that's my work and that's what I do But people like to tell me they're like even when I don't if I tell someone I'm a therapist like my Uber driver is going into some Bear I'm like I'm not your therapist But you have the time exactly I I don't turn off the seeing it's sort of like this weird Like if you have trauma you can start a spot it But I don't I have really good boundaries around my work and even my good friends know like go to your Therapist like don't Trump trauma dumping is not kind and another myth of adult friends is that we're supposed to hold space and Trauma dump all over each other and that's not helpful. I mean venting and you know being cathartic can be useful But generally us vomiting our stuff all over each other not helpful So I don't turn it off the seeing but I very much turn off the engaging so sometimes I just tell people I'm an account that No follow-up questions How much of this is is cultural I look at cultures around the world and I know the US has a as a big problem with with Machismo and and just kind of like especially with with men like bottling things up until it's way too late And then they explode what can we do as a as a society's a culture like if you were to I don't know be the you know elected into like a cabinet position of Therapy or whatever it might be What would be your first steps into changing the culture in the US to address as a whole this issue So there's this really interesting story about how there was a tsunami and the US sent like this team of like top-notch Traumatologists and therapists over to help the people because surely they would be traumatized and all have raging PTSD Because that's a really big disaster None of them suffered from the symptoms and all of these like I am American and I'm here to help people were Confounded like we you don't need and the reason that those people did not suffer from PTSD is because trauma is not defined by the events It's defined by how are we held in the aftermath? Are we supported? Are we in a culture that values cooperation and collaboration and connection and compassion and all the C words that are good We do not hear and so in that particular place where the trauma therapist were sent they got each other They had each other's children. They had each other's backs They were bringing each other food and as a community. They didn't suffer from massive PTSD We do because when was the last time you had a group of people who you could really connect with in a healthy Skillful way where you could be real. That's so fascinating improved and prove you have when you have a child It's like your family takes over and then there's a lot of emphasis on The husband and wife like resuming date nights And so there's like a village tribe to some extent where they're just like we have the baby And it's all the aunts and uncles and they make sure like your job is to get out of the house and go have date nights Yes, it's a really interesting thing and like neurologically with no judgment just like totally like this is what we do It's normalized. It's normalized. This is just how we do I had a play therapy practice and when I closed it, but when parents will come to me like what's the best thing I could do to help my kid. I'm like Go on date nights with your partner leave leave get a break parent I don't have children and there's a reason parenting is freakin hard It's so 10 to the hard because it's better for your kid in the mom guilt of I feel guilty leaving my child I'm like it's better for your child for you to have a girl's night. I promise Yeah, I think there's a there's a lack of a holistic view on on how one person's Sort of desire to help me. It's like the detachment attachment thing we were talking about before their attachment to their baby means to detach from their own happiness of their own Whether they want to play tennis or just do yoga Anything they miss it. Yeah, tell people where they can find the book buy the book Listen to the book, which is what I did all the things we covered so much ground so you can find me on Instagram I have a tick-tock, but I'm never on it So on Instagram you can find me at Brit Frank and the book is science of stuck calm and buy it wherever books are sold I have a hot tag I want to end on because I find this so interesting so so earlier or yesterday I was watching this thing and it's like as a YouTube clip and it's it's an interesting world view where as soon as dating apps Came online, so you had a hundred men a hundred women Let's call it and all of a sudden like ten men are getting all the attention And so that means like 90 and they really say this in a weird way, but you have 90 guys that all of a sudden Have zero chance Right and all the women hold the control until the control dynamic has shifted of these 90 men They're becoming very like isolated and angry What's going on? Do you any do you believe this is happening? Is it happening? What do we do about it? I saw that article too that like why aren't men having sex like men in their 20s are having less sex Well part of that is because they're watching more porn and that's not a total judgment on porn It's just like that is a fact There's more porn available the more porn people watch the less they feel the need to go out Sometimes in some cases and yeah, I've read too that the algorithm favors You know the top 10 percent of a group of men So it's like going back to it Nick's assignment was if you're coming to me and I've plenty of men come to me and they're pissed off and women Suck, and I never get black. It's like, okay. What are five choices available to you? If you're not getting what you want on the apps go look somewhere else like go do something that makes you happy I promise you happy people are magnetic if we want to talk What do you tell them like like happy is it the gym? Is it a hobby that makes you that you like it's super simple It's like do you want to go to the gym? Do you want to play tennis do you want to like find people like-minded people to do shit with and Nothing is more attractive to a woman than a man who is doing stuff and I tell all the women I work with who's not asking why all the time exactly big red flag if the guy you're interested in You mean what would I say? Take that and run with it. Yeah. Yeah do stuff be happy It's not like I promise you there are plenty of women on the freaking planet You will not be without a woman go be happy do stuff. You made me feel better because These guys don't get a hobby they're gonna get guns and we're all going to war. Yeah, it's gonna be a problem Brit. Thank you Yeah, thank you for your expertise. Yeah, thank you. I think you solved Nick's problem changing my wise to what? 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