Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre

From Distraction To Resolution: Using Relaxation To Think Clearly

• Hilary & Les • Season 3 • Episode 30

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We trace a crisp line from relaxation to distraction and show how each shapes mood, decisions, and long-term habits. Emotions are framed as messages that ask for action, turning fear, sadness, anger, guilt, shame, and depression into guides for real change.

• weather chat as a mirror for mood and mindset
• difference between relaxation and distraction
• when distraction helps and when it harms
• fear example leading to calm, deliberate action
• habits of thought and conditioned stress responses
• job stress, numbing routines, and a turning point
• grief as active remembering rather than avoidance
• compounded emotions and unexpected overreactions
• practical relaxation tools for clarity and problem solving
• parenting without over-relying on screens
• naming emotions and asking what they mean
• stepwise plans to resolve root causes

And if you're still with us, you can check the description box below wherever you're listening to this podcast. And you can find our school, you can find our email, our website, and reach out if you like


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SPEAKER_00:

We are on the line.

SPEAKER_03:

Sun's coming up. Sun's coming up. The river is open. So there's this. We are right where the lake meets the river, and there's a channel, a deep part, out in the middle, where it's substantially deeper than everything else. It's where the river used to be. And the river itself flows all year long. And it takes a lot of cold to freeze over that river. So yesterday it was frozen over. So you know it's cold.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Today it's not frozen over the water. You can see the stream of the water in the middle of the ice, ice on either side of it, but the stream is flowing.

SPEAKER_00:

Would you say we're having like January temperatures a little bit?

SPEAKER_03:

We are absolutely having an early winter, but I was reading about the polar vortex. Don't you know? And it's all about disruptions in the polar vortex. Some places are getting warmer than they normally get. That's not us.

unknown:

Nope.

SPEAKER_03:

Some people are getting the wrong spot. Some people are getting colder than normal. Disruptions in the polar vortex. Yeah. Anticipating weather. I think it's just really easy to have the weather affect you. And it's really easy to talk about the weather because it's really not something you can be wrong about. It's raining or it's not, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I think anything that makes us have emotions or affects our mood, we're apt to talk about. Even if we don't even relate it to that. You know? Oh, it's cloudy today. Or it's raining or it's freezing. Why am I living here? Every February I think, why am I living here?

SPEAKER_03:

Why am I not living in Bermuda? Why? Why am I not living in Bali?

SPEAKER_00:

The chat says maybe this is why Canadians are so nice. We know it might be rainy today, but tomorrow can be sunny. We are hopeful.

SPEAKER_03:

Hopefully.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

All right. Enough gibber jabber. What's the topic today?

SPEAKER_00:

Distraction.

SPEAKER_03:

Distraction. Talking about relaxation yesterday. And it's important, I think, to distinguish between relaxation and distraction.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

I think that we sometimes use distraction to relax.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

In fact, it's a great technique when you're trying to break somebody out of a thought pattern. Right. And we talked yesterday about how just distracting yourself by expanding your attention and your awareness, right? And that distraction is a kind of a tool we can use to promote relaxation. But sometimes distraction can go too far.

SPEAKER_00:

Like me sitting down watching TV after having clients, but that's one thing. But then when I find myself eating a whole bag of chips, not realizing that I've eaten a whole bag of chips.

SPEAKER_03:

Distraction and comforting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

All in the same package.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That's uh that's really normal. I don't know anybody that doesn't have comforting and distracting behaviors.

SPEAKER_02:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And I don't know how you how you can live in this world and not have found yourself some distracting and comforting behaviors.

SPEAKER_00:

So where does it cross that border?

SPEAKER_03:

It crosses the border when you're not resolving the thing that was bringing you stress and tension. It's one thing to move away from a stressful topic because you found a solution, right? It's one thing to say, okay, that's fixed. Like a flat tire. I'm driving down the road, I get a flat tire, all crap. I get the flat tire fixed. And, you know, I'm really at a point where I say, well, that's over with. That's not a point of distraction. That's not a point of stress. That's not a point of contention. It's no longer something that is demanding my attention. It's no longer something that's making my life uncomfortable. It's just over. And when it's over, we just move right along. But unfortunately, we spend a lot of our lives doing and being responsible for things that we don't like. And that doesn't get resolved. And we enter into relationships that sometimes aren't very functional. And we don't do something about that.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. You're saying like the relationship is a distraction?

SPEAKER_03:

No, I'm saying that there are things in our lives like relationships or jobs, or you know, it can even be your home, right? It can be, you know, any aspect of your life that's causing you stress. And I typically think in terms of our typical North American lifestyle, which is relationships, money, and jobs.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And these are constant stressors. And and sometimes we put ourselves in situations that don't get resolved. Now, when when we are under extreme stress, when we are being activated and um we're not thinking clearly anymore, our emotions have overwhelmed us. Those are the moments where relaxation is a really powerful tool. And we talked about that yesterday, the kind of tools you can use to help yourself relax in the moment. And distraction is one of them, putting your attention elsewhere. And there's really nothing wrong with distraction until it becomes, well, distraction can become addiction. Distraction, in some hypnotist minds, one of our one of our teachers, Cal Banion, you know, he he talks about distraction as addiction. It is the process of distracting yourself from unresolved emotions, using whatever it is that you use over and over and over, and that the problem with that distraction is it didn't resolve the emotion. It didn't resolve the problem. And so we just feel compelled to go back to the distraction. And then the distraction becomes habitual. And I think I don't know. I find myself saying this a lot the last couple of years. And I really think that it's probably a really powerful idea is to see yourself and your thoughts and your emotions as habitual. And the reason emotions stay is because they don't get resolved. So I always use the example, you know, when I am I'm I'm working late at the office and I walk out the door, and there's a crowd of young guys standing around my truck, and I have fear. And that's really normal and that's really healthy. Like, what are those guys doing standing around my truck? And it's good to have caution. You're smart to have caution. And then it's how am I going to deal with that fear? Now, if I'm dealing with that fear from a state of fear, I'm probably going to make things worse. And if I'm dealing with that fear from a state of clarity, a breath, oh, I'm afraid. I'm afraid because they're there. Well, I don't know anything about their intentions yet. I'm a pretty strong personality. I think I can control the tone of this interaction if I control myself. And I walk out and I walk confidently across the parking lot and I say, hey guys, how are you doing? What's going on tonight? And they look at me like I'm nuts because I'm speaking to them, but they go, oh, nothing, nothing. And I just proceed to get in my truck and I just say, Well, have a great night. And I get in my truck and I drive away, and the whole thing's just done. Right. It's that process of first relaxing myself so I think clearly, and the process of just acting on the fear, doing what needed to happen for the fear to go away, having a resolution. And now when I drive away, I can release the fear. And if I know that the situation is over and I've addressed the fear and I've been very deliberate about it, then the fear is going to dissipate and it's going to actually be replaced with a sense of confidence. Look at me. I dealt with that. I dealt with that well.

SPEAKER_00:

I understand the fear. If you can release the fear, you can make better decisions. You can walk out to your truck. As a woman, I would take a deep breath and call the police.

SPEAKER_03:

And that might be a good solution.

SPEAKER_00:

And move the office. Which we did. So yeah, there's there's there's different ways that we can deal with it. But I understand I understand when we, you know, when we're able to deal with the fear, when we're able to relax past the fear, we can actually think properly because I know when I'm in a fear state, it's like my brain doesn't even work any longer. You know, you're just sort of sort of acting, doing doing random things that really don't make sense. Or you think afterwards, oh, I should have done this.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that's that's pretty normal. So I I'm sort of painting a broad picture on how an emotion will arise quite appropriately. I receive the message of that emotion, I do something helpful about it, I have a positive resolution, and now I've learned something good. Or I have a negative resolution and I've learned something fearful, and now fear becomes my go-to. And now I start having these repeated experiences that are based in fear. And that's just the just a random example. There are so many examples out there in the world of the way we enter into situations and we have emotions about them. I mean, you can talk that way about just going to see your family for Christmas, right? Same kind of thing. I'm going to go into a situation that's going to cause me emotions. What are those emotions? What do they mean? What is a good way to resolve those emotions? Now, when I do that in a state of relaxation, I'm thinking clearer. I am more logical. I am more creative. I'm able to think the problem in a broader way. And that's why everybody else has solutions for my problems, right? I state my problem and everybody else, they have no emotion about it. So they're able to come up with all kinds of ideas. This is the value in asking for help, right? So it's about sometimes knowing that my emotional state is interfering with my own skills and abilities, and that I move into relaxation. And we talked yesterday about using the techniques that would cause me to relax, right? You my sympathetic nervous system kicked in, my blood pressure goes up, my pupils dilate, my muscles tense, adrenaline starts to flow, cortisol starts to flow. There's all these things going on in my body to deal with a situation of fear, a situation of stress. Right? I can use breathing, I can use my hearing, I can use my vision, I can use distraction to help myself alleviate the emotional intensity so that my mind functions clearer. And that's a really great ability. If you have that ability, if you can develop that ability in a multitude of life situations, that's that's just a great hack. What most of us fall prey to is that, you know, here's an example. I got a job and I hate my job, and I hate the person I work for, and I hate the people I work with, and every day I go to work, and every day I'm angry, and I'm angry and I'm frustrated, and I'm building up that fear and that anger before I even walk into the workplace. My commute starts to become a process of building up my defenses. I get to work, I spend my time at work, I get through the day, I go, oh, thank God. I come home and then I need to relax. So I have some drinks, I smoke some cannabis, I watch some ridiculous 750 TikToks on my phone. I do all these things to distract myself from the stress and the anger and the fear that I've held all day long to the point where I'm not even clear about it anymore because I'm going there every single day. Every day I go through the same routine. I had a job once and I worked there for just over a year. And by the time I'd been there four months, the sound of the bell on the elevator made me nauseous. I had to go up 36 floors and I'd get to the bottom and I'd press the button, and then the elevator would come, it would go ding. And all of a sudden, I feel myself getting sick, just feeling really crappy. And it was just the routine I went through every day for so long. I had like Pavlov's dogs. I had trained myself to get into a state so I could get through the day at this job that I hated so much. And then, of course, I'd come home and I'd drink, and I'd come home and I'd eat too much, and I'd come home and I'd be distracted from my kids. And that's useless, right? This is really normal, but it's not helpful. So the problem was the job. And of course, immediately, you know, I woke up one day and said, That's it, I'm done. And I walked into the office and I typed on my computer resignation letter and I printed it off. And I waited till after lunch. I walked into my boss's office and said, Here's my notice. My boss loved it because he hated me. He wanted me to go, right? But I felt so much relief knowing that there was a day that all of this was going to end. Now, yeah, we're all reliant on our jobs, which makes it really hard to make those choices. And we're all very trapped within death that makes it really hard to make those choices. The point is, is that I was going to feel that way. And I was going to have to distract myself from those feelings until I had a plan to resolve it, until I was actively saying, I need to resolve these feelings. I need them to end. And I knew that the only way they would end was for me to leave there. And so, in the moment of making that decision to leave, everything changed for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So pulling all of that back, we can use distraction as a great way to relax. But distraction can become an addiction. And then the actual underlying situation never gets resolved. And so the emotion never goes away. And so it becomes this body, this thought form of anxiety that just stays inside me. And I don't understand it. And I can't seem to do enough to distract myself from it as I try to just relax into my life. You know, we're all just that way. And like you said earlier, before we started, we we want to talk tomorrow about the kinds of limiting beliefs that get in the way of your willingness to relax. And for me, the limiting beliefs that get in your way of resolving these circumstances that cause you distress, right? We have a lot of beliefs, but it's amazing how when you act towards a solution of any emotion that you have, you know, whether it's anger or it's guilt or it's fear in its form as anxiety, when you act in some way deliberately towards resolving the situation that the emotion is is activated by, it's amazing how much better you feel.

SPEAKER_00:

Can I ask you why? And I'm I I think this is an insightful question. Why you gave fear examples instead of like the ones that we hear about all the way, always because like sadness or hurt, right? We sit on the couch in sadness and eat a bag of chips.

SPEAKER_03:

Like what was it about fear that um well I think anxiety to me today, everything we live in a world based in fear. We're trained in fear. So let's let's use another example. Let's use sadness, for example. There is there is meaning behind every emotion. I'm actually working on a course for the school on this. I'm actually like ready to start recording it, posting it on the school about understanding what emotions are and what emotions mean, seeing emotions differently. We experience emotions and we have an incredible, I think, confusion about what we should be doing with them. And we tend to hang on to that. So if you use sadness as an example, so I'll again I'll just use myself. My dad passed away this year, and with that comes just a multitude of emotions, one of which is sadness. Sadness means I've lost something, something's gone. We can distract ourselves from that, right? We can keep ourselves busy doing other things so that we don't think about it. We can engage in distracting behaviors like alcohol or cannabis, any number of other things, you know, any distraction like online gambling or um distractions like, you know, you just your phone is an enormous distraction today. It's a I think phones today are the tool people use to survive, really. But to sit with that emotion, right? And say, you know, what have I lost? Why am I sad? Because I've lost something. What have I lost? What have I really lost? Right. And that to me is instead of distracting, that's grieving. Grieving is a process of acknowledging what you've lost and finding a way to retain the best of what you've lost. And for me, you know, it was watching some video of my dad. It was looking at pictures of my dad. It was starting to get in the regular habit of talking to my dad, even though he's not here. There were a lot of things I did that helped relieve the sense that he's gone and I have no access to him anymore. That grieving, that sadness can overwhelm me. It can force me into distractions. It can force me into distractive behaviors. I can just avoid the uncomfortable nature of that emotion. Or I can acknowledge the emotion, listen to the message that it brings me. I can engage that message and try to find a solution for that message. And then I moved through that emotion so that that emotion, it really just isn't active in me anymore. Right. And now I'm in a whole new habit of just every once in a while I think about my dad. I was in the habit of visiting him on Wednesdays. So Wednesdays is a day. You know, I think about my dad when I take out the garbage because Wednesday's a garbage day. And so I go out, I pick up the garbage, I go, oh, this would be the day I'd go see dad. And then I'd think about dad. And now dad is here. Dad isn't gone because he's here. He's in my mind. He's in my emotions. Right. And I can use that time to remind myself, you know, there's there's so much about my dad that isn't gone, right? His his my I have all my memories, but I have I have sisters who look just like him. Right. Well, they do, right? It's just genetics. The point is, is he's not gone in in a way, and and we all have to resolve that. So sadness, for example, right, can is still an emotion that's sending you a message, yeah, that's it trying to trying to invoke in you a response to resolve the problem.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And when you do, right, the emotion dissipates. When you distract from the emotion, you really just prolong it.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like putting a band-aid on a on something, like a, you know, it just covers it up for a little bit and then it's pushed down, like pushing lava down into a volcano. Not that that's possible, but putting a cork on a volcano. Not that that's possible either, but you know, you know what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think that's actually a really good analogy because that's the problem with it. The problem with it is that it doesn't go away, and then it gets attached to other similar experiences. And then because it's not being resolved, all of these past experiences of loss, for example, are now packed up all together, like you know, a volcano. And then something happens, and it gets people really overreacting, way more emotion than a situation should happen. I mean, people talk about this as an example of, you know, they lose a pet, and it's just overwhelming flow of sadness. But what it really is, is all the sadnesses that they rationalized away or distracted themselves from from all their experiences in their life, all coming to a place where there's just too much of it now. There's just too much of it. It's got to come out, right? It's got to, it's got to be expressed. And then it gets expressed in in ways that you know shock others and that we feel embarrassed about. I behaved like that, I spoke like that, I reacted to that that way. I don't understand why I reacted like that. And this is where we get clients, right? People come to us and events happen in their lives where they overreact and they don't know how to cope with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. I what I imagine you're saying is like like using the pet loss idea is someone loses a pet, there's grieving, there's incredible sadness, but then we carry, you know, we end up at some point carrying on with our life. And then we're in a situation that something triggers us, and we we have a you know, overwhelmment emotion and experience. Is that what you mean?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, if that's it exactly. I mean, that's what that's what our world as hypnotists is about. People say, I can't do this, help me do it. I I do this too much, help me stop. I don't know why I do these things, I don't know why I end up in these relationships over and over. I well, it's because thoughts are habits, we are habitual, the subconscious mind works really fast, takes us right back to similar circumstances, and then compounds emotions. Yeah, and this is really normal human stuff that can be alleviated when we start to learn that emotions are messages acting us to asking us to respond.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And if we respond, right, and we respond in relaxation, right? So that's about you know understanding the message, right? Fear hits us, and we have so many experiences of fear in life, but they compound and they become intermingled. So we can't rationally separate them. We don't, we we can't say, oh, that was this, it plus this, plus this, plus this, plus this, over a period of you know, six months. These are the events that all added up to this sort of explosion today, right? This breakdown today. We when the emotion comes the first time, what is a satisfying response, as Calband says? What is what is a way to resolve this emotion?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And instead of turning to food or gambling or alcohol, it's important to take a deep breath, like we said yesterday, and ask. I think honestly, one of the most important things to do in these circumstances, but nobody nobody's taught this is to ask the emotion, what are you telling me? Right?

SPEAKER_03:

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I think we'd be so much better off. Not that I can say I always do it, but I think it would be helpful if many people did it.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think it's about learning. That's what I want to do in this course. It's about learning what each emotion has as a meaning. It's about taking the time to relax into that emotion and let it educate you. And then using your relaxed, very intelligent state, your conscious mind, your logical aspect of your mind, coming up with a solution. Sometimes solutions are immediate, and sometimes solutions take time, right? So if you are, you know, yeah, in a job you don't like, and it's a daily source of stress and unhappiness, right? Taking the deliberate action to be looking for another job, taking the deliberate action of setting aside what money you can to prepare for a period of being unemployed, taking the time to structure your life in a way that a shift from one job to another is not going to hurt you. These are all very intelligent steps towards resolving all of that anxiety, all of that stress that's sitting there. And you will not only ultimately resolve the situation because you're taking action, but you will feel better and more relaxed through the situation, knowing that you've made the decision that it's temporary, knowing that you are doing what you can to move to resolution.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So that's an easier example than let's say a relationship.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But the idea, the thing that we really want to focus on today is the idea that relaxation is a significant tool in addressing any emotional state. And relaxation can be created through techniques using your body, using your awareness and attention, using your breath, and using distractions. And there are distractions that are very, very healthy and helpful, you know, watching a funny movie or going for a walk, enjoying nature. We're very outside ourselves when we're walking through nature. It's really a great place to expand your awareness, expand your perceptions, and that, of course, deactivates and moves you into a parasympathetic state. And now that clarity, that calmness is a much better state to be in when you're trying to resolve the issue in your life.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And like you said, tomorrow we'll talk about the limiting beliefs that get in the way of resolving those situations. But knowing that, and then knowing that there are situations where we're receiving emotions and we're not trying to resolve the emotion, we're just trying to avoid it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, run away from it.

SPEAKER_03:

And so what we do then, in terms of, you know, drinking, in terms of gambling, you know, this is where pornography becomes a real problem in people's lives. This is where, you know, people develop really emotional eating habits that that just exacerbate the problem because that eating has an effect on our body and the way that we feel, right? So these are the kinds of distractions people use because they really do take your mind to another place from the source of stress, and they can be comforting.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Boy, oh boy, did I do a lot of work today. I don't want to think anymore. I don't want to worry about anything anymore. I don't want to engage anything anymore. So I'm just going to go home and I'm going to have a couple of beers. I'm going to have a great big dinner, and I'm going to sit down on the couch and I'm going to eat a bag of chips, and I'm going to sit with my phone open and I'm going to scroll from video to video to video to video. And next thing I know, three hours has gone by and it's time for bed. And I have successfully for three hours not thought about this thing that's a problem, but I certainly haven't resolved it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And now I'm about to go to bed and I'm remembering, oh, yeah, I got to get up tomorrow and go through that same stress again. And that's very unsatisfying, which then makes us want to distract some more. And then as a result, some people find themselves at three o'clock in the morning distracting themselves with their phone because they can't get to sleep.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Now, the interesting thing in in my mind, I'm sure this could be a whole podcast, but is we we grew up without the phone to a number of years, right? For the most part. And and we have created habits, not terrible habits that I can see, but like we create we've created habits where we're scrolling or we get sucked into it. And I think about some kids, not all kids, but some kids nowadays that have a big emotion and are told, here, here's here's the iPad, here's the here's the phone, play a game, right? And what is that gonna look like in 20 odd years?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it's gonna look like more of the same.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, not worse.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I don't know if it's gonna be worse. I think it's going to be the continuation. I mean, the parents, first of all, being a parent is hard. It's just hard. There is nobody out there who's got the secret to how to parent perfectly or well. Parents really want to parent well, but at the same time, they're a human being having human experiences, and they don't sometimes have the energy to even engage their kids, let alone parent well. And so I don't want to be in any way critical. This is not a criticism. This is not an attack on parents. This is an observation. An observation that says, I'm learning something here. I'm learning that emotions need to be resolved for them to go away. That when I resolve them, they do go away. When I find healthy ways of relaxing from my stresses, I'm able to function in a more intelligent, more logical way. And the trick is to be aware that I'm having emotions, that emotions are not meant to stay. Emotions are not something I'm supposed to get used to. Emotions are not something I'm supposed to hang on to. Emotions are messages. They're asking for a response. Give them a satisfying response, and they will go away.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And that awareness, if we build that in ourselves, and that new habit of not distracting from our emotions, but attempting to understand them and respond to them in a way that causes them to be resolved because they're a very useful tool. Responding in that way is just going to lead to a better, happier, healthier life for me. Now, add to that the incredible job of being a parent because basically you're trying to teach your kids that stuff, right? You're trying to help your kids become that way when you haven't been given the opportunity to learn it. I don't know that distractions, although there are new ones today, and I think today distractions are easier to find. I don't think that the process is any different. It's I have an emotion, I don't know how to deal with it, and so I distract from it. So I think of, you know, kids that are going through stress, it's an easy way of a distress of a long car ride, right? Kids aren't meant to sit still for two hours. They just, they, they're not built that way. And so when I got to put my kids in the car and drive for two hours, I have to deal with the anxiety and stress that builds up inside them that they don't even understand because it's just an energy and a movement that they're used to having that they can't have now. And at the same time, I'm trying to move this great big two-ton vehicle down the road two hours away to a place we're trying to get with all these other crazy drivers all around me, and a time limit and obligations and all kinds of things, right? So I'm trying to manage my own emotions and at the same time manage the emotions of the kids in the backseat. Yeah. That's a task. And when you can simply hand them an iPad and say, watch a video, yeah, the kids get trained into dealing or responding to their emotional state with distractions. And that, unfortunately, is not helpful. And unfortunately, becomes a habit and unfortunately doesn't resolve any of the emotions. And yeah, me saying that is not being said so I can put more obligations on parents. I'm sorry, that's not my intention. I you have my every sympathy for what it's like to be a parent in the world today, be responsible for another human being like that. That doesn't change the fact that distraction as a mental habit in response to uncomfortable emotions is not going to result in a happier life. So, yeah, I don't like being a guy who points out the problem and not a solution. So, yeah, so for me, you know, when I used to take the kids up to the cottage, and it was a three-hour drive, we'd always plan on stopping at this place, this sort of two-thirds of the way there point. And it was parked and it was on a lake, and we would play, and we would just plan on that. And there was a bathroom there. So there was just a lot of solutions there, right? And there was a bakery there, right? So we could pull over and run around the park and go down to the water and jump on the dock and then go to the bathroom and get that relief. And are we gonna are we gonna get a muffin? Are we gonna, yeah, we're gonna get a muffin? And they have that kind of release, and then it's back in the car and with the muffin and for the final leg of the journey. And it becomes a routine for them, right? Do that two, three times, and they expect it. Do that two, three times, they want it. Do that two, three times, and you can start saying, you know, we'll be at the park in just 10 minutes, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Just around the next corner.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, look where we are, we're getting close to the park. And this was a habit and a routine that served us well. It kept me from being a really angry, crappy dad.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And it was helpful for the kids because they weren't as aware as an adult might be of the emotions they were feeling and the impact those emotions were having on them. So that's just a simple example of sort of how I dealt with one kind of very simple, you know. There's a there's a million situations being a parent, and there's a billion problems with all of those situations.

SPEAKER_00:

And so And yeah, I don't I think it's impossible to be perfect, right? It's impossible to raise your kids in a perfect. I don't even know what perfect would be.

SPEAKER_03:

Like it's it's just that's a reframe I use for almost every client. Perfect is a stupid idea. Perfect is a stupid idea. Nothing can be perfect. There's nothing perfect. Can't be perfect. Perfect is suggesting that you should be better without ever having the real possibility of being that good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. My reframe is we're not robots yet.

SPEAKER_03:

I like that.

SPEAKER_00:

So as an adult, when we're uh, you know, again, I think the I think, I don't know, uh, besides addictions where you're maybe gambling or out drinking or something. But I think a a big one is yeah, sitting on the couch or in a chair and eating. Reading food or watching TV or not that not that watching TV or eating food is bad, but when it becomes something that is masking, right? You finish you finish the show and then instantly your mind is taken back to what you were dwelling on. Yeah, uh it can just get out of control. So I think it's important to be able to say to yourself, ask yourself, what is what is the there's there's thoughts here, but what is the emotion, right? What is the emotion? Where where is that in the body? And of course we go into those techniques of you know asking the emotion. If you think of if you think of every emotion as a version of you that's probably much younger, kicking and screaming, saying, Hey, please listen to me, please listen to me. We normally turn away from them, and they're not gonna stop banging down the door, right? They're not gonna stop yelling for your attention. And so I think it's important to ask your your emotions, your basically your younger self, what's what's going on for you? Like tell me, tell me what you're feeling, tell me what you're holding on to, and then you can start the process of of releasing. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So the the goal is to create a course that helps you understand and deal with emotion, just as a fast, fast primer. You know, emotions have meanings. If I'm sad, then it means I've lost something. And so I should examine that. And it's calling for me to find a way to both grieve and find something new, a new way of seeing things. Anger is that I'm being treated unfairly. This is an unfair situation. And what it's asking you to do is find a way to make it fair, which can be hard. But when you make a situation fair, which is often just simply pointing it out, saying, This is unfair to me because it's amazing how people shift. Because people recognize people have a natural desire to be fair. Guilt is I've done something wrong. I've done something that's unfair. And guilt is really a useless emotion if it gets held on to.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's exactly the way most people approach guilt is to hang on to it. Once I'm guilty, I'm guilty. There's nothing I can do about that. And so, you know, find a way to alleviate that. I use the, I call it the three A's. Admit you make you made a mistake, admit it, apologize for it, and accommodate for it. Do anything you can to make it better, it's reasonable, and then let it go because you've done what you can to fix your mistake. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

And forgive yourself.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, that's shame. When shame starts to say, shame shifts from guilt into um, I am bad. Guilt is I did something bad. Shame is I am bad because I did something bad.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And shame then starts to become really, really deep.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because shame is one of those limiting beliefs. It's one of those deep habits. And, you know, that's where forgiveness really kicks in. Attach the shame, take the shame, go back to the thing that makes you feel guilty, do what you can to fix it, and then release it through forgiveness. Because, you know, we can all think of somebody that we could forgive anything. There are people that we love so much, and forgiveness is that process of letting the love come first, letting the love come forward. You know, fear is that I'm in danger, and it comes in varying degrees. And so do the thing that alleviates the danger. Do the thing, get yourself the hell out of there. There's nothing wrong with getting the hell out of there, right? There's never anything wrong with that, but that's flight. And sometimes, if you alleviate the emotion and relax, now maybe fight becomes an option. Or sometimes the fear itself just dissipates because you realize it's not the dangerous thing you thought it was. You're not really at risk. But you know, a lot of things trigger fear in us. So that's that's for real. Depression is that feeling that I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I've lost my ability to respond to this. I don't know what to do. And depression is is really best resolved with asking for help.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Knowing you're not alone is an incredible way to alleviate depression. And so, even on those days when you'd rather avoid people because they're telling you to snap out of it, sometimes it's good just to ask for help anyway. So there's some examples of emotions, right? That call, seek some kind of resolution.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. And when you take the time to say, I feel this, and then you say, Well, what's the message? What does this mean? And then you act consistent with that. You act in a way to resolve that message. These emotions just dissipate. And emotions are meant to flow, they're meant to dissipate, they're meant to go, they're not meant to be hung on to.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

A lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

Any comments, questions?

SPEAKER_00:

Any comments or questions? Nope.

SPEAKER_03:

Too much stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for hanging out. I know, yeah. Today was kind of deep. Yeah, thanks for coming out. And if you're still with us, you can check the description box below wherever you're listening to this podcast. And you can find our school, you can find our email, our website, and reach out if you like. Okay. So have a good day.

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Hilary Leehane

Host
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Les Smith

Host