Lori Gottlieb on self-sabotage in dating and why change is hard

started a shopping trip. I'm sure you already know the first day. And the platform makes me no problem. I have a lot of problems, but the platform is not one of them. I have the feeling that shopping trip is connected to your platform.

Everything is super simple, integrated and balanced. And the time and the money that I can't invest in there. For everything, in VACSTOM. It's the customer's test and I'll shop if I point to the E. Every human being fantasizes, maybe imagines hitting the lot of, possibly finding that

lover they've always dreamt of, or perhaps carrying out a diabolical murder in the most brutal

way imaginable. Dr. Swartz was based down in a pool of blood, a renowned scientist killed in a murderous frenzy. Very, very gruesome and disturbing scene. Persons of interest obsessed with role-playing and the occult.

And at the center of it all, a twisted leader called the Lord of Chaos, and a killer hiding behind a mask of sanity. "We're here now, I can smell blood." From Sony Music Entertainment and Em William Phelps LLC, Fatal Fantasy, available now on the bench, search for Fatal Fantasy, wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today.

All right guys, I'm Carl Radke and welcome to more life. Today is a very, very special episode. I've got one of my favorite people ever. I met her very early on in my sobriety journey. We've got Lori Gottlieb.

She's a psychotherapist. She's a New York Times bestselling author. She's a TED Talk speaker.

“She's the author of maybe you should talk to someone.”

You might have seen this book.

If you haven't, I highly recommend checking out. It's something that changed my life and has been a huge part of my story. She also has the co-host of a podcast called Dear Therapist and also since you ask, she answers questions. It's an amazing column.

I love Lori. I hope you guys love her as much as I do. I'm excited to dive in. We are here live in Los Angeles at Sony Studios. Can't wait for you guys to listen to this conversation.

Lori Gottlieb, welcome to more life. It's great to see you. Great to see you too. Thanks for coming. I feel like you were coming from New York right now.

Yes. And I'm in LA. Normally, I'm in New York. You're normally the worst. We're switched.

I've got to make this work. I'm just honored you would come and take the time. I've been a big fan of your work. I just want to remind some of our listeners and the watchers. I got a chance to discover Lori's book.

Maybe you should talk to someone. It was around 2019, 2020. I was really going to go through my own personal stuff, realizing that I had an alcohol problem. I had a drug problem.

And I wasn't really being honest with my therapist. I wasn't seeing a therapist as often. And there's something about the way you shared your personal experience, but also your therapist yourself. Just the thought of that therapist having a therapist was like mind blowing to me.

And a lot of what you talked about in the book was really helpful to me at the beginning of my journey. So I just wanted to thank you. Yeah. We had a conversation back then.

We did back in the IG live days. Exactly. It's a testament to who Lori is. She responded to my message. I reached out to you because I want to do an Instagram live.

You wrote back right away, super friendly and responsive. Just so as you know, this podcast is called "More Life." Mm-hmm. It's one of my favorite songs I used to say it on Bravo. Yeah.

“For many years, Lori, could you give me an example like my mantra "more life"?”

Do you have anything that you embody or saying?

You know, it's so interesting because I never thought do I have a mantra, but no, I realize

like in front of my desk, I have this quote which is about joy in the snow, and so my mantra is joy in the snow, and the quote is, if you don't see the joy in the snow, you're going to miss the joy, but the snow will still be there. And I love that because no matter what's going on, like you're not necessarily going to take away the other stuff, but you're missing the joy.

Oh, like that. Yeah. Now you are a licensed psychotherapist? Yes. Okay.

You hear psychology. You hear therapy. Right. You hear counseling. You hear drugs.

You know, there's so many various areas. I'm wondering if you could maybe explain something to misunderstandings. Yeah. People who do therapy, so psychiatrists do therapy, psychologists do therapy, psychotherapists do therapy, some social workers do therapy.

But I think what people have misconceptions about is what therapy is. Like if someone says, I want to go to therapy, what do they think the experience is going to be like?

“And that's why, and maybe you should talk to someone, I follow the lives of four of my patients”

as they go through various things. And you can see, what is it like to be a fly on the wall in the room? What actually happens in the room? And then I'm the fifth patient in the book, and you see me go to therapy because I'm going through something, and I need to go get my own therapy.

So what I wanted people to do was to see that therapy is, you know, it's not where you're going to come, and they're just going to validate your experience and say that you're right. And, you know, it's really about looking at your role in your own life, and looking at the

to tell them about this thing, and they're going to say, yeah, that's so hard.

And these other people are terrible.

“But like, like, coddle you or something.”

Well, it's like the difference between, I talk about in the book, the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. So idiot compassion is what your friends do. You know, you say, like, oh, this person broke up with me or my boss did this or my mother did this, and they say, yeah, you're right.

They're wrong. You deserve better. You go girl. Yeah. Right.

That's not necessarily helpful because sometimes it's like idiot compassion. That's idiot compassion. Like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you, do we say that to our friends? Well, hopefully your friends can be honest with you, but sometimes they're hesitant

to because you are not ready to hear it. Sure. And so in therapy, to answer your question about what therapy is, in therapy, we offer wise compassion, which is we hold up a mirror to you to help you to see something about yourself that maybe you haven't been willing or able to see.

It's not that the thing that you said is untrue, meaning the other thing did happen, the interaction did happen. But what was your role in it? Are you responding? Are you reacting?

Do you have choices? Are you in a pattern where you keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting something different to happen? What's going on there?

“So that's where I think therapy can be really useful.”

It's a really good explanation. I think more, the more I'm trying to talk about therapy is, for me, person, I started going to therapy as a, with my family in fifth grade. And my brother had struggles, and as a family unit, we collectively would go to a weekly session, and as a fifth grader, I was maybe 12, 13, it was confusing, because I was so afraid

at that time to tell anybody about therapy. I even mentioned it, I think, to some friends, they'd be like, you're crazy. You're screwed up. So I had this weird kind of relationship with therapy at a younger age, because it was

always so intense, and it felt like it was for someone else, not necessarily for me.

You know, that's interesting because I think that when you look at people think of mental health as different from physical health, even though it's all health, and your physical health, affects your mental health, your mental health, affects your physical health. And so if someone said, look, you know, I'm having chest pain, would you say, oh, but it's not that bad, because someone else has stage four cancer, right?

There's no hierarchy of pain. If you fall down and break your wrist, you're not like, well, it's not that bad. I'll just kind of live with it, but people do that with their emotional health. So what they do is they say, well, I'm feeling kind of depressed, or maybe I'm feeling really sad.

I'm feeling anxious. Having this relational difficulty, but it's not that bad, because I have a roof over my head and food on the table, and I have maybe great friends or a loving family. So it's not that bad. So therapy is not really for people like me, and that's where people struggle.

And it's kind of like, if you don't come to therapy, there's a study that shows that

the average amount of time that elapses between the time that someone first thought,

they might go to therapy, and when they actually get there, 11 years. Wow, 11 years. So people have suffered unnecessarily for whether it's days or weeks or months or decades. Or 10 years, 10 or 11 years. I use this as an example for friends when they're like telling me about their fear of therapy.

And I say, well, you go to the gym to work out, maybe get stronger, or more lean, or more fit. Yeah. I view therapy is the same thing, but for your brain. It's been working out your brain, and you're sure the first session, maybe you might

be a little sore after it, but over time, it builds up itself. And it builds. But that's the only metaphor I can find that kind of makes sense, but it's interesting. Like, you wouldn't give someone a hard time if they had cancer, or, you know, it's some of the mental illnesses that are out there.

It's like it's hard to see it. Right. Like, someone just wrote, I write the acid therapist column for the New York Times, it's an advice column. And someone just wrote in, it said, my friend is flaking on me a lot.

And she mentioned that she's struggling with depression, but I'm really tired of her flaking as and I said, in my answer, if she had cancer, and we just use that as a place-all, but she had any kind of physical illness that would make sense to you in a different way, sure you might be a little frustrated with the flaking, but you'd probably respond to it differently than as if she has a choice.

“And I think that's where the stigma comes in with therapy, people think, well, you have”

a choice. You're sad, be happy, you're anxious, do meditate, you know, whatever it is. Like, as if you're just supposed to kind of buckle up and care about yourself. Well, I want to explore that a little bit, because I think sometimes the self-talk and things that I personally, like, I could have a really happy and confident, and then sometimes

I have this voice in my head that's like, you're not good enough, you know, we're the less than. And I worry sometimes that can cloud the thought, but versus I read a lot about people like, it's all about that self-talk and like, wake up in the morning and really even if things are hard, I was psyching yourself like, no, it's okay.

Like, I don't like, is there a connection between what you're saying there? Like, yeah. I mean, I think that's where the societal stigma creeps in, like, we think I shouldn't feel this way. Yeah, you're not supposed to, or it's like, you're flawed or screwed up.

Whereas that's the gamut of emotions.

That's the human condition. Yeah. But I also think the way we talk to ourselves, we're not really aware of.

“And I have so many people who come to me, and they say, well, myself horribly, right?”

Right. I think you're aware of it. You're aware of it. You're aware of it. But some people aren't, and they don't realize that the stories that we tell ourselves

in our head are stories that we're told to us by the culture, by the people who brought us up, by whatever we were surrounded by, and we took them as truth. And then we talked to ourselves that way. It's really interesting because we're not born saying, like, you're so stupid. You're not good enough.

That's how we're born. Yeah. And I think we have this idea that if we're hard on ourselves, that somehow we're going

to improve and get better.

But the thing about that is that when we kind of say it's hard to form new habits, it's hard to do something different. And instead of saying, this is hard, and I'm going to have self-compassion as informing this new habit, if we say, you say, I'm going to exercise this amount, and then you don't do it, you say, well, I guess I failed at that, forget that.

It's kind of like if you had a kid, and they did badly on a test. And they came home and they said, I really did badly on this test. Would you scream at them? Do you think that that's going to help them? Or would you say, hey, let's understand what happened.

So it's self-compassion with accountability. And people think you're not going to have accountability if you're nice to yourself. They don't understand that you can be nice and hold yourself accountable. So let's see, did you just not study?

“Was it too hard for you or you're afraid to ask for help?”

Did you want to play video games instead? Yeah. Like, get the bottom of it more than just like, yeah, so that you can actually solve it. But you don't have to tell yourself, I'm horrible. I'm stupid.

I'm bad. That's not helpful. It helps a little bit in the short term. It does not help at all in the long term. OK.

What's the difference between that and humility? Because sometimes I try to humble myself or be self-deprecating. And I almost feel like there's a reason I do that is I'm going to be my own worst enemy. So no one else could even touch that. It's not going to hurt me because I can't fire me.

I quit. Exactly. I don't know. Can you make a connection with some of that? It's self-protective.

It sounds like you're protecting yourself. Whatever you say to me won't even get me or what I say to myself. Having less of my self versus thinking on the greatest things in sliced bread. But you know, with so on Instagram or social media, you hear a lot about narcissism. And it's just completely misunderstood.

So narcissism, that's people who feel really bad about themselves. And so in order to deal with the pain and the discomfort and the shame that comes with that, they inflate themselves. Sure. Not that they actually are super confident or conceited.

It's that they feel less than. And they have to make themselves. So if you're on one end of a spectrum or the other, that's not, that's not wholeness. That's not groundedness. That's not a strong, what we call strong sense of self.

Strong sense of self is I know what my challenges are. I know what my strengths are and I'm okay with it all. Okay. I think I'm that last part. Early striving to get that part.

Yeah. And I wanted to do this podcast was like, really, I'm still on this search to learn and understand myself better because I, you know, it's just be five years January 7th that I celebrated, getting sober and. Congratulations.

Thank you. It's changed my life. But I will say in the last year, you know, I feel a sense of more confidence in my body. But then I have these moments and I've opened up recently more about imposter syndrome. And I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about that.

I've opened up to some people in my similar field where they have a following and they open up about their ups and downs publicly. But I sometimes I'm like in these rooms or at these events and I'm like, I'm my supposed to be here. Like, but I've realized that a lot of people feel like that could be an entrepreneur or

starting a new business. It could be a sober person, newly sharing his story publicly. I don't know. I guess sometimes like I feel like I'm not supposed to be there, but then everybody's so glad I am.

So it's like this weird juxtaposition sometimes. I don't have you ever.

“No, I think a lot of a lot of people, what happens is they imagine that other”

people don't feel that way. So you walk into that room and you see all these impressive people and you think, well, they don't feel this way. They know that they belong there. Okay.

I like that. Every human being fantasizes may be imagines hitting the lot of possibly finding that

lover they've always dreamt of or perhaps carrying out a diabolical murder in the most

brutal way imaginable. Dr. Swartz was based down in a pool of blood, a renowned scientist killed in a murderous frenzy, a very gruesome and disturbing scene. Persons of interest obsessed with role playing and the occult and at the center of it all, a twisted leader called the Lord of Chaos and a killer hiding behind a mask of sanity.

We're here now, I can smell blood. On Sony Music Entertainment and M. William Phelps LLC, Fatal Fantasy, Available Now on the

Infamous is the gossip show that's smart. We talk about Tyra Banks and bringing down top model. We talk about Jenna Jamison and how she dominated the 90s. You know, she's horny and she's in charge. She just was very smart about marketing herself. We talk about celebrities who maybe shouldn't be celebrities like the Beckham guy.

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amazing. Listen to Infamous, the gossip show that's smart, the show's called Infamous. And I remember when I got to college and the first thing at the first convocation, they said, "I'll bet that a lot of you are looking around. How did they pick me? What am I doing here?"

And I felt that I remembered that all these years later because I think so many of us do

that. We look around and we think nobody else doubts themselves. Nobody else is wondering, "Wow, do I really belong here? All of these impressive people are here. Am I in the right place?" But I think that the comparison thing can be really dangerous. The problem with comparison is it either you feel superior to other people, which means

that you don't actually see other people and you inflate your own worth, or you feel inferior to them and you don't feel good enough. So I think that when you start to feel that imposter syndrome, it's more about how do I feel about myself and where I am in relation to my own growth and my own trajectory, instead of looking around at other people.

It's the comparison that I'm running into. And I admire a lot of individuals in the behavioral

health community and the mental health community and athletes and music.

“So here's the thing that I think is interesting. People don't like to feel envy, right?”

And there are certain times when people say, "Oh, these are the bad feelings and these are the good feelings." Like a bad feeling is sadness, anxiety, envy, whatever those things are. And the good feelings are joy, right? All feelings are information. Feelings are like a compass. They tell you what you want. They tell you what direction to go in, just like a compass does. So when you feel envy, like when I feel envy, I'm like,

that's great. I welcome it. Come here, envy, talk to me because it says, "I have a desire for something. I'm alive and I want this and I'm excited about it." And I don't have it yet. But now, if I can acknowledge that I want it, then I can sit down and say, "How can I get whatever version of that works for me?" So I don't want to be the other person or do exactly what they're doing. But it points me in a direction of, "Oh, I really want

that." And now, I'm going to sit down and take some steps to get there. So listen to your envy. Yes, follow your envy. It tells you what you want. And so many people deny their envy. And then they don't follow their dreams, or they don't follow things that they want to do because they're so busy saying, "Oh, I feel so much shame when I feel envious. I'm going to push it away and not listen to the message that it's

delivering to me." That's something. I mean, I totally love and believe in the listening to your body and your feeling and honoring that. There was a period of time when I was drinking using a lot of cocaine where I wasn't, the body was telling me the truth that I was listening to it. And now in my sobriety and just really trying to take care of myself, I really, my body knows. Yes. And it's kind of cool if you can trust and listen, but it

took some time to get there. And your body will revolt if you go a long period of time

“and not listen to it. Yeah. I mean, could you give examples of how that might manifest?”

One is feeling anxious, right? But they kind of ignore it and they kind of rationalize it away. Oh, I'm just stressed. Oh, I, you know, they have all kinds of reasons for it. At a certain point, they're going to start making really bad choices because they're going to be making choices out of fear instead of out of desire. Sure. And I think also their anxiety gets in the way of relationships. I think we live in an anxiety generation

or like a culture of anxiety with, you know, how connected we are or disconnected we are. The more we talk about that, the more people will say, Oh, I'm having trouble with this. I'm going to do something about it instead of just white knuckling it through every day. And that's, I think as a male, sometimes we're kind of taught to be that way, you know, young boys, tough it out kid, you know, grinning bare at it. And let me tell you, as the mom of a boy,

I'll tell you the differences when he's a mom of a boy, just so very scared. Yeah. I was just going to say, I noticed the gender difference from very early on. Like, if my son was like two and he fell off the jungle gem, what would people say, Oh, just, you know,

over. Are you okay, honey? Let me give you a hug. Why do we do that? So what happens is

“these boys and girls grow up and they come into my office and they become my patients.”

And the men will say to me, you know, I've never told anyone this before. Literally,

they have not told a soul, even if they have a great marriage, great friends, great family, they've told no one. Women will come in and they'll say, you know, I've never told anyone this before, except for my mother, my sister, my best friend, my aunt, my, right? So they've told a few people because it's okay in our culture. So when you say, you know, as a man, yes, you know, these conversations, I think that people need to realize that it's

not like emotions are in the realm of women and that men don't feel and think and struggle with all of the same things. The kinds of things that men and women coming with are so incredibly similar. How can I love and be loved? How do I feel about myself? What does it mean to be a good human being? What does it mean to be successful in life? What do I do with regret? What do I do with bad decisions? Yeah, it's all on both sides. Yeah, it's just so interesting

worry. I'm always in just blown away by some of the information. So I get a ton of questions

over here at more life, ranging from sobriety, recovery, mental health. And this is a topic

“that I think is super important. People ask me, Carl, I know I need a therapist, where do”

I find one? How do I find one? How do I know who to trust? And I myself, it took me a few different therapists to get to the final therapist that I've been working with. I had trust in you guys. I know it's not super easy. But I've got a great solution for you guys. Taukayoetry gives you access to real psychiatric care with licensed clinicians who can diagnose and prescribe medication. If it's right for you, it's a simple way to get effective treatment

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through Taukayoetry. Head to Taukayoetry.com/life and complete the short assessment to get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in minutes. That's Taukayoetry.com/life to get matched in minutes. So varieties help to me so much as I told you, but it also has kind of changed on my emotional capacity and how do I socialize? How it's like really changed me totally. I watch myself on reality TV old seasons and I cringe and it's almost like how that was me. How do people

grieve the version of themselves that they had to let go? Like sometimes I have friends that grieve the old Carl. They're like a kind of miss old Carl. You know, he's a little bit spicy with his mouth and he'd say something ridiculous. And maybe he was like really outlandish and fun. But I don't miss him. All right. So first of all, when we make a change, there's the difference between a virtuous cycle and a vicious cycle. So before you make the

change during this vicious cycle, you're repeating patterns over and over. When you start to make the change when you're in the maintenance phase, which just keeps going, but it gets easier, new things happen that are good. Like with sobriety, for example, I'm more present. And when I'm more present, I get more done. And I'm meeting people who are maybe really good for me and I wouldn't have met them otherwise. And I'm less reactive. And I don't do things where I embarrass myself anymore.

So it's this virtuous cycle like good things happen because you're making the change. You know, it's like a snowball effect. But the other thing is, when someone makes a change,

the people in their world, they don't always like the fact that you're making the change,

which is what you're speaking to. Yeah. So sometimes, like, let's say that you're in a couple, and one person says, you know, I'm going to stop. I'm going to drink less. And the other person drinks too much. Like you both drink too much. But one person says, you know, I'm going to try to drink less. And your partner doesn't like that very much because now they're forced as like a mirror as in front of them. And they're forced to see actually drink a lot. And so what they say to

“their partners, you're no fun anymore. Why can't we go to this bar and drink this much anymore?”

You know, like you've lost your personality. And it's just because they don't like the change in the other person because it reflects on them that, oh, wait, maybe I need to change it. I don't want to change. I'm not ready to change. It's funny. I mean, that's a great example because I, when I before I had gotten sober, I was, I remember this vividly, I went to a World Cup Soccer game. It was USA versus Mexico in a friend of mine invited a friend of his from California.

We were tailgating at MetLife Stadium in New York. And we're outside and soccer fans are going crazy.

I'm sober. I'm like, there's like, oh, come on. I gave him a hard time. Yeah. I actually

haven't reached out to him since I've just admitted this, but I want to text him and say, like, I'm sorry, because I was kind of an asshole to him, but it was that mirror. And like that feeling of weight. Like, you're not, and he had a great day. He was fun and happy. He was in a good space. Guess what? I was a disaster. I was drunk. I was feeling really remember the game. But it was my behavior towards him and it reminded me that even now, since I've gotten sober,

that kind of when someone's uncomfortable with your change or your choice, it almost points that light and kind of what they're uncomfortable inside of their body. I mean, you said most people don't fear change. They fear the grief that comes with it, right?

“Well, I think that's why they fear change, just because it's because of the loss they feel,”

they fear the loss of the familiar for the unknown. It's something I'm still grieving. I mean, I feel like I'm still actively grieving. Can you talk about just that grief isn't just a one-time thing, right? No. I mean, you know, life is full of loss. Yeah. And I feel it at all different times. And that whole people think that there's that rubric of the stages of grief, right? But those were actually movies. It was like, and it was a Billy Crystal. And there was a movie

he talks about grief. And it's like these stages. And it's almost like denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Those are Elizabeth Kubleros. She came up with those. But they were not for someone who's experiencing grief of the loss of something outside of them. They were for terminally ill patients. And how they deal with the loss of their own life that was impending, right? So how do you deal with the fact like, I am dying, and this is making

me grief. So people have adapted them. They also think that they're sequential, as if you're going to go through them and locked up, denial, and anger. We're all like, and you and said, you bounce around in them, right? Well, I feel like it's like in our society, we want that like quick fix. It's like you do this. Then you do that. And then you're fixed. And it's like it's not like

“that. Right. But I think that again, going back to why changes so hard in the grief and the loss”

around it. And there's something else that comes into play, which is when I was in therapy. And I wrote about this in the book, my therapist said to me, he said, you know, you remind me of this cartoon. And it's of a prisoner shaking the bars desperately trying to get out. But on the right

in the left, it's open. No bars. So why? Why do we first of all not see that it's open? And if we do,

why don't we just walk around the bars? That's change. The reason we don't walk around the bars is because with freedom comes responsibility. And so if we walk around the bars, we can blame all of our lives problems on circumstances and this thing out there and that thing out there. And that's not to say, by the way, that there aren't incredibly difficult circumstances in the course of our lives. But at the end of the day, we are responsible for our own lives and our own choices

within the parameters of what our circumstances are. So I think that a lot of people say, well, I'd rather just shake the bars and blame it on anything but me than walk around and feel like, well, now I'm responsible and that scares that, can I say shit? Absolutely. That scares the shit out of us. I mean, you encapsulated that I think so well. I've in my past that I can see the cartoon, you know, it almost looks like a New Yorker cartoon to me is like, you know,

the therapist telling the patient. He's right in front of the bars and there's plenty of room. It's open. On either side. It's like that fear of, yes, the change. And I've said this to some friends and people that are afraid to maybe go to an AA meeting for the first time or afraid to call a therapist for the first time. And on the other side of that fear is for me personally has

always been like a small glimmer of like hope and like growth. Yeah. And that little for me

person that feeling also almost like, it outweighs that fear after I do it. It's like the weirdest feeling. It's so scary. And once you get through the door, you're like, oh, and I got a little something out of it. It's such a relief. Yes. Yeah. But it's like, I don't know how to help people understand. Like, of course, it's like, it's hard to step through the change and all that. But I'm like, if you're that down, like, don't you aren't you willing to want to just feel? I think that for a

lot of people and we deal with this in therapy, the problem isn't that they don't see that glimmer of hope. It's that it feels so overwhelming to them. And so I always say, if you can't do something,

“it means that the steps are too big. You have to take smaller steps. So what is this first”

small thing that you can do right now? Just one small tiny, tiny thing. And if even that feels too overwhelming, let's break it down even smaller. So that you can just do, because you want to create something where you have some success. Like, I did that small thing. Like, I was going to react this way. And I counted to 10 in my head. And I took a breath. And I didn't yell. Something small like that. I love the small wind stuff. And you actually reminded me of something

I've talked about, which is one of my favorite books outside of yours. He was a US general, Admiral McCraven wrote about making your bed every morning. Yes. It was a commencement speech.

in the first thing in the morning. Yes, like these small things that you can do that change the

course of the next minute or hour or day or week. Yeah, you've like set yourself up for like a small wind. Yeah. And like that accomplishment. It's silly as tucking in the sheets and putting your

“pillows on. Well, it also has to do with how do you respect yourself and take care of yourself?”

So do you want to treat yourself well? What are some things that you can do to treat yourself? Well, there are people that we call help rejecting complainers. We all know that people who I have been that we've all encountered them. It's the people who they just want to complain. They just want to tell you like what their problems are. And when you say what if you try this or how about this or have you thought about this? They say that won't work or I can't do that. And here's why

and they don't actually want a solution because they don't want to take the next step. I try them. I best to not complain because I try to offer you know gratitude and being grateful for everything. I do have and like not get caught up in all of that. It's something I think about a lot. Well, I think there's a difference between saying I'm having difficulty with this and I want to talk with you about it versus just coming back with the same story of

I'm helpless and there's nothing I can do. And I don't really want any help. I just want to vet. Now, when people first come to you with something, you know, help hug her. Do you know what that is? No. No. When people come to you with something, sometimes we think that what we would want in that situation is what they want in that moment. So they come to you. They've got this thing. They're they're having a problem. Do they want help? Like do they want to kind of brainstorm

with you? Do they just want to hug or do they just want to be heard? Do they just want to vent and tell you what happened? Because once you find out what they want, maybe then a few days later. Let's say they're just like, I just want to tell you what happened. I'm so upset about this. I just want to tell you what happened. Okay. I'm here to listen. Great. And then a few days later,

“they might be like, so remember that thing I told you about the other day? I'm still thinking”

about it. I don't know what to do. Can we talk about this? So different times people might want different things. That's what I'm thinking. But that's how you get out of that cycle of just someone complaining and then you're trying to fix it for them. But they don't want to hear that at that moment and then you just get into this pattern. Help hug herd. Yes. I like that. I haven't heard that one. And I'm all I like to hug. There's something about that, I don't know, it just brings

a safety and a comfort, even meeting someone new for the first time. Yes, and it regulates your

nervous system. Okay. Good. Because I've always felt safer and more comfortable, even in

meeting someone and interacting with them if I've given them the hug beginning. Yeah. And that's what we call to in parent child couples, friends, co-regulation is that we actually regulate each other's nervous systems with touch, with safe touch. And something I'm curious like with family and just environment, you mentioned just like some of those circumstances that people have. Of course, there's very, very difficult things that people have. But some of the complaining and some of the

the hereditary component, like this is no shade of my parents, like the family I grew up in it sometimes. There was an Arab negativity, like waiting for the shoe to drop. You know, there was always challenges in the family. You know, my brother had some ups and downs and it was always kind of

“the air of what's going to go wrong next. Yeah. And sometimes I think for me, getting out of that”

kind of family environment where that was kind of the mood. Yeah, where you're hyper-vigilant. Yes, but then sometimes I go back home to visit. And I get that Arab negativity tiny bit and I'm like, this is why I got out of Pittsburgh a little bit. But I'm trying to think about how do I bring some of this kind of, I don't know, information too. Like how do I break the family cycle? So some people who grew up that way, they have what we call Cherofobia, which is a fear of joy,

because when you're in Cherofobia, how do you spell it? Cherofobia, so Cherof is joy and phobias fear.

So fear of joy. And it means like you always think that the other she was going to drop, like

that kind of how I feel like. Right. And so what happens is you feel like, you know, you're going about your day as a kid and then like you think everything's fine and then the other shoe drops. And that keeps happening. So you start to feel uncomfortable when you're comfortable because you think like, well, at any moment, this could end and I've got to be really, just as I said, hyper vigilant. So I can't really sit with that feeling and sink into it with that good feeling,

that comfortable feeling, that safe feeling. And even people around joy, they feel like, well, yeah, this great thing happened, but I can't get too happy about it because something bad is going to follow it. And that's, I mean, I will say my sobriety will prior to sobriety. I have these massive highs and then these massive lows. But now it's almost like a wave. And I've learned to appreciate that more than anything because those highs were, of course,

they felt so good that that low was horrible and debilitating and took a few days to even get out of. But now it's like this wave, I kind of ride. Yeah, I like the wave. I kind of think of

too shall pass. I think the people think like, if I get sad, I'll never get out of that. You know,

“like, when you're feeling sad sometimes you feel like, well, I'm going to feel sad. But then you”

realize like the next day, it feels different, um, and grief a lot of people experience this. They say, well, I will never feel happy again. And then somehow they find themselves dancing or laughing at a joke or having a good time. And they think, well, how could I possibly feel that way when I'm also so devastated about the loss of some person that they love? I'm value about that up because I mean, I lost my brother to an overdose in 2020. And the way I learned about it was while

we were filming the reality show I've been on. And it was, I mean, it's tragic. It was really difficult. But it was a shock to me. And it was a reason I had to like look in the mirror and actually like get the help I needed. But with grief and like losing a family member, I after that at all transpired, I did get sober. And he was a huge catalyst for that. But I was being praised in a way, almost for like how I was kind of navigating this new chapter of my life. But I would have given

any amount of money to get my brother back and do whatever it takes. So it's kind of, it's been this like, um, I don't know if it's not imposter, but like, I'm sad about my brother not being here. But then look at all these things that have happened to my life. And I've broken down on TV in the past about, I've been afforded and given a lot of opportunities. I've been very lucky since my brother's been gone and getting sober, getting the support I needed. I've

opened up and tried to help. And that it still doesn't take away that like sadness and of course. And kind of like, I miss him. Yeah. But the, you know, it goes into the stories that we tell ourselves that your story is somehow that if you enjoy all of the things that have happened since he died, that somehow you don't feel sad about the fact that he died. Yeah. And it's both. It's, you know, both and. It's a great, true. Both and. Yeah. I like, because I, that's exactly you encapsulated

very well. It's like, I almost have been upset at myself some days, because things are going so well. You know, I've had success with this or something really positive there. I've helped support someone. And I'm like, not sad about my brother. And I almost like get angry at myself for like,

“you should be still sad. He passed away four and a half years ago. Like, why aren't you crying?”

And it's like, this weird, when I do get the feeling of crying, I'm like, almost happy because it shows I care. But it doesn't mean that you don't care if you're not sad all the time. And I think that people who are grieving feel that so much. And they just don't understand grief. Yeah. That, that hits me really hard. Because that's like, I'm, is about as accurate as I feel sometimes with just the things that have transpired over the last five years. And since he's been gone, you know,

I've, I can't understand. I've been so lucky and had a lot of great things happen to me. And some ups and downs for sure. But it doesn't take away that feeling of like, I would do anything to have him back. But here I am, like, having all this growth and all these, like, really amazing

things in my life because he's gone. And it's like, this kind of, this thing I always think about.

But I appreciate letting me kind of open up about it. I mean, grief is so unique. And, and there's some universal around it. But it's also a very personal experience. Yeah. And sometimes people don't understand the other side of grief, which is say that there's a big loss, you know, say someone had a divorce or they had a miscarriage or there was a death. And it's been like two years. And people will think, well, this isn't healthy. Why aren't you moving on? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's like, you don't move on. You move forward in your life. But you don't necessarily move on that that experience gets integrated into the life that you're living. So you keep living your life in, and you find ways to move forward. But it's so interesting that people think that grief is this one-and-done thing. Like, you go through some process, you're done, we're done, grief is past, check that box. Yeah, the grief academy, yeah, past the flying colors. Yeah, I'm good to go.

And even, you know, like years later, like, someone will feel whatever they feel. And grief stays with you forever, depending on what it was. And it doesn't mean that you haven't moved forward.

“But to save somebody, well, that happened. Oh, well, you know, that's what it sounds like to people.”

Well, I think give yourself the opportunity to grieve. Yes. I feel like some people don't. Yeah. And I've been in a weird position because, not a weird position. I'm grateful for the position, but just in the manner that I learned about his passing. And it was a part of the show. And it was something that was published, you know, very public. And I think for me, I've, like, tried to learn to have more compassion for myself. But it's something on the actively working on.

I'm curious, like, I can be really hard of myself. I'm probably my own host enemy. And as we talked about before, it was like this, it's like a safety thing. It's like, okay,

no one's going to say anything that I've never said to myself, you know, or someone's going to be

meaner to me than I'm to myself. How do you tell the difference between being accountable to yourself?

Because I ran a small example a couple of years ago on summer house that we did a reunion. And I had been through a lot of stuff and had a lot to explain and talk about. And I really was trying to be accountable. And after it ended, one of my friends was like, Carl, you like, went 300 times more accountable and you ever needed to be. Like, you're, you're, your, your way to, like, yes, there were things I owed apologies in a justification or explanations. But also just being honest and saying,

I fucked up and I'm sorry. But I did it like to an extra, extra level. And she was like calling the

out for it. I'm just curious like, how, how do you can talk through that? That goes into, first of all,

“just how do you feel aligned with yourself? So I think that when you're talking about accountability,”

it's, I did something that doesn't align with how I want to be in the world. Exactly. And so that's what accountability looks like. And it also goes this question of apologies. And who is the apology for? So when people go overboard with the apology, it, at a certain point, it doesn't feel genuine. It starts to feel like, I need forgiveness from you. Yes. I need something from you. I'm not offering you this gift of an apology. I'm asking you for something back. And apologies are not asking the

other person to give you something back. And apologies are gift that you give to someone else that is genuine with no expectation of anything in return. I say sorry too much. And I have some friends

of mine that are like, you don't need to be sorry for that. Is that there's some connection to

that, too? Yeah, I mean, that's the other side of it. Sometimes they're therapy and it's so funny that it's happening in therapy because like there's literally boxes of tissues all around you. And people will start apologizing for crying. It's kind of like, if you're going to be anywhere, that's the place to cry. Yeah, you're right. You know, that's why you're surrounded by tissue boxes. So they'll say, like, oh, I'm so sorry. And I wonder, I start to wonder, you know,

“where did you get the message that you need to apologize for your feelings? Who told you that?”

And so that might be, you know, when you're growing up, and sometimes parents can be uncomfortable with their kids' feelings. Because they love their kids so much and they don't want their

kids to be uncomfortable. And it causes a lot of discomfort in the parents. So the kid says,

oh, I'm really sad. Someone so didn't sit with me at lunch today. And the parents like, let's go get yogurt. Like, let's go get ice cream. Yeah. Um, let's go to Disneyland. You know, I was supposed to like, well, let's, that's okay. Like, that makes sense that you feel sad. And so we try to talk them out of their feelings. Don't feel sad. Don't feel anxious. Don't be angry. No matter what, right?

Oh, my, my sibling did this. Oh, don't be angry. You know, it's like, but they did something that would make any human angry. That's, I'm having a normal reaction to this. But my parents is telling me, um, I shouldn't feel that way. So when you get talked out of your feelings when you're younger, then later you talk yourself out of your feelings and you apologize every time you have them. So you do that in your relationships. You might do it in the therapy room. You're having a feeling.

I'm crying. I'm anxious. I'm angry. And then you start apologizing for having a normal human reactions to something. Is this so good, Lori? Um, I guess like, what is self-compassion look like when you made major public mistakes? And I'm one of those, you know, I've had some really, you know, not so great moments on TV. I've treated people I love and care about poorly. I've, yeah,

“not handled things well. And I think I still, I'll give you a quick example. There's a friend of mine”

who was on our reality show season four, which is back in 2018. There's a moment that kind of stands out from that season. I, I screamed at her and yelled at her. I was really drunk and under the influence. And that moment, I still, I got a message last week. Hey, Carl, I'm watching. You were the biggest, you know, A whole, all these things. And I was like, so I've made a mess to her. I've done work. I'm still friendly with her. We talk every once in a while. Every year, I'll message her, hey,

I'm so sorry that would happen. But because of the world I've been in with reality TV, that episode will occasionally rear and someone's watching it thinking it's current time. And I get these messages and I understand where they're coming from. Because I watched this moment back and I'm, I hated myself for this. And it's still bothers me, deep down. Like, I, I, she forgave me. And we're cool. She almost told me to stop apologizing to her about it. But there's something in it that these

other folks are really bothered and upset by it. And it's new to them. And then they're coming to me sharing that frustration and feeling. And I'm, I guess, trying to offer more compassion myself because it's been six, seven years since that happened. So there's a woman in maybe you should talk to someone who, her adult children are mostly estranged from her. And she is wanting their forgiveness that she's changed. She's tried to make a man. She's doing all these things

differently. And what I said to her was, it's not for them to forgive you. It's for you to forgive yourself. It's not for me to forgive you. It's not for them to forgive you. It's how are you going to

Sure. So how do you, just like when you yelled at this person, how do you deal with the fact that you caused harm, but you've made space to forgive yourself? Because you've decided that I used that to grow. I've used that to become a different person. I can't change the harm that happened. So what how does it help anyone for you to feel bad still? It doesn't. You can, you can be embarrassed by it. I may or embarrassed. Well, shame and embarrassment are different, right? So guilt is good.

guilt is a great thing because it means that we did something that does not align with our vision of who we want to be in the world. So if you don't feel guilt, you're kind of a sociopath. That's who doesn't feel good. Thank God. Shame is, so guilt is I did something bad. Shame is I am

“bad. I am a bad person. That's shame. That's different from I did something bad. So you have to say,”

I did something bad. I am not a bad person. I did something bad. And I've done everything humanly possible that I can do from that experience to align more with who I want to be in the world. But I can't change it. And so you have to live. We all live with things that we can't change. I acknowledging that and saying, how long is the sentence for this? You know, it is that's what I saved it to the woman in the book. I said, you know, how long is you're putting yourself in this

jail? How long is the sentence for this? Do you want a life sentence for this? Because that's what you're giving yourself. It's, I don't know, this is so good. Anyway, we're getting towards the end here. And like a couple minutes left. It's like the 50 minutes of therapy where we're almost out of time. I know, this is great. I mean, I did want to just touch on a little bit of dating and vulnerability and kind of wrap things up. You obviously have talked about, you know, in your some of your past

writings, like the dating and settling and some of those topics and concepts. I guess for me personally and something I'm curious, like your perspective is like dating sober is something I'm learning

“and still exploring, you know, a lot of my friends were like, oh, why don't you date the sober girl?”

And of course, that's an obvious thing. I've tried to meet and date people that have a healthy relationship with alcohol. It doesn't necessarily mean they're sober. But I'm curious, like, how honest, for anybody who's watching too, how honest should you be early on in getting to know someone

and then your relationship with alcohol? I mean, is it like the first sentence? But me, I've

a pretty public thing that people know, but I get a lot of questions about this. Like, hey, Carl, when do I tell someone on a date that I don't drink? Is it before? Is it during? Is it not at all? How do you navigate better? Can you give us any perspective you have on that? Like, the fear? I think because it's a fear that it feels much bigger than it is. So there are lots of things that people don't reveal on the first date. I guess that's like part of the

package. It's like, is that one of them that you just don't reveal on the first or there's no rule? It's more about your comfort with it that you are thinking this is going to be a negative thing. As opposed to, it's just part of who you are, just like there's going to be part of who the other person is. You know, we all, we can't order up people all a cart. Like, I'll take, you know, I'll take this person, but I'll leave aside this part of them or this aspect of them.

You know, everybody is going to have to accept things about another person that may be or less than ideal because everybody is human. But I also think that it's important to bring up certain things that you expect early on. So I like to say that relationships are like cement that it's kind of like I was dealing with this, this couple and this, the woman was the person who kept

saying, you know, I'm dating this guy and I really like him, but he's always laid and he just

doesn't prioritize me and I don't know if I can tolerate this. And she's like, and I've brought it up to him and, and, you know, it's just like it doesn't change. He keeps saying, I'm going to try, I'll be trying to be there, but then I'm just sitting there waiting for an hour and I don't like it. And his, his side, which she didn't know, was my boss does not let me leave and I've been trying to leave early and I'm getting in trouble at work, but I'm trying so hard to please her. Right?

So she thought he doesn't prioritize me. In fact, he was doing everything possible to prioritize her, but they weren't communicating about it. And so what I mean about relationships are like cement is like, if she had just said early on, hey, you know what, it's really important for me not to sit there alone. It brings up all this like historical stuff with me. I don't like it. And then he could be able to say, oh, well, I can't get there till 730. So can we figure out,

you won't be sitting there, but can we do it later? Then it's good, but if otherwise, the things that

“you are not okay with, then the cement dries and then later you have to bring things up and then”

everyone has to say like, but that was fine with you for the first six months. Yeah, you're good

with that at the beginning. Yeah, like why are you bringing this up now? So it's harder after the cement dries, when the cement is still wet, you can negotiate and talk about it. I like that. I haven't heard this in that one before. Because like, you know, I've gotten on dates and how you, you know, going into it, I might express, hey, you know, I don't drink, but if you're wanted to have a beverage or do whatever you want, because some people are, you know, they're being very respectful

I've no desire if that's what you want to do. But I guess at over time, I've started to feel like,

okay, if you don't like me because I'm not going to have a drink on the date. I'm not the right match. Exactly. Yeah. And I try to advise that to anybody who's newly sober or even a couple years in and now dating, if anyone's really going to give you that level of like, make you uncomfortable about a choice that's best for you, that's like a red flag beyond. It's like, just move on. Also, they're just comfort, and this is important to remember, is about them. Yeah.

It's not about you. It's not as if something is wrong with you. It's that they have some baggage around this that is not about you. So if anything, it saves you some time. It saves you so much time, which I appreciate, because you know, I'm dating more intentionally and, you know,

I don't want to waste anybody else's time, but we'll have a couple minutes left, Lori. So I just

want to kind of wrap things up. But I guess if you were sitting across me as a therapist, I know this wasn't a therapy session. It's kind of slightly just kidding. What's one question you might ask me that I might be avoiding? I couldn't presume to know. Yeah. There's a word in my book that I mentioned. It's ultra-crepidarianism, and it's ultra-crepidarianism. It's like a super caliphragilistic. Exactly. It's such a great word. And it means it's the habit of giving advisor opinions

outside of one's competence or knowledge. So when people come to therapy and they say, "Just tell me what to do." Well, I know what I would do if I were in that situation,

“but I don't know what you should do because I'm not living your life so I can help you figure out”

what you should do. But I wouldn't presume to know more about you than you know about what you want in your life. And so right now, if I were to ask you what you're avoiding, I couldn't possibly know what you're avoiding. Yeah. Well, I think I mean, me just opening up to you more about this imposter feeling, the comparison. It's stuff that's been going on for us like year, and I've over the last month, I'd say, being really telling some people about it. And they're like,

"Hey, man, it's exactly how I feel." So I'm glad I'm talking more about it, but you've really given me some good insights into that. Well, I think if I had to come up with a question, ultra-crepidarianism, notwithstanding, I would say, "What is your relationship with fame and success?" Because that's where the imposter syndrome tends to come in. Is why is that important? How do you feel about the way other people think about you versus the way you think about

“you? Yeah, I mean, I was always wanted to be liked. And I think for a period of time,”

especially in the bravo or reality world, you know, you get a lot of commentary and I felt like I was the black sheep and like the bad guy. And I probably was so degree. But yeah, I just want to be liked. And I'm a people pleaser. And I mean, I can't make someone happier. They hate me. It bothers me. And it hurts. But what I've trying to get to a place is this, where I'm putting out a book, where I really put it all out there. I don't know where I read it. I'm taking someone's

credit, but it was basically like, "I'd rather you hate me for who I am than like me for who I'm

not." Yeah. And there was a period of time where I felt like with the fame and the TV stuff that there was a version of me that, yeah, it was me, but wasn't all a Carl. But it was maybe being celebrated or hyped or people were, you know, great, we like that guy. But now it's like, okay, I'd actually, I'm getting more comfortable with just this is me. Yeah. And that's okay. And if you don't like it, no worries. But now you have all of the information in front of you to make that decision versus just,

you know, 42 minutes a week on summer house. Yeah, I think with so many of us are grappling with this, what am I trying to prove and to whom? Yeah. Well, I was trying to prove that I was smart, intelligent, successful, cool, like your Yale family. Exactly. But you know, the funny part is the opposite was being presented. You know, I was putting out ego maniac, disrespectful and just very loud and annoying and just the opposite of what I was trying to put out there. But again,

everything you've been doing for the mental health community and just coming today to spend time with me really means a lot. You've helped me a big time for our listeners and watchers. How can people find more about you? I know you have a great podcast. So I have two podcasts. One is called Dear Therapist. You're in your sessions with people and they get homework and you can hear how it worked out. I have another podcast called Since You Asked, which is an advice podcast. They can read,

“maybe you should talk to someone if they're curious about what it's like to be in therapy.”

And you have the, maybe you should talk to someone to work book. And I have the work book, where it's a step-by-step guide to editing your story and it's based on my TED Talk, which they can, they want the 16-minute version. They can watch the TED Talk and then do the work book. Would you advise people to go back and like I've read your book? I mean, it's been five years since I originally picked it up. I reread it last year because you explain one of the stories in the

book that I loved. There's about that one patient and John. Yes, and the kids and all that. My

and I can relate to some of that. But it's almost like going back to rework the 12 steps. You know, if you are a program, you can't just do it once and I feel like with your work and some of the maybe you've talked to someone, like you kind of need to read it again. Yeah, that's it's so interesting. I get, you know, on socials people say I just I read your book again

for the third time and I saw something different and I do that too with some of my favorite books.

“Yeah. Like I've marked them up and then I look at, what did I mark up two years ago?”

And then how have I changed as a person? Like there are different things that hit me differently or I see something that I hadn't seen the first time and in fact, I'm putting together a book right now of my advice columns. And so I had to grab like all the as the therapist columns. And it was so interesting rereading them and seeing like what did I say then? It's like adult homework. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I got adult school for, you know, life and just

becoming the best version you can be. Yeah. It's like every version of every kind of dilemma that anybody from all corners of the world, because people write in from all over the world,

“what are the things that we as individuals grapple with that we seem like, oh, this is somebody”

else's problem or I don't have that problem. And yet hopefully every column speaks to every single person in some way. I love it. You know, I want to be a place where people can feel comfortable asking questions and it's a safe space. You know, I really feel like you do a great job of answering some of these questions, which, you know, I'm kind of putting on the spot. So I appreciate the, and remind us of the word again. Ultra crepandarianism. Ultra crepandarianism. Yeah.

I need a t-shirt of that. It's a great word. Lori got to leave. Thank you for coming into more

life with me. I appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Wow. What an amazing conversation. Lori got

leave is just incredible. She's so intelligent and left me with a lot to think about, but a lot of things to take away. And one of the biggest things that I realize with Lori is change means loss. And that's okay. But it definitely reminded me of the times when I was triggered when others were changing back in the day when someone told me they were sober. I used to give them a hard time. And honestly, that change was my body, you know, kind of screaming outside. So thank you Lori for

imparting all this amazing wisdom on us. That's all I got for today, guys. I hope you enjoy this

conversation as much as I did. Lori got leaves incredible. Hope you guys get a chance to listen to

more life. It's been great hanging with you guys, but check us out wherever you get your podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, and let us know what gives you guys more life in your life. Have a great day, guys. Cheers.

“More life is produced by any seagull and executive produced by Adam Reynolds of Denham Pictures.”

This episode was directed by any seagull edited by Mikey Ortiz and recorded at soft parse studios in Brooklyn, New York. More life is a production of Sony Music Entertainment. From Sony R executive producers, our Chris Skinner and Joanna Clay, original music by function atoms, set the sign by Michael Ignacio, publicity by Caitlin Healy, additional support from Abbey Sharp, special thanks to Allison Shano and Joanna Orland. New episodes drop every Tuesday. We'll see you next time.

What I want to do is not to be a part of the studio. The master-writer has been taught by the soft indie internet. So master-writer is really great. I can say that you can say that you're a hero. You're a master-writer, right? But you don't believe it. Egal, it's a super worth of loss. Make the whole thing like this. And when you then work, you'll be able to catch it. That's right. Save. Like this.