The Truth About Emotional Pain (and How to Release It) with Rachel Kaplan

[00:00:14] Rachel: You've repressed all the parts of you that you felt made you unlovable or too much or didn't fit into what society expected or what your family expected, you're not going to have as much feelings because your sensitive bits are locked in an emotional basement closet.

[00:00:30] We're going to have poops till we die. We're going to have hard feelings till we die. Maybe then also. The point isn't to not have it. The point is to learn how do you handle it?

[00:00:39] If we don't build tools to tolerate the experience that we're medicating, we will just be white knuckling any effort to reduce it.

[00:00:49] Incentive. The incentive of feeling all of your feelings is you're going to feel less full of shit, emotional shit and also physical shit. You're going to feel light and present. If you see a baby, they cry, then they laugh. Then they're maybe chill. It's very fast. So if you can catch up with yourself, you're going to feel really present, and you're going to have a lot of happiness. My saying is emotional resilience is the new happy. And I think it's better than happy.

[00:01:19] Kate: Hey, there. Welcome back to Rawish with Kate Eckman. I'm already crying, and we haven't even started yet. And I wasn't even in the pre-conversation that long, and my guest got in the green room and just one look at her and having read even just a few pages of her story and feel, heal and let that ish, let that shit go.

[00:01:41] We're going to talk today about letting that shit go. But first we have to feel it and heal it. And not only is this person a licensed psychotherapist, has all the training, has trained all over the world, is really going to help us today. I think almost even more importantly, or most importantly, she has a PhD in life.

[00:02:01] And we have a few things in common. And one of them tragically, is that we both have lost a boyfriend to suicide. And the way that she talks about this in her book is so breathtaking and beautiful and brave and just makes me sob, but in a good way. And I'm here for it. And I think you should be here for it too. So let's bring in the most beautiful author Rachel Kaplan. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:02:26] Rachel: Oh my God, I'm so touched. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:31] Kate: Of course. You're such a beautiful writer. And we have a lot to get to. I love the terminology that you've come up with about emotional potty training, which we all need, and we're going to dive into that. But your bravery has just captivated me. And, I was in my 30s when I lost my boyfriend and another dear friend, and we weren't even together at the time.

[00:02:56] And so for you to be 14 years old where we don't even know who we are or what the world is, we're still trying to figure it all out, and the way that you wrote about it in this book, I hope it's even a movie someday, because it was just that poetic and profound. I don't even have a question as much as I would just love for you to either take us back or share why it was so important to tell this story, and obviously how dramatically it has impacted you and your life.

[00:03:33] Rachel: Absolutely. First of all, there's a mini movie option for you right now, which is that Episode 4 of Season 1 of my podcast, which is the foundation of that book. It's the same body of information. There's a 90-minute scored version of the story with a lot more details.

[00:03:54] And if anyone here is emotionally constipated, you haven't cried in a while, that should get you-- or you should call me immediately to work with me because if that doesn't help you cry-- but yeah. It's interesting actually, just as a side note, I went to a book release last night for a local author, someone I've known for a while, who it's about his life as a blind person.

[00:04:18] And interestingly, his story started with real tragedy of being four, opening his door in New York, and someone pouring acid on him. That's how he became blind. And he said that his whole life, everyone's been wanting to focus on that story, and he's been like, "That's not the point. Let's talk about the work." And that he is finally recognizing, for him, that talking about his life was helping people learn about the work.

[00:04:42] And so even just last night, it made me reflect on how I relate to my story and how I relate to it as far as sharing this helpful technology. And there's a few things I'll say about that. I'll give maybe the bones of the story in a moment, but for me, I don't like being told what to do.

[00:05:04] If someone shares their wisdom as this is my experience or they share their point of view as far as where they gathered that wisdom, I'm more likely to be open to what someone tells me I should do. But if I'm really going to follow someone, I need to know that they've walked some degree of that path themselves.

[00:05:24] And I think that a lot of what's happening in the therapeutic industry is that a lot of people become therapists because it's a great job. And a lot of people become therapists because it's a great job. And a lot of you will become therapists because when they were little in their families, they maladaptively started playing the role of fixing everyone almost out of the wounding.

[00:05:41] And so they might be really good at trying to help other people, but it's almost from their wounded experience. And so for me, having to have catalyzed an intolerable pain, and having to have saved my own life, slowly and incrementally, I knew I was going to be a therapist by 18 after I had my first big layer of healing.

[00:06:06] But actually, it took till I was 37 to actually feel like I had reached this baseline of self-love and emotional resilience, which are the two cornerstones of the subtitle. So when you said this, you were touched by suicide in your 30s, I'm sure it devastated you then. No one ever I think is unscathed by this type of trauma.

[00:06:29] It's just the worst. I think any death, any loss will possibly live with us for the rest of our lives. But the kind of trauma that can be the aftermath of suicide is just devastating. So yeah, before I told anyone what to do, I wanted everyone to know, like you said, my street cred.

[00:06:48] So what happened is I have the very normal wounding that we all have from having human parents. I don't think you can get out of being raised by humans without a little bit of issues, and we'll get into that later. I had that. I was really sensitive, and so I was pretty private and didn't really want to be that close to my family members because of what I felt.

[00:07:12] And so the first person I really wanted to be as close to as possible was this young boyfriend named Keith. And made it my mission, as you know from reading it, to making my boyfriend like. Starve myself in the process as sometimes 13-year-olds, 12-year-olds do. Sadly, grownups also.

[00:07:30] And we were close for a couple of years, but basically he created this whole lie as a way of saying goodbye to me, which essentially trapped me in this web. I was trying to figure out how to stop him from taking his life. I don't want to give too much away because I think that you're really selling the story, so people can go out.

[00:07:52] Kate: Please just read it because it is so riveting. It is so riveting, and I was savoring every word to the point I would put the book down and pause. And then of course, having experienced something like that-- not exactly like it, but like it-- of course, I was triggered and I was feeling that, and also being deeply empathetic, feeling your pain, not just as the adult, but the teenage you.

[00:08:18] I just wanted to wrap my arms around her. And it is just a must read. And even if this subject matter terrifies you, is off-putting, is scary, I recommend it even more because, especially if you have kids, I have friends that say, "Oh my gosh, my sixth grader has a classmate who died by suicide. What do I even say to him?"

[00:08:41] And sometimes these tragedies happen and then it's just like we keep going without proper care. So yeah, I don't want you to give it away either, but I think just maybe your journey from that moment, and even me having my own really dark thoughts after that tragic event that is really, really scary at any age. And then how you and I continued on and we're doing the work that we're doing.

[00:09:07] Rachel: I'll say that I did try to stop him from swearing that I would take my own life. That was the best move I could muster. He told me if I tried to stop him in another way, he would do it right then. So we made an agreement that he wasn't going to do it that night. I promised him 30 times plus that I would take my own life. It would be two lives and not one.

[00:09:29] And I don't know if I meant it. In the aftermath of when his body was found, and this is not my thing, I haven't heard voices since, but I heard a very clear voice that was no one's, wasn't his voice either, but that said you'll never do this to yourself.

[00:09:47] It was a chaotic moment. His mother and brother are hugging and screaming. My mom's coming to me screaming. There's a cop in the room. Chaos. But I heard this voice really clearly, and for a few years I was halfheartedly plotting my own death and wanting to escape.

[00:10:04] But I knew I probably wouldn't make that choice for myself. I would say that the main way that I tried to survive that time was just moving into my brain and only thinking. And it wasn't until I accidentally caught feelings for someone else, this dear friend of mine, that I really realized, "Oh shit." I guess you said my title, so we can swear.

[00:10:28] Oh shit. I was a junior in high school. To build a life, I have a hole inside me. I'm not solid. And if I try to build my life over this hole, there will be no stability. And so I got into therapy. And the forward of the book, which I'm imagining you have a newer book, is my high school therapist, actually, who's still in Ohio. We have Ohio in common.

[00:10:50] This experience happened in Youngstown, Ohio. She wrote the forward for my book. And years ago we got in touch after a long period of no contact. I stopped working with her at the end of high school, more or less. And she said, "Rachel, I've been spying on you through your podcast, which is mandated listening for my patients." Which was crazy.

[00:11:10] But she really helped me begin my journey of dropping back into my body and coming out of my very fast brain. The main defense mechanism that all of us use to avoid our emotional pain is thinking, intellectualizing, being in our heads.

[00:11:28] Because if you think and if you ask why, and if you just contemplate, even if you have beautiful narratives about why you're wounded, you're probably not experiencing the pain of your wounding. They're very different. And so inching down the six inches from my brain and my thoughts to my body, where I was heartbroken and devastated and terrified of being left again, began my journey of healing.

[00:11:52] And it actually was that young boy that I had caught feelings for accidentally. He begged me when he went away to college, a year prior, Ohio State. He was like, please, "Let's stay together. We're soul mates." And I was like, "Oh, hell no. Am I going to be left again?" And so I fought, no, no, no, no, no. Just go on. Finally agreed.

[00:12:11] And then when he left for college, he pretty much dropped me, really quick, abrupt. He got very distracted. There was a lot of [Inaudible]. But anyway, it was amazing because it brought me back to what I was most afraid of, which was being left again.

[00:12:26] And so I had this huge awakening around things happen for a reason. And I wasn't that 14-year-old girl who was just annihilated by this pain. I had grown. I was like, "Life is a spiral, not a circle." And a whole chunk of my soul came back to my body, and it opened up this really magical phase, I'd say, colorful, sensual feeling again, being really inspired to study healing.

[00:12:53] And the next few years, as I went to college, meddling with everyone's spiritual awakening, and my friends I was this little baby guru. But I would spend my junior year of college in India and Nepal and start meditating and stop smoking weed.

[00:13:11] And I realized through all of that deeper and more inward looking that I was really doing a lot of what I was doing to try to fill this hole inside from not being able to save this person. And that it was not so much giving to others, but taking from others. And so that brought on another chapter of sobriety and not meddling with anyone and really just being with myself.

[00:13:37] So it was just a layer by layer journey. I began the professional pursuit of becoming a healer or helper, healing catalyst. I like to not call myself a healer because the person is ultimately going to do it for themselves, but I am helping them. I am a companion or a catalyst. I started training as a yoga teacher when I was 22. And by 24 was in my graduate program back in California.

[00:14:07] What I would say as far as how this lifelong journey shifted things, what's fascinating is that it wasn't until I was in a marriage, a non-viable marriage, which you heard about a little bit in that chapter also, with an archetype very similar to the dead boyfriend and really struggling and really terrified of losing the marriage, where I did the deepest layer of healing that I had done yet.

[00:14:31] And I would say that it was through that few-year chapter, four or five years of really focusing on this absolute depth of my core wound, the part of me that felt unlovable, doomed to be left, just gross and gnarly inside. It was still there. I had been a really good therapist for over a decade. I had a great looking life. I seemed really happy and thriving.

[00:14:54] And on paper, on Instagram, great, happy person. And that's what I see the therapeutic industry is getting everyone to. It's about 60% looks good, but deep down people are walking around feeling like they aren't worthy. They aren't lovable.

[00:15:13] And so that round of healing, I really got into some fascinating tools, which are really the bulk of this book, and fought like hell to save this marriage and to heal myself. And it was about a year after leaving the marriage that I realized, oh my God, I feel well in a way I never imagined I'd feel. I loved myself.

[00:15:34] I never dreamed of that. And interestingly, and you know this too, from that chapter, without any effort or contortion the day that I ended up organically leaving my marriage. And it was a journey. I moved out. I moved back in. But was on a Saturday, and it happened to be the 22-year anniversary of Keith's death.

[00:15:53] And then I found the apartment I'm in now, this dream apartment of mine. I was supposed to move into it about three weeks later on a Monday, but the movers were like, "It's supposed to rain." I don't even know if it rained, but they're like, "Can we push it back to Tuesday?" What was Tuesday? It was Keith's birthday.

[00:16:09] Kate: Oh my God.

[00:16:11] Rachel: So that marriage and the healing work I did during that marriage was really this container, this cauldron of transformation. And everything I've been doing since, my podcast, my book, all of the psycho Ed work, retreats, everything I'm doing now is really sharing the difference.

[00:16:28] What was the difference between compensated Rachel who had done some healing but still didn't feel self-love or resilience and this wellbeing that's fairly unshakeable? And then, of course, I've worked with hundreds of clients and taught thousands of people these tools.

[00:16:45] I know these tools work, but everything that I'm offering right now is really the essence of what made the difference. What actually gets people to that place where they feel integrated and whole and feel like they can handle being a human? Because as we know, it's not easy.

[00:17:00] Kate: Thank you for all of that. Those little coincidences, which aren't the little god winks with the even the dates aligning is so beautiful. And you're just so courageous. And I just want to take a moment to honor that. And I'm so curious that there's so many questions coming up, so I'm like, let's focus on one.

[00:17:18] But what was it about your work with your therapist in high school who wrote the forward to your book that maybe inspired your journey into psychotherapy or certainly your journey into healing yourself instead of dying by suicide?

[00:17:35] Rachel: Yeah. The simplest thing I can say, first of all, she's like this bohemian, Earth goddess. She really loved herself and was probably like me, where she didn't fit into her family. Sounds like just being a little deeper and weirder. So she was embodying something that I found to be quite nourishing in a way that I could take in.

[00:17:56] So I think I just felt safe maybe for the first time. But more skill wise, I would come in. I'd be like, [Inaudible]. She'd be like, "How do you feel?" I'd like, "I'm so mad. And she was like, "What? No." When I say, how do you feel? You have four options. And her options are different than what I use in my book and what I'm teaching.

[00:18:19] But she said, you can be glad, sad, mad, or scared. And it's very hard to disassociate when choosing one of those words. So her limiting me to the simple language demanded and invited me to drop into my body, and that was the beginning of the healing. The reality is, and maybe I can jump in a little bit to how I would say it for myself, emotions, if you take off the letter E, what's left is motion.

[00:18:54] They are pretty quick transient experiences when we allow them to be, when we get out of the way. Everyone's so afraid if they start feeling their feelings, they'll never stop. I'm like, "I double dog dare you to try to cry for five minutes." If you're not in an acute trauma or loss, most people can't sustain access to feelings for long.

[00:19:14] There are occasionally people who get stuck in their feelings. We could talk about that later if you're interested. And I have a few tips for things to check on if that's what's happening. But it's like my favorite metaphor, we've already addressed it, but I really mean it.

[00:19:28] It's like, think about it. When you got the signal today, probably, hopefully today already, that your guts started feeling cramping or you felt like, oh, I think it's bathroom time. I think go time. It's number two time. Did you go to food or followers or Tinder matches or buying new clothes or eating something, or did you go to a toilet and leave a poop?

[00:19:54] Kate: [Inaudible] do to the bathroom.

[00:19:54] Rachel: We say take a poop, but we leave it. Yeah, you went to the bathroom.

[00:19:58] Kate: And quickly sometime. Yeah.

[00:20:00] Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. Because there's no other way to not be full of that feeling. And we know that originally because people taught us. That's how you deal with that feeling. We were potty trained. Now, emotions are similarly intense clusters of sensation. Emotions and poops both have a signal that something needs to come out.

[00:20:24] But most of us were not taught, oh, if you feel hot and you want to explode, that's anger wanting to move through you. And you can go to your room and in a safe way, maybe hit your bed or yell into a pillow. You're allowed to be angry. Most of us, our parents were just struggling to keep us alive and fed, let alone attune or attend to our emotions.

[00:20:48] They had even less emotional intelligence and wisdom than our generation has. And so most of us were told there's nothing to cry about, there's nothing to be afraid of. They'll give us something to cry about. We were plopped in front of screens, given treats, anything to manipulate us out of our feelings. And bless the parents. My guess is most people were doing the best job they could, which doesn't mean it was a very supportive job.

[00:21:15] And so what that means is by the time someone's reading my book or listening to your podcast, they're likely backlogged with decades of unprocessed emotional shit. And to try to avoid the pain of that, what we're forced with is a lot of numbing, a lot of addiction, a lot of distraction, and the most common is, like I did, moving into your head and only thinking, but it can get pretty gnarly.

[00:21:43] I think a lot of the suicides and overdoses that we see, especially with people at the pinnacle of their careers, they reach the top, but they're still in so much pain that they take their lives, because no amount of success, no amount of sweaters, which is how I try to get there, no amount of accolades or followers or dollars takes away our pain.

[00:22:04] The only thing that does miraculously and simply is allowing our pain to come up and come out. And then it's this really simple thing. So at the heart of what I'm teaching is like how do you learn to feel as bad as you feel? Because if you can learn that, the skill of facilitating your emotions to emerge-- and to do that, there's a whole healing step that happens first, which I'll just put a pin in for now, which is you define the parts of you that have the feelings.

[00:22:33] If you've repressed all the parts of you that you felt made you unlovable or too much or didn't fit into what society expected or what your family expected, you're not going to have as much feelings because your sensitive bits are locked in an emotional basement closet.

[00:22:49] And so before we're going to be able to allow our pain to come up, we have to court these parts of us back into our experience, which is a whole process, and I'd say the first half or the first wing of emotional potty training. But really the heart of the book, the heart of what I think makes a difference between unhealed and real healed, stable baseline. Doesn't mean I don't have hard feelings.

[00:23:13] But it's like we're going to have poops till we die. We're going to have hard feelings till we die. Maybe then also. The point isn't to not have it. The point is to learn how do you handle it. And so that really comes from incorporating, becoming more integrated with your real self, and then learning the skills of how do you move out fear, sadness, rage, shame ultimately, and become who you are in current times. You don't still feel like that little 4-year-old or 6-year-old, or 14-year-old or whatever it is. You feel like a grown ass person who knows how to handle themselves and is more or less themselves.

[00:23:52] Kate: Yeah. And I think a lot of people are, like you said, intellectualizing their feelings. And they understand, got to feel it to heal it. And you're right, they see all the psychologists’ quotes and posts and things like that on social media. And I think a lot of us understand intellectually, but then putting it into practice is a more gnarly experience.

[00:24:11] Because as someone who is all about the feelings, missed feelings-- even I was talking to you for a minute and I'm in tears because that's my jam. I feel my feelings. I'm like, "Oh, I've got a feelings movement woman here, and we're talking about these things. And some people I can hear them saying like, "Well, that sucks."

[00:24:27] Or when I tell someone I'm having salad for lunch, my friend Mark will be like, "That sounds gross and boring." And I laugh because I'm like, "I get it. It's not pizza or hamburger." But at the same time, just the beauty that comes from feeling the full spectrum of our emotions-- because then I get to feel joy in a really profound and powerful way.

[00:24:45] But if you do relate it back to the emotional potty training and you think the pain, and we've all been there on the road trip or something, it's like, if I don't go now-- and it can even cause major health issues if you don't go to the bathroom. And I really do feel the same when we're shoving down and suppressing and numbing, keeping those toxins in the body that can come out as cancer or disease.

[00:25:09] For people who may already be doing this a bit or those who feel overwhelmed and hopefully they're still listening because they want to take this on for themselves, for their families, please, for your children, where's a good place to start getting a little more comfy with our-- I was going to say EFT-- our EPT, our emotional potty train. I love it. It's brilliant.

[00:25:31] Rachel: First of all, just real quick, you made a beautiful point, which is being willing to feel your feelings gives you access to all the feelings. Depression, the way people generally speak about it, it's usually like a fog or a layer, a numbness over your experience. People who are really actively grieving or sad, it's a very lively experience.

[00:25:53] You're going to feel a lot, but depressed people generally, it's like you don't feel anything. Nothing touches you. And I think so often it's that in order to survive the pain of people's lives, they go offline and then they feel empty inside. And so let's start with the incentive.

[00:26:10] The incentive of feeling all of your feelings is you're going to feel less full of shit, emotional shit, and also physical shit. You're going to feel light and present. If you see a baby, they cry, then they laugh, then they're maybe chill. It's very fast. So if you can catch up with yourself, you're going to feel really present, and you're going to have a lot of happiness.

[00:26:34] My saying is, emotional resilience is the new happy. And I think it's better than happy because, if you've gotten strong enough to be able to digest your emotions, you're going to be really light, like I just said. You're going to be fresh and buoyant, joyful yourself, because that's what happens through the process of feeling and clearing feelings.

[00:26:58] But you're going to trust yourself because you're going to know that the next time something hard happens, you'll be able to handle it. So you commented on my courage to put myself out there. It's like I knew and know, if I fall in love and it doesn't work, I'll have my hard feelings.

[00:27:14] I definitely had hard feelings after this book came out, after eight years of the anticipation of how it would feel. I've learned that I can be who I am and take risks because it's, worst case scenario, usually you're dealing with feelings about reality.

[00:27:29] I'm not saying there aren't real tragedies or traumas or places where you're dealing with more than feelings. You might be unhoused. You might be dealing with daily oppression or, antagonism in your life. You might not have friends. It's not all emotional. That's so much of the pain we're trying to avoid in life is emotional.

[00:27:51] Kate: You know what else just came up for me too, Rachel, as you're speaking, I love when this happens, is it isn't just the pain. I think-- ooh. Subconsciously, unconsciously, or even knowingly, some of us at times suppress the joy, suppress the greatness. You just came to mind because it was about a year ago and my TEDx talk came out and I speak very vulnerably and candidly about my experience losing Sam and Raf to suicide.

[00:28:19] And then it came out and was great and well received, and I was sobbing on the phone to my friend Scott, who had just done a talk as well, and I said, "Why am I crying? Why am I so emotional?" And I'll never forget it. He said very calmly-- oh, going to make me emotional again-- "Because you're stepping into your greatness."

[00:28:40] And as you're talking about your book too and everything that comes up when we release a very profound, vulnerable, courageous project into the world and put our heart and soul out there for everyone to judge and receive, that's you stepping into your greatness as well. So then it's that emotion and maybe sometimes people they don't even know what that would feel like if they not just were good at their job or did half of their dream or had some success on a good level, but not a household name, not making millions, not putting themselves out there in a way that everyone can judge, like a celebrity, for instance. Maybe that's part of it too.

[00:29:18] Rachel: Yeah. I definitely think that joy is a vulnerable emotion. Brene Brown says that there's something to lose. And when we all have our various losses and disappointments, we can be afraid to go through it again. So it really is the fear of the feelings. Congratulations on your TEDx.

[00:29:34] I gave one this year, actually two weeks after the book came out, and it was really wonderful in the moment. But I think in some way, what I was up against after my book coming out was the longing and desire and hopes and dreams-- I won't quite say expectations, but of what it would feel like to have this out.

[00:29:54] So one of the things I'd say in the book and regularly is like, there's only one way off a mountain. So after a high, you got to come down. And whether the high was one that you spent furiously avoiding your low, whether you're chasing your dragon, your drug of choice, whatever it is, trying to avoid your pain, that you'll come down from, and that generally will be a pendulum, someone swinging between extreme pain and extreme addiction or distraction.

[00:30:22] Or even just these beautiful life moments where you do put yourself out, where I did achieve these things I dreamed of. And whether it was what I thought it would feel like or not, there's still a come down. And so what I'll say and then get back to your question of like, where does someone start, is that there's really no way around having to interface with the sensations of emotion and be in your body.

[00:30:47] And maybe the place to start as far as where to start is ways to know you're not in your body. You're not feeling your feelings. You can't be alone in your house at night without watching Netflix. You can't sit for a few minutes without looking at your phone. And I have compassion for all of us.

[00:31:04] Kate: I know that.

[00:31:05] Rachel: Our phones are gripping our brains. They're designed to have us be attached to them. So I think it's very hard right now to not be plugged into these devices. If you're drinking all the time or you're even compulsively trying to be the best mom in the classroom, anything that feels like it's got you gripped, or if you have dysfunction in your relationships, if you're full of anxiety or stress, when we're trying to avoid our pain, we have to live in some way out of our bodies.

[00:31:39] And so there's not peace there. So these are all signs that something might be off, and it's a good place to start because you could give yourself a big pat on the whatever, shoulder, back. You tried. You tried to outrun that gnarly memory or that wounded belief that you weren't good enough.

[00:31:58] You did your best. PTA, mom of the year. You got all the followers. Whatever you did. You drank all the drinks. You got the best wardrobe. My wardrobe is that way. I've got-- I could outfit everyone I know forever. Good job trying. And then maybe in a moment you, you're going to just like, all right, it doesn't work. It does not work.

[00:32:21] Kate: I'm just being called out right now where I'm just thinking of this stuff that I'm like, "And then you know when you have to move." And I'm like, "Why'd you buy all stuff? Now you got to move it."

[00:32:31] Rachel: I know. I'm up against that in this month. I'm like, "Oh God." My minimalist partner's like, "You could move in your own place and then maybe we could rent a place and we'll buy a place." I'm like, "You want me to move this three times?" But anyway, you can trust that you tried.

[00:32:48] If that was going to work, it would've worked by now. And we don't have to be hard on ourselves. I do think we want to be sober about it. And sometimes there are moments to really look at, am I destroying my life through this addiction? I'm actually day five of a, no, I'm not going to buy any clothes this March.

[00:33:05] Because I don't need any. And just now I was like, "I'm going to my hair lady." There's all these cute stores and I was excited to-- after this, actually, I'm going. And I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll have a few minutes to go in the shop." And I remembered you're not shopping. And it was like, dun, dun. But it's like how great. I'll notice the urge that would have me reach toward consuming and be with myself. So just start by giving yourself props. If not feeling worked, you'd know by now.

[00:33:34] Kate: So my brother's listening and it's like, so instead of--, or I'll just put myself-- instead of ordering the pizza, scrolling on TikTok for two hours, I'm like, "That's how I learn what's going on." Or yeah, buying the drink, buying the Prada loafers that are sitting in the closet forever, but they're really pretty. And I'm like, "Okay, what are doing?"

[00:33:55] Rachel: First of all, if you're really in a crisis with an addiction, go ahead and go for it. Don't wait to build all the skills. But one of the things I've learned is that if we don't build tools to tolerate the experience that we're medicating, we will just be white knuckling any effort to reduce it.

[00:34:14] So people will often come to my therapy practice and say, "Maybe I need to break up with this person." Or, "I want to stop this thing." And I actually try to slow them down so we can have a moment to scaffold them so that they have a chance to tolerate what it is they need to tolerate.

[00:34:31] And I'm not trying to enable further challenges or addiction or destruction, but I'm just letting you know that if you're like, "Yeah, that's me. I know I could get better at being with myself some of the time, what I'll caveat that, right now, everybody needs a little medication. And I don't mean like psycho pharm meds, I mean to expect yourself to be in full feeling all day long, every day, especially in these intense moments we're swimming in is not realistic.

[00:35:02] So I think it's okay to be on TikTok a little bit. It's okay to have a cookie or to buy yourself shoes. It's not about abstaining necessarily, but it might be about not buying the shoes when the thing you really need is to have a cry. Because if you were hurt by something or something happened in your day and it impacted your self-esteem and you go to buy the shoes, all of that pain is still living within you.

[00:35:29] So you might be more volatile with your family or friends. You might have the same kind of anxiety when you close your eyes at night. It just doesn't get rid of the thing the same way that none of those activities would get rid of our poop if we had to poop. So the place to start, I would say, is acknowledging that maybe part of you is offline or part of you feels bad, and trying to get curious.

[00:35:54] This happens in a few ways. I will say that I'm not one to say or to focus on analyzing yourself. I've done it. I'm sure most people have. But you could have a really beautiful narrative about why you are how you are, and it won't necessarily help you be different. You could be like, "Well, I know that my mom was like this and my dad was like this." Or, "I lost my first love."

[00:36:17] And I think people have that because early in therapy, therapists will help reframe what you went through so that you can be kinder to yourself. Most people are so hard on themselves, so it's an important step. But that story isn't the same thing as being with yourself.

[00:36:35] It's not the same thing as loving yourself. It's not the same thing as feeling yourself. And so I'd say couple things as far as where to start. The curiosity is about looking at, what am I avoiding? Two ways to look at it. What parts of me am I avoiding? Do I feel like I'm actually being myself in my life?

[00:36:57] And also, what feelings am I avoiding? And so this is where I do think a little bit of thinking and reflecting is helpful. So you could think back to your childhood. What were you told maybe by your parents was unacceptable? How did you feel? What about you? Did you put down compared to siblings if you had them?

[00:37:15] What did you get teased at in school? If you were to start dating someone or meet a new friend and tell them about some aspect of yourself, where do you go into explaining yourself, caveating things? What are you afraid that people will learn about you? And it's usually some version of, I'm too much. I'm not enough. I'm not smart. I'm too sensual. I'm not sensual. I am needy.

[00:37:41] A simple belief will emerge. And it's not just a belief. It's actually the record, the song of the part inside that feels disabled or betrayed, abandoned. I describe it as people, when they think they're going to lose the approval and closeness of their parents, they'll do whatever they can to not express that part of themselves.

[00:38:05] So they walk it down into the basement, lock it into a closet. And anything without air and sunlight and contact with other humans, with ourselves, will wither. And so these withered parts of us that get scapegoated are the parts that we want to learn about. And so a simple question to ask is like, what do I think makes me unlovable?

[00:38:30] And for some people, they're not even going to be able to sit with, they might not acknowledge that there might be a part of them that feels unlovable. You might not experience it as such because you're so busy trying to prove to yourself in the world that you are lovable. And if you do feel lovable, genuinely all the way through, congratulations.

[00:38:50] That's awesome. Good job. Whether you had the dreamiest parents or a really unscathed life or you did the work, that's really beautiful. But usually there's at least one or two parts that still feels unlovable.

[00:39:04] Kate: If I may interject for a second, I so appreciate professionals like yourself because with my trauma therapist recently-- I love that you even just brought that up. It has been mind expanding, life changing, soul expanding for me where even talked about-- you had to say the statement, I am lovable.

[00:39:25] And my mind is like, "Yeah, I'm lovable." Scale of 1 to 7, 7. And she agreed. She has her little pendulum, and she tunes in, and she's intuitive. I'm like, I'm lovable. But my body was at a 4. So not at 0 or 1, or even 2, but it was at a 4. And it broke my heart a bit because I'm like, "Why doesn't my body feel lovable?"

[00:39:46] But then you get to explore like, and it's all from years ago mostly, and stuff that you've forgotten about. But you guys as therapists make us sit there and think. And so yeah, this woman from my TV news career came to mind and how she treated me and got everybody against me. And this whole traumatic thing that my mind is like, "Fuck her. I'm over that. I don't care about her. Look at me. I'm great."

[00:40:08] And I love that you talk about getting in the body. My body, that was still impacting me, where it was affecting my body's belief in being lovable. I know this is getting a little deeper, but it is so worthwhile. Not just reading your book, but working with you one-on-one, even if you can only afford one session or two sessions, or give up going out to eat a few times, because it has been life changing for me to do this kind of work.

[00:40:35] Rachel: Yeah. And I think you are absolutely right. There is often the part that needs the help the most. It's really hard to find because it's in this nonverbal part of us. So basically, I call these core wounds, the parts that get cast out and that feel unlovable. And we start developing them immediately because we're little organisms that are completely dependent, meaning we can't hold our head up.

[00:41:02] We can't grab things. We can't feed ourselves. So of course we need caregivers. We need our parents close. We need their love. And we know that as little animals that want to live. That is, in some way, the essence of life as it wants to keep going.

[00:41:17] And so when we read our mom's face that she's glazing over, she looks vacant, or when we start getting messaging of like, you're too loud or you're too needy, or whatever it is, we're so invested in doing whatever they need that, even before we can sync, we're shaping ourselves to get love.

[00:41:36] And so it sounds like the thing that you thought of or you uncovered was from your adulthood, but usually people have layers and layers of parts that are well below your identity. In some way, they say that people start forming identity around age seven.

[00:41:53] That's when the super ego comes online. Until then there's a little bit more magic, a little bit more freedom and expression. And that's assuming that someone's not really traumatized. If a kid goes through a lot really early, they're going to have to start really assessing how to survive very young.

[00:42:09] But yeah, so well beneath our minds are these parts of us that have the hard feelings. And so a few quick tips with that. I said there's layers of curiosity. So one layer is getting curious about who's in your closet, and the other piece of that, it's not just to have the story to tell at the cocktail party.

[00:42:30] It's to be able to start courting that part back in. And so there's a lot of tips and tools for this in the book of like, how do you actually reestablish trust with that part of us? Because initially maybe your parents were suggesting you not act like that. But if by the time you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, you're still trying to pretend you don't have needs, you are the bully.

[00:42:53] You are the one. You do it to yourself, as [Inaudible], it says. That's what really hurts. And so these parts don't necessarily trust us initially. And so if we want them to open up to us, become part of us-- and they're juicy parts. These are our sensitive parts. These are our kind of quirky, wild, unique parts. No one's locking their inner athlete most likely in the closet. Or the parts they got accolades for.

[00:43:20] People are locking the parts that made them stick out or made their parents uncomfortable. So we want to rebuild trust, and there's a lot of tips for that in the book. So that's one layer of curiosity. Who are you trying to avoid? How can you bring them back in? The other curiosity is really much more about feelings.

[00:43:37] So let's say you're going through your day. You feel okay. You're having a good morning, and then something shifts inside. I had a day like that. I had a really hard interaction with my sister early in the morning, so it wasn't a mystery of what happened, but it was like suddenly I had feelings in my body that I hadn't had previously.

[00:43:56] And so a lot of times what people will do when they notice they feel bad is they're going to say, "Why do I feel bad?" Or, "Why do I feel sad? Why am I scared?" And a quick tip, that is your desire to move back into your brain. If you understand it, you could stop it. You can escape it. You can put a pin in it and not experience it.

[00:44:17] Now, if you don't have time to feel your feelings in that moment, you notice you feel bad, that's fine. Every moment of the day, it's not going to be the right time to feel your feelings. If I had to shit during this interview, I wouldn't just do it. I would either let you know, look, "I really have to shit. We're going to have to pause the interview."

[00:44:35] Or I would wait till the interview's over and go, and in the appropriate way, leave my shit. Emotions are similar. It's not always the right time to cry about how you're a sack of shit. Sometimes you're in the middle of an interview or a work meeting or you're trying to tune into someone else's feelings.

[00:44:53] So sometimes we want to pause and wait for another moment. And so in those moments, asking why, or just noticing something happened, I'm going to deal with this soon is fine. But if you are trying to feel your feelings, which is ultimately what I want everyone to start trying to do. I want you to get really skillful at feeling your pain.

[00:45:12] The question why shuts down the process. And so a better question is how. How am I feeling? How do I know I'm sad? How do I observe that? Where you can be present and study the phenomenology of the feeling and try to stay with the feeling. So there's two parts of emotional potty training. One is the parts integration, which I just spoke about. Who's in your basement? How can you pull them back in? How can you bring them back?

[00:45:43] Kate: Why do we really want and need to bring them back in? Some of us might be like, "Oh, that needy part of me, let's leave her trapped in the basement." She turns off the romantic partners. She's annoying. She requires a lot.

[00:45:55] Rachel: Great question. Here's why. When you don't bring her back in, and this is the programming for, I'd say, at least half of people conditioned as women is like, don't have needs. Instead meet everybody else's needs. Well, let's look at how does that pattern go?

[00:46:12] What that looks like is like, I'm hungry. I'm going to make a nourishing meal, or I'm going to make cookies, and I'm going to give everyone in my life all of the cookies. I won't keep any cookies. I'll see if anyone loves me enough to give me some cookies back so I can eat. And then those people eventually lose it because nobody gives back the cookies.

[00:46:30] People who don't let themselves have needs are likely to be surrounded by parasites. Because a healthy dynamic will have a give and take. And if you're saying, "Look, I don't need anything. You have everything." The only people that are going to be drawn to that are people who don't want to give.

[00:46:50] That is the energetic balance to that vibe. And so what it means is you should learn to integrate this part so you can feed yourself. The reality is that pattern usually becomes quite gifted at giving. It's actually taking. It's actually taking. It's like what I realized, when I was like 20, I think-- yeah, just 20-- learning to meditate and realized I was helping everyone so I could then shove that experience of helping them into my void.

[00:47:18] I was filling myself up with helping a teddy bear stuffing. And so that wasn't giving. That was taking. It was about my own shame and guilt about not being able to save my dead boyfriend. And not to say it wasn't helpful. Sometimes it's helpful. But it wasn't based in genuine giving.

[00:47:37] And so if you want to be able to know how to take care of yourself, and if you want to move through your life, not starving and feeling resentful and unsatisfied with everyone you know, learning how to identify your needs, learning how to feel the very genuine, legit, valid needs that you have is the solution.

[00:48:00] You were never too needy. That was your family, being unable to meet you. But here's the catch. Here's a quick little tip. That's what an average good therapist will get you to, is like, it wasn't your fault. Your needs were okay. That's true. And at the end of the day, like when you go through my journey, you'll get there.

[00:48:21] You'll be able to validate, I'm allowed to have needs. My needs are not a problem. But here's the problem. If you want to heal where you actually believe that in your body at a 7 on your scale, the way to do that is to get close to the part that believes that your needs make you unlovable.

[00:48:43] Your needs are going to make every romantic partner leave you. And let yourself feel that as truth. You feel it, and it's the crux of how to feel your feelings. It's the most advanced step. It goes counter to a lot of what mindfulness and the spiritual new age and manifest your reality is telling us to do.

[00:49:02] Everyone's wanting to affirm you, Ann, of your pain. It's bullshit. That's like putting a scratch-and-sniff sticker over a pile of shit. It still smells like shit. The only way to heal that is to find the part that believes that and ultimately become it in the moment for the purpose of letting that pain out.

[00:49:21] Where you get to grieve and tantrum and maybe you're sobbing and maybe you're hitting the bed. Or maybe at first you're mad at yourself. Maybe eventually you get mad at a parent who told you you weren't allowed to have needs. Because fuck that. But you're letting that part feel the pain of believing that you're ultimately unlovable because you're needy.

[00:49:40] That is how the emotional poop leaves the system. It's being allowed to be welcomed in, held, and releasing from the place of, it is true in your body. Your bones, your heart, yourselves do think that your needs will cause you to die. Because remember, when we're little, losing love is deadly.

[00:50:01] Kate: Yeah.

[00:50:02] Rachel: My journey will guide you to that if you're like, "Whoa, what was that? I don't know if I could do that." That's okay. There's steps. There's steps of like, you're curious, how am I feeling? You start to pay attention to the sensations between your crotch and your chin.

[00:50:15] Do you have tightness? Are there clumps? Is it intense? You start to give yourself permission. I'm allowed to feel scared. I'm allowed to feel sad. And if you can't name it-- I'm allowed to feel jittery. I'm allowed to feel heavy, whatever it is. And then slowly you build the skills to-- maybe you personify the part.

[00:50:36] You think of it as little you, or you think of it as another being that you're more compassionate to. Eventually, you get strong enough to be like, "This is me. This pain is me." And you get to experience it from the point of view of the pain being true. And then after every feeling session, you do cleanup, just like you do after you shit. Hopefully you wash your hands.

[00:50:56] It's like there are steps about self-care. What do you need? Reality testing, which is my version of, is this true? And I have my own unique spin on that where we really build that truth from the ground up versus coming in all hyperbolic and being like, "My needs is what makes me amazing."

[00:51:16] No, you don't believe that. If you say that, it's not going to do anything for you. But maybe what you would say to yourself after you felt how your needs might cause you to be alone forever, maybe what you would get to after a release like that, after a feeling session like that, maybe you'd say, "It's really sad that no one in my family knew how to support my needs. And so I learned that my needs were a problem."

[00:51:40] Whereas there's something that actually your wound, a part, believes, maybe you can at this point believe that you do think-- you're acknowledging, I do think this was a problem, or I did, and that the people around me weren't able to support me having needs. But it's a step out of that wounded experience, but one step versus 30 steps where you're still stuck.

[00:52:02] So learning to come in, be with what is. All the book, and I can get into more small steps, but ultimately learn to feel the pain that we're holding and that we're avoiding. And then learn to recover.

[00:52:15] Kate: I think a lot of us are feeling triggered in this day and age, and a feeling, there's so many, but besides anger and all of that. So I wouldn't have passed the test with your therapist, the mad, sad, glad, scared. Right now a feeling I'm experiencing in this home and this environment is discomfort.

[00:52:34] Last night I was so uncomfortable. There's always something going on with this house, and it stresses me out, like the traffic, or the chaos. And on one hand I try to--and I think a lot of us do this, go back to gratitude. And there are so many things I'm grateful for. For instance, the location and the city. Billion-dollar location. There's other things that are driving me crazy.

[00:52:55] I'm just bringing up this example because I want everyone to bring up an example. And then the feeling for me, if I was in a session with you, right now I'm like, "I'm so uncomfortable." And my whole body-- again, I'm in my body-- my body is like, "We got to go."

[00:53:07] And it was saying this months ago, even before the LA fires. I'm driving out of my driveway and my body's like, "I'm ready to go. I'm ready to leave." And I'm like, "I like LA and the weather, blah, blah, blah." My body's like, "I'm ready to go." And now it's screaming like a kid and I'm like, "Okay, honey. We got to find a new place to live." There's so many logistics. And then just the thought of packing again and all of that stress. So I need to be here now and be present.

[00:53:30] But I would love your feedback because whatever anybody's discomfort is right now in the world, pick your poison. How can we just move through this discomfort? Because my mind and body, it feels like splitting almost. My mind and body are saying different things, and they're at odds, and I'm trying to get everyone on board and be like, "We're going to be okay." But I hear my body or my inner child, like, "Make a plan, mom. Let's go." And I'm like, "Okay, okay."

[00:53:56] Rachel: Yeah. I think one thing that can be helpful is separating planning and choices from feelings. So making space to have the feelings. And so I would say, "Okay, I'm uncomfortable. How am I uncomfortable?" I think a really simple question is, do you feel activated and sped up? Do you feel frenetic, like you want to run?" And it sounds like yours was that way. A lot of people will feel paralyzed or collapsed.

[00:54:20] Kate: Yeah.

[00:54:20] Rachel: So emotions, the good news is, they're pretty simple. They move in basically two main directions. They can be explosive or implosive, and sometimes both. So anger is explosive. Sadness is implosive. It's a heavy, swampy pooling kind of feeling. Chest is heavy. Maybe for you, for sure, tears fall out of your eyes. Water falls out of your eyes. Fear can be both. We talk about flight and fight and also freeze.

[00:54:49] And then shame. And those are the four emotions other than happiness or glad that I work with. I work with shame more than my high school therapist did. But usually, if you're feeling shame or not worthiness, feeling unlovable, it's usually more of a heavy kind of collapsed feeling. But oftentimes to overcome it, we have to find that fight back, that frenetic energy.

[00:55:13] So the reason I bring that up is like, when you're flooded and overwhelmed and don't know how to know what's happening, a good question is, do I feel up or down? Do I feel frenetic or collapsed? And so you start by, okay, let me let myself feel bad. I would say like, "How am I uncomfortable?" And if you can get to a place where you're-- it sounds like, from what I heard from you, you're very scared.

[00:55:42] There's something in you that's saying no, and then you're full of fear around how to make the solution happen, and there's a lot of fear. So I would ask yourself, because fear is so dynamic, does the fear want to speed you up? Is it shutting you down? And then let's say you're like, "Okay, I'm sped up. I want to run, I want to get out of here." Maybe putting on a song, a frenetic song and jumping and shaking and erratically moving and giving yourself permission to go to the worst case scenario that's playing in the background.

[00:56:14] And just feel, oh my God. I'm like, "What if I don't get out in time and all the other people from LA bought all the good spots, or there's nothing going to be left and I'm going to be--" Just let yourself go there. But while trying to physicalize the emotion, and knowing that you're choosing, you're using your agency and power to turn toward the part of you that's in this feeling to allow it to emerge, to try to move it and almost exaggerate the process, then at the end of that, you're going to let yourself calm down.

[00:56:41] You're not going to make any choices from that state. That is not the time to sign any leases or tell people what you're doing. You just want to let yourself calm down and come back to baseline. And you would ask yourself questions like, given how scared I am, what do I need right now? Have I had food? Do I need water? Do I need a nap? What are the basic things I can do for myself?

[00:57:05] And then you would go to that reality tested, maybe looking at that worst-case scenario. And maybe you're remembering, maybe if you pictured yourself homeless and it's apocalyptic, you might say to yourself, I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but I know I have this amount of money.

[00:57:22] I have these three or four friends who would take me, and they would feed me if I were hungry in the gutter. You take a really basic look at like, what are things you can give to your little child that's scared, that part of you. And it might not be a child. It might be a grownup.

[00:57:37] There's plenty of things for the grownups to be scared about right now. What are the core commitments that are as basic as possible that will soothe that part? And then when you really feel recovered and that much lighter, that much less full of terror, then you might say, "Okay, what is the next step of determining what to do about my housing?"

[00:57:57] And maybe it's looking at other housing, maybe it's making a dream board. Once you're not blinded or flooded or stifled and repressed from all the feeling you're trying to avoid, you're clarity, your thinking, your intuition will be more online. It's very hard to know what to do when we're either flooded with emotion or desperately trying to avoid our emotion.

[00:58:20] That's when we don't really have our compass online. But once we have our big feeling dump and you might need to do it every day for a while, that would be very healthy. Just like we poop every day. You move the big feelings and you really try to look creatively and clearly and ideally, I would say, to ask yourself instead of, what should I do? Because should is always bound to all this conditioning and all this judgment that you're not okay. You're not enough as you are. What do I want? What would light me up? What do I want?

[00:58:48] Kate:  What do I want? Yeah. And I'm hearing too, just trust. And the thing is, I feel the solutions coming in, and I think sometimes we do just have to have that period of reflection and sit with the discomfort and sit with the options, possibilities. And for me, asking for help. And yes, there's physical people, but for me, I do believe in a higher power and be like, "What you got? And what's going on here?" I'm open. I'm ready. And then in the meantime, I love what you said about medicine. I'm like, "Go take my walk." I do all my wellness things. But you talk about no shopping in this month.

[00:59:22] Rachel: No, no [Inaudible]. Maybe you do need to shop.

[00:59:25] Kate: No, for me, I'm donating bags and bags of clothes, clothes that I like, clothes that haven't been worn, clothes that I'm like, "I can't--"

[00:59:33] Rachel: We should have a swap.

[00:59:35] Kate: I know. I'm like, "I can't believe I'm giving this away." But that's part of the release too and the medicine of helping other people and also just getting ready to pack lightly, if you will, that wherever I'm going, and I know it's a move soon, let's take less. And how good that will feel. And even then I'm like, "We got this." I do. I sometimes talk-- my inner child last night was really scared.

[00:59:57] It's like a mouse or a rat or something. I was hearing it. And again, I'm more scared of rodents than alligators and snakes. And it's dark and it's like, I'm used to apartment buildings. I'm in a single-family home. And it was just all those things. Talking to yourself like I'm the little puppy, like--

[01:00:15] Rachel: I love it.

[01:00:16] Kate: It's going to be okay. Maybe I'm choosing to be more scared about this than I think the bigger issues going on in our country and the world. And so I think you've been saying the word scared. I'm like, "I am scared." And I'm choosing to focus on the little mouse who's maybe trying to build a home, and my pest guy will come take care of it, rather than thinking of what's going on in the world that is truly horrifying to me. So I think a lot of us are feeling that fear and that angst, and that's hard.

[01:00:52] Rachel: What I'll say about that is that the bigger the feeling, the more connection we need to feel it. And a simple way to understand that is, if you went to the airport and you forgot to download your movie onto your device, the strength of the airport Wi-Fi is not going to get it onto your device most likely.

[01:01:11] No amount of time, usually, will enable a huge file to move on a shitty connection. And so it's a good way to think about the bigger the feeling, the more backlogged you are or the more uncertainty there is, the more like, oh my God, everything we know is being torn apart, you're going to need more of a connection to feel it.

[01:01:32] So that connection is understood in a couple ways. One is connection to yourself, to your parts, to your feelings, but also it's a connection to something bigger than us. And so that's where, it sounds like you have a sense trust that there's something bigger holding you.

[01:01:47] If you have that, that's a great way. How do you access that? Is it sitting in an altar? But it can be much more mundane than that. It might be putting on your favorite song, or putting on your sad mix, or putting on your scared mix. Could be getting into a bathtub and being held by the water.

[01:02:06] Could be sitting with your favorite tree and creating a relationship with a tree that you go to regularly to start to feel like I have something that I can plug into that will amplify my bandwidth so that I can then connect to these painful, big feelings and have them move.

[01:02:24] And that's why ideally your therapist is that, for anyone listening. If your therapist does not feel like a Wi-Fi hotspot for your connection to yourself, you want to look at if it's working. But I think right now a lot of people rely on humans for this job, which is beautiful, but also can be limiting.

[01:02:42] It's like if every time you had to shit, you had to find a friend who was willing to come into the shitter with you, it's stinky. It's limited. People are busy. People are flooded. And they're not always neutral. So ideally, we want to be able to know things we can do for ourselves, and this is a lot of what you get in my book, that will amplify our capacity to feel these big feelings so that sometime we can do it on our own.

[01:03:04] A lot of the time we can do it on our own. If it's late at night, your therapist is busy. Your friend is biased, whatever the thing is. And then it will be clear when we really need other human help, we can reach out for it.

[01:03:17] But just to have many tools in our boxes of being able to support ourselves having these big feelings. And right now all of the feelings people are dealing with, particularly in LA, particularly in the United States, they're big. They're big. And so we need to be very strong, and we need to be very connected. And so each listener could be like, "What helps me feel connected or held by something, and strong enough to actually feel how scared I am, or how sad I am, or how mad I am?"

[01:03:47] Kate: Yeah. How did writing and researching Feel, Heal, and Let That Shit Go and coming up with the emotional potty training change you and change your life?

[01:04:00] Rachel: Yeah. I would say it was like my life changed and then I wrote about it. I feel like probably I've been using the metaphor of poop about feelings probably 10 or 12 years. I've been writing about it and trying to share it with others for about eight years.

[01:04:18] It definitely focused me as a therapist. I'm almost at 20 years of being a therapist, and so I think that in the beginning I was really whimsically following the client. I was always a good therapist, partially just because I had been through hell and back by the time I was 18.

[01:04:33] It's my calling. This is the meaning of my life. This is what my life created me to do. But, I think I have a lot more of a sense of like, there are actually some things that need to be in place in order for people to be well. And so I'm more focused. You have to have the bulk of your parts somewhere online, not all tucked away in a basement.

[01:04:55] And then you have to be a functionally, emotionally regulated person. Meaning you can feel your feelings a bit. Move your feelings, not backlogged, not fully repressed and offline. Or else you're not going to be well. And so I think it's focused me. And also, the last 10 years have been such an entrepreneurial unending hustle.

[01:05:17] And I think that's part of the comedown I've been in post book coming out, is just slowing down and not pushing so much and seeing, evaluating how things are going. A lot of it's very practical as far as I bought a house in the desert right near you in Joshua Tree a couple years ago, which I love. And it's really a lot to buy a house I don't live in all the time.

[01:05:39] So I'm in a very different phase right now of trying to assess the practicalities of my life in this aftermath of this huge push. And I also have a full-time therapy practice, and I'm never going to stop sharing this because it feels like my gift to our breaking world, is to teach people how do you deal with your own brokenness, and how can you heal to the point of really knowing what your medicine to share is so that way everyone feels worthy of sharing their gifts, worthy of taking up space.

[01:06:10] And they can do it in a balanced way. They're not just martyring themselves or running themselves into the ground. I think healing is really part of the revolution. I'm not going to stop, but I did need to lay down for a minute.

[01:06:24] Kate: Yes, well-deserved rest. Yes. It's been a lot. And thank you so much for doing this work. I could talk to you all day, and there's a million questions, but what's a final thought that you'd love to leave us with as it relates to your work and us feeling and healing and just letting it all go, literally and figuratively?

[01:06:44] I don't know. I'm feeling like I just want some final thing that I can think of when I'm feeling a certain kind of way and that I can share with everyone who's listening. And then why I love doing this work too is then we get to be that for other people, therapist, coach, or otherwise, where it's just something that we can hold onto to really help us in times of need.

[01:07:05] Rachel: Absolutely. There's two ways to say it. The one I already said, which is, the only way, and it's certainly the fastest way, but I'd say the only way to feel better is to learn to feel as bad as you already feel. That is the fastest, truest way to feel better, is to be able to feel how bad you already feel.

[01:07:26] And then how we can use that practically if you're having a hard day, just remind yourself. Be that cheerleader that's like, "You just have to feel this. It's okay. You just have to see if you can just be with it." It's huge. It's a huge ask, but it's so close.

[01:07:43] It's so the opposite of the mindset, self-help, be better mentality, where you're going to try to solve it. The fix is just allowing. The word allowing. Permission. You're allowed to feel. You have permission to feel what you feel. And that is the fastest way to feel differently, is to let yourself feel that way.

[01:08:03] So just come back to basics. If you're feeling off and you notice, congratulate yourself and just give yourself permission. And maybe ask, "How can I set this up? How can I ritualize it to have a little feeling session so I can really be there with this feeling and see if I can help it move?" But at the end of the day, the good news is we can feel better, and to feel better, we have to feel as bad as we feel.

[01:08:27] Kate: So beautiful. Congratulations. It's also a moment to remind everybody to congratulate themselves on how far they've come, everything they've overcome, what they've talked about, what they haven't talked about, what they felt, what they are now going to feel, thanks to this conversation and thanks to your work.

[01:08:44] So thank you. And I think that's an important-- maybe you're not going to buy some clothes today, but I hope you can buy yourself something or just really take in-- your journey just brought me to tears, your bravery. Your book is so gorgeous. Feel, Heal, and Let That Shit Go. You have a podcast. You have the feelings movement. All your information's going to be in the show notes. Rachel Kaplan, thank you so much for being here today.

[01:09:08] Rachel: Thank you. Such an honor and joy to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me.

[01:09:12] Kate: It was so good. You'll have to come back and join us again. I'm feeling inspired, and now, when certain things come up, I'm like, "Girl, let that shit go." And remembering the ritual. And I think it's so powerful because we do go to the bathroom every day. And so it's that constant reminder now. So I'm glad it's in everybody's head. And maybe you'll think of us when you go to the bathroom and it'll be an even better experience.

[01:09:34] Rachel: Yeah. Beautiful.

[01:09:36] Kate: Thank you so much. And thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you. We'll see you right back here next time. Bye, everybody.