 In Dublin, I made a big mistake. I was leading a panel of famous frickin' psychologists, and I made them a faux pas in front of all these people. And afterwards, Isabel said, how are you feeling, Chris? And nobody had said that to me that day, because I was so distraught. And I thought about it, and I really closed my eyes, and I go, I feel angry. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week, and we want to make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. And in my situation, when I find myself in that fight mode and I'm withdrawing, I would assume that's also not a great way to process it. It leads to rumination. It leads to me dwelling on it further, catastrophizing, creating stories that aren't even based in reality. And of course, then I can't complete tasks. I can't show up fully in a social gathering. It's lingering. So if you're someone who maybe is the opposite end of the spectrum, who doesn't look for the punching bag, doesn't look for the horn to honk in the car, but instead turns inward, how can we process anger in a healthy way if that is our default mode? Well, that's me, AJ, and Isabel. You're going to help out in this one because I'll be a little vulnerable here. I had a father who's a very well-known psychologist but also would flip his lid pretty quickly. And so when I get angry, I'm sort of scared of it. So I turn inward and I'll ruminate and I'll get submissive and then I'll get frustrated and then the anger because I couldn't confront my dad on it. And dad, if you're listening, we've had this talk. Then I'll attack myself since I couldn't get angry with him. And then it's over my lifetime. So now I'm trying to find that space, you know? So like if you act on anger and become aggressive, that's not really helpful. But if you become submissive and turn it in on yourself, so we're trying to find a middle of assertion of needs and values. And it also takes courage and practice. In order to practice, you have to have self-compassion because you're going to screw up as you do this. And I guarantee I've screwed up. And Isabel's been a big part of helping me deal with that. In Dublin, I made a big mistake. I was leading a panel of famous fricking psychologists and I made them a faux pas in front of all these people. And afterwards, Isabel said, how are you feeling, Chris? And nobody had said that to me that day because I was so distraught. And I thought about it and I really closed my eyes. I go, I feel angry. She goes, yeah. Because somebody confronted me after that workshop and took me off guard and didn't have a lot of compassion. They meant well, but they didn't have a lot of compassion in the way they did it. And with my history, it hit me. And I was really submissive. Where, you know, if I would have said, hey, what do you think would be like to be me after this big panel and you coming up to saying these to me, things to me? And Isabel was the one who actually helped me because she has ability to do what I'm learning from you, Master Isabel. So, yeah, I am. Well, my experience with it is very similar, Chris. My dad was hot headed, short views, and the blow-ups were something that I would look to avoid. I didn't want to flip his lid or push his trigger. And I would become very submissive. And now it's to the point where I get cut off in LA and I don't even honk the horn. And Amy will be in the car and she'll reach over and honk the horn for me. And it's like, hey, that guy cut you off. And I'm just wired to like turn inward, back away from it, avoid that. And of course, I've labeled that emotion anger as a bad emotion. So I don't look for it. I feel shame and guilt when I feel it. And what ends up happening is that resentment builds. And as we talked about earlier, goals and motivations, I think another part of this, when it comes to relating with one another, is expectations. And what I've learned through therapy is that I carry expectations of myself and others, but I don't communicate them, which will lead to this invisible anger and resentment forming in relationships that I really care about. And I know that's not healthy and it's something that I've now started to work on. And we brought this up earlier, vocalizing and communicating your wants and needs. Communicating what those expectations are, what you bring to a relationship, what you want out of a relationship, is a healthier way for me to process those expectations so that I can avoid going beyond frustration into anger. So Isabel, what role does expectations play in this when it comes to relating with others and how can we communicate those expectations in a way that allows us to bring compassion versus anger into these relationships? I think you give a great example of the fact that you used your own anger to connect with these expectations because as long as we're not aware of them, there is no way we can talk about it. And so the first thing is to really bring compassion to anger and say, okay, I'm human. We all experience anger. We all have frustrations and it's okay to have this emotion. And when we make room for this emotion simply by saying, okay, what I feel right now is anger and it's not comfortable. It's not, I don't want it, but it's human. We all have this emotion. Then we can try to understand what is behind and see these expectations. And when we understand, oh, I really wanted this chocolate, but every time I go in the kitchen, there is no more chocolate. And how can I talk about it? Really? But most of the time we just start yelling or we just keep this frustration. Ah, he hates the chocolate and I wanted it. And such a, he doesn't love me and he's such a bad husband. And, but when we are aware of it, we can say it's outside of anger. We can say it at another moment and say, okay, you know, I love you, but we need to do something about the chocolate. We need to find a way to have enough or to keep some in some other place. So I can have some too, but it's not easy. And in order to do that, you're going to have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. We've talked about compassion and self-compassion. Is there a difference between the two? You know, if we think about compassion, I want to break it down to a specific sort of definition. There's two pieces of it. You know, the way Isabelle and I are looking at compassion, it's a sensitivity to suffering within ourselves, but also others. And then there's an action piece to it with a commitment to alleviate it or prevent it. So it's not just this thing, it's more of a verb. And so self-compassion is really noticing that first part of that awareness of suffering that's going on. And what we usually don't do is even notice, you know, it's like, hey, are you okay? What do we do? I'm good. I'm fine. You're missing a limb. That's okay. You know, it's, it's, I'm right-handed. It's okay. But to turn towards your suffering is self-compassion. So if I did ask something here with, so AJ, just to give you an example. So there's three different flows of compassion. So one thing is, is like, if I see you and you almost get hit by a car and you fall down, I'm going to like pull you out of the street and that's one flow of compassion for other people. Whoa, man, AJ, that was pretty scary, man. And then another flow is, so if you put your, so I want you guys, if you're willing to play a little bit, if you think about someone you love, you mentioned your wife, AJ. And so imagine she's hurting and you put your hand, if you could reach through the camera like I am and put your hand on her cheek and she's hurting in a way that you know it's really hard for her. So if you look at me right now and put your hand up and if you're reaching through the screen and you imagine, is it Amy? You're what, Amy, you imagine Amy, I got my wife Heather, I imagine that. And she's hurting and you notice in that compassion for her and you looking at her. And then imagine, you know, that Amy's got her hand on your cheek and says, I know you're pain too. And then that's you receiving that. And then your hand on your heart is noticing your own suffering. So there's sort of, there's three different flows and usually it's a lot easier to help somebody else than to either receive it or give it to yourself because how we talk to be nice, be nice to other people do unto others, it's amazing. But for ourselves, you know, we are so hard on ourselves. So if I say, I'm gonna say three words, those of you watching and listening, I want you to try this out. Imagine that, don't pick a big, something that you perceived you failed at, something that's really important to you. And you perceived you failed at it. And then you hear these three words, I'm whole, complete and enough just as I am. Just notice what pops up into your mind. I'm whole and you just messed up, I'm complete and enough just as I am. That just notice that, you can write it down, you just become aware of it. And I know what still punch sometimes shows up for me, but what showed up for you guys, AJ or Johnny, Isabel? Well, I think for me the challenges, guilt and shame was used as a way to motivate and discipline me as a child. Yes, yeah, me too. I feel safer and more comfortable if I have some level of guilt or shame died to behavior. So I don't extend that compassion towards myself. You got it, man, you got it, yes. And it's been something that I've had to work through personally and I think because of that, it's much easier for me in that vision to think about sending compassion towards Amy, my fiance or sending compassion towards someone who just tripped and fell in front of a car. But to turn it around on myself and say, AJ, you're whole after I just screwed up, AJ, you're complete after I just made a mistake and did something that I didn't want to do, didn't meet my expectations, that's a much greater challenge for me to overcome. For myself, I couldn't help but think about an old Saturday Night Live character named Stuart Smalley. I'm good enough and gosh darn it. People are like, yeah, exactly. So sadly, yeah, that level of self-compassion is even humorized in pop culture, right? As you're weak or you're soft or you're not tough enough or resilient. So it often has a negative connotation. Now think about that, that negative connotation. It does and it's not our fault. So let's think about a fireman running into save a child and they're scared by that sensitivity. They're going in there to save a life or a COVID-19 nurse or doctor who's willing to be there. And we've never called them in our culture. We've equated that to weakness or being self-indulgent or pity. But what showed up for me when I first did that, there was a guy, Kelly Wilson, one of the founders of acceptance commitment there, been Kelly did that. And what, when he said, he said, I'm perfect just as I am. And my mind said, bullshit, you're not perfect. You suck. And do you tell a kid who's learning to walk, you suck, give up walking. And the kid will never say, I guess this walking's just not for me then. You know, you know, we're resilient, but we all do this. It's just like, and we're in, and it's not our fault, that when we become aware, then it's like, then we have a choice to do something different. And so all of you out there, yeah, go ahead, all of you out there, just it's not your, we'll all do this. It doesn't mean you're mentally screwed up. It means you're, you got a pulse and you're a human being.