0:03

There's a certain list of issues where I'm kind

0:05

of like, well, when I have the

0:07

time and money to just jump into like

0:09

six somatic sessions back to back, then I'm

0:12

going to deal with that. Like literally my

0:14

current therapist that I've been seeing for a

0:16

number of years now, we're

0:18

like finally getting to some junk

0:20

drawer issues that I've had. And some

0:22

of it and some of it is down to like, if

0:25

I've kind of run out of like the chronic stuff that

0:27

I'm facing in my day to day life, that then I

0:29

know it's time to dip into the junk drawer of the

0:31

stuff that I've been avoiding. And it's not fun. I

0:34

mean, I just want to acknowledge for a second and

0:36

kind of celebrate the fact that you're running out of

0:38

the more pressing stuff is actually a great place to

0:40

be. But here's the nature about

0:42

life though, Jace, is that life will always present you

0:45

with new chronic stuff to deal

0:47

with. So it becomes very easy

0:49

for me to guide the therapy session

0:51

away from, but like, let's talk about

0:53

actually this other thing that I've been

0:55

thinking, this stuff is tricky. I just

0:57

want to normalize it that's definitely that

0:59

yes, I feel this too. There's stuff

1:01

that to me feels like it goes

1:04

beyond my own sense of capacity to

1:06

cope or willingness to dive into the

1:08

discomfort. Welcome

1:10

to the Multiamory podcast. I'm

1:13

Jace. I'm Emily. And

1:15

I'm Dedeker. We believe in looking to

1:17

the future of relationships, not

1:20

maintaining the status quo of

1:22

the past. Whether you're monogamous,

1:24

polyamorous, swinging, casually dating,

1:26

or if you just do relationships differently, we

1:29

see you and we're here for you. On

1:47

this episode of the Multiamory podcast,

1:49

we're looking at the ways we

1:51

avoid feeling uncomfortable and how they

1:53

may actually be making the problem

1:56

worse. Whether you feel pressure to

1:58

be happy all the time or you just can't

2:00

stand being bored or upset

2:02

or scared or you just want

2:04

to feel better, it can be easy to

2:06

turn to distractions or quick fixes. And while

2:08

the three of us all love those from

2:10

time to time, too much can

2:13

have a significant effect on our well-being

2:15

and on our relationships. So

2:18

today we're going to be taking a hard look

2:20

at some of the emotions we try to avoid

2:22

and explore some techniques for

2:24

reclaiming our ability to feel our

2:26

emotions and improve our relationships.

2:29

If you're interested in learning about

2:31

some of our fundamental communication tools

2:33

that we reference a lot on

2:35

this show, you can check out

2:37

our book, Multiamory Essential Tools for

2:39

Modern Relationships, which covers some of

2:41

our most used communication tools as

2:43

well as general thoughts about what

2:45

even makes a good relationship. You

2:47

can find links to buy it

2:49

at multiamory.com/book or wherever you like

2:51

to get books. Also, check out

2:54

the first nine episodes of this podcast which

2:56

covers some of our most widely used and

2:58

shared communication tools. So

3:01

why are we talking about this? Well,

3:03

I love avoiding stuff. If I do say

3:05

so myself. You do?

3:08

I do love it from time to time as well.

3:10

Well, it's funny, my

3:12

relationship to social media specifically has transformed

3:14

quite a bit over the last, I

3:17

want to say four-ish, five-ish years or

3:19

so. But back in the

3:21

day when I was first starting to think I

3:24

got to change this somehow, I don't like

3:26

just scrolling mindlessly. I really

3:28

wanted someone to make a custom

3:30

program where I could set a certain amount of time

3:33

where it could tell that once I've

3:35

scrolled for maybe longer than 10 minutes that something

3:37

would pop up that would say, what are you

3:39

avoiding right now? And I would have to

3:41

write something in. I would have to write in

3:43

what I was avoiding. Good.

3:45

I like that. Now I use the

3:48

Freedom app myself. This is not an ad. They're not

3:50

paying us, but I do recommend it to everybody. That's

3:52

what I've used to kind of really get a curb

3:54

on that and that's been great. And it

3:56

doesn't do exactly that thing, but it just kind of locks their

3:58

neck. That would be really cool though. It blocks stuff

4:01

and unlike a lot of the built-in

4:04

digital well-being stuff, it's actually more difficult

4:06

to get around. So yeah, it's been

4:08

much more effective. Excellent.

4:11

Yeah, I think it's very

4:13

difficult in our world today

4:15

to not from time to time feel

4:17

really anxious and really worried and really

4:20

uncomfortable about a lot of things. There

4:22

is so much that is coming at

4:24

us at all times telling us that

4:26

the world is an uncomfortable and kind

4:28

of shitty place at times. And

4:31

that's a difficult thing I think from an

4:33

existential viewpoint to look at and to feel

4:35

and to know. And it's understandable

4:37

to want to kind of numb ourselves

4:40

of that knowledge. And yet

4:42

we can do it too quickly or

4:44

too often I guess instead of actually

4:47

really just living with and dealing with

4:49

our own emotions. Yeah, whenever

4:51

I'm feeling like maybe I'm a

4:53

brave person, I will read some Pema

4:55

Children books because her approach is very

4:58

much about there's nothing really for you

5:00

to hide behind. So you may as

5:02

well stop hiding behind stuff and just

5:04

lean straight into the most uncomfortable shit

5:06

you can think of and lean into

5:09

your fears. And it's always like a

5:11

kind of experience. Even just reading her

5:13

books are very challenging in that way.

5:16

Yeah. There's nothing for you to hide

5:18

behind. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I

5:21

mean, it's just about accepting that there's literally

5:23

nothing real for you to hide behind from

5:25

your discomfort. So you may as well stop

5:27

pretending. Good. Nice. Okay.

5:31

Yeah. Yeah. I

5:33

mean, that type of stuff comes up a

5:35

lot in various Buddhist writings of kind of

5:37

this idea of not trying to just hide

5:40

and feel good all the time, but actually

5:42

kind of confronting some of those harder thoughts

5:44

or more challenging things. But

5:46

I do think, Emily, you bring up a

5:49

really good point about part of this whole

5:51

landscape and we'll get into this more as

5:53

we go. That part of it is we

5:55

have easier access to distractions like social media,

5:57

but we also that same distraction. attention

6:00

can often be the thing that's

6:02

making us feel like the world

6:04

is a worse place because of

6:06

how much news there is and

6:08

how much attention scary, upsetting things

6:10

get. And so those get favored.

6:12

And people being scary and upsetting

6:14

and acting in scary and upsetting

6:16

ways. Sure. Yeah. Right.

6:19

It gets attention and that gets rewarded, which then

6:21

makes you see more of it. So the whole

6:23

thing is there is a big systemic problem here,

6:25

right? So I guess just starting out that it's

6:28

not like something's wrong with you or any of

6:30

us if we feel this urge to, I

6:32

want to stop feeling these things and escape

6:34

it. However, we can get

6:37

ourselves in trouble with that. I guess

6:39

kind of we can inadvertently be making

6:41

things worse. So to start off a

6:43

little bit, kind of to set the stage

6:45

here, the whole concept here is

6:47

about what's healthy

6:49

discomfort versus unhealthy pain.

6:52

And I think that many

6:55

of us can at least conceptually understand

6:57

this when it comes to physical discomfort

6:59

versus pain, but it's a little harder

7:01

to do emotionally and mentally. I think

7:04

when it comes to practically identifying the

7:06

difference between good healthy physical

7:08

discomfort and physical pain, we're not always

7:10

the best at that, especially if we

7:12

don't have a lot of experience with

7:14

healthy pain. And what I mean by

7:16

that is the difference between I'm doing

7:18

some kind of exercise, it's uncomfortable, it's

7:20

painful, I end up sore. It's not

7:23

like an enjoyable experience per se

7:25

on its own, yet it's good for

7:27

you, right? It will make your body

7:29

healthier, function better and feel better the

7:31

rest of the time, especially as you

7:33

get older, things like that. Or

7:36

meditation is, there's

7:38

like physical discomfort that goes along with that

7:41

besides even the mental discomfort, but that is

7:43

an okay thing that you can kind of

7:45

get through. On the other hand, we have

7:47

things like, oh, every time I take a

7:50

step this way, my knee kind of has

7:52

this sharp pain right along the edge of

7:55

my kneecap. That might not be a like, oh, that's good

7:57

pain, just keep pushing through it. It's like, no, actually, it's

7:59

not good pain. actually, this is something you should either

8:01

back off of or maybe see a doctor about because

8:03

this could be a much more serious

8:05

thing that's going to get worse if you push

8:07

it versus something like strength training that's uncomfortable but

8:10

gets better as you push it. Again, up to

8:12

a point. And even with that, it's like if

8:14

you identify when it switches from good pain to

8:16

bad pain, can help you avoid injuring yourself. So

8:19

I think we can at least conceptually

8:21

understand that physically. Or here's

8:23

another good one, it's building up guitar

8:25

calluses, and guitar. It's like your

8:27

fingers hurt. But it's like I know that

8:30

they hurt because I'm building up calluses, not

8:32

they hurt because I'm going to destroy my fingers

8:34

or something like that. I don't know.

8:37

Jace gave me my very first guitar lesson last

8:39

week. Oh, that's why it's on

8:41

my mind. Yes. And at the end of that,

8:43

I was just like, my fingers are going to bleed.

8:45

How do you do this? Were you showing her like

8:47

an A chord or like what kind of stuff were

8:49

you showing her? An E chord actually. An E chord,

8:51

okay. And some bass playing, you gave me a little bass

8:53

lesson as well. Lovely. And

8:56

some of each. Very cool. Wow. But

8:59

again, another example of if

9:01

you burn yourself and you pull away from

9:03

it, that's bad pain that you're like, I

9:05

need to avoid this and try to treat

9:07

it and fix this versus building up calluses

9:10

could be a good pain, right? So learning

9:12

to identify those when it comes to emotions

9:14

and our thoughts is what this episode is

9:16

about. This seems so relevant

9:19

to so much of what we have

9:21

talked about on this podcast with relationships

9:23

and specifically with non-monogamous relationships that

9:26

often is this big question of

9:28

this discomfort that I'm going through

9:30

in my relationship. Is that

9:32

just I got to power through it and get

9:34

to the other side of it and be present

9:36

with it and then I'll be okay or is

9:39

this really bad and I need to get out

9:41

of this relationship where I really need to change

9:43

what's happening right now. I think especially when you're

9:45

doing any kind of non-normative relationship where we're

9:47

not quite sure what the

9:49

standard is for some sort

9:51

of healthy discomfort versus

9:54

unhealthy or dysfunctional painting

9:56

in the relationship. I

9:58

think that's the real challenge. right? Because so

10:01

many of us may just kind of cut and

10:03

run early and decide, okay, I'm

10:05

not going to continue with whatever sort

10:07

of discomfort or sort of feeling as

10:10

though this isn't necessarily the right thing.

10:12

And so I decided to leave versus,

10:14

oh, I'm going to stick this out,

10:16

even though maybe it's not really a

10:18

great relationship for you. And that is

10:21

the really tricky thing. And I think

10:23

very challenging to know which

10:25

is the right way to go. And I

10:27

guess that's a very personal question. Yes,

10:30

right. It's when it comes to feelings,

10:32

physical feelings or emotional feelings, the only

10:34

way that we can understand what anyone

10:37

else is feeling is by watching them

10:39

and listening to what they're describing. And

10:42

that's so subjective on their part and

10:44

then also on our part hearing it.

10:47

So it is even in a more

10:49

normative relationship, we can

10:51

often not have very clear understandings

10:53

of what is that bad

10:55

kind of pain versus this is okay to push

10:58

through this. So in this episode, we're

11:00

going to focus more on the side

11:02

of experiencing some of that healthy discomfort

11:04

and not shying away from it. But

11:07

the hope is that by doing that,

11:09

it helps you build up a better

11:11

sense of what type of

11:14

discomfort does fit here to also

11:16

better identify things that are not this, right?

11:19

So please don't take this episode to mean

11:21

all pain is good. If your

11:23

relationship is upsetting to you, just keep on

11:26

doing it. Definitely not

11:28

necessarily that, but the point is developing

11:30

the skills to learn how to tell

11:32

that difference. That's kind of

11:34

the whole idea here. So when we

11:36

get into this, one thing to start

11:38

with is just talking about dopamine. And

11:41

it's kind of been a hot, it's

11:43

a hot neurotransmitter these days. Everyone's talking

11:45

about it. One of my favorite neurotransmitters

11:47

really. Right, probably one of

11:49

the like three that most people know the name of.

11:51

So it comes up

11:53

in terms of you'll hear people talk

11:55

about dopamine fasts or you'll

11:57

talk about dopamine addictions, things like that.

12:00

like that. But kind of the short

12:02

version is that dopamine is the neurotransmitter

12:04

that feels good. It makes you feel

12:07

reward for doing something good. And

12:09

this could be completing a task,

12:12

someone saying yes when you ask them

12:14

out, having sex, or doing

12:17

drugs, getting drunk, you

12:19

know, various or eating a bunch of

12:21

sugar, winning at a video game, getting

12:23

more likes on social media, right? There's

12:26

a lot of different ways we can

12:28

get this. Some of these might be

12:30

healthier than others, but the point is

12:32

that our body then releases this chemical,

12:35

which makes us feel good. It helps

12:37

motivate us. We've talked before about how

12:39

having a desire for dopamine helps us

12:41

achieve things and accomplish things and build

12:43

better relationships and make new friends and

12:46

provide for our families,

12:48

right? Yeah, exactly. Like all those things.

12:50

So it's a good thing to have. So if

12:52

anyone tries to tell you dopamine is bad, if

12:54

you didn't have it, things would be very bad,

12:57

right? The key is having a good balance

12:59

of it. It's having the right amount. Yeah.

13:01

So we've evolved to be these dopamine

13:04

seeking machines and

13:06

that's to a certain extent good. But

13:08

like what I've been really interested in

13:10

recently is I've been reading some interviews

13:12

with Ann Lemke, who is the medical

13:14

director of addiction medicine at Stanford University.

13:16

And she's also the author of this

13:18

book that came out recently called Dopamine

13:20

Nation. And she's

13:22

highlighted some really interesting findings

13:24

about how when we do

13:26

something that does produce

13:28

that dopamine, we eat a piece of chocolate or we have

13:30

an orgasm or something that your body

13:33

does want to be in homeostasis. And

13:35

so it will stop producing extra dopamine.

13:38

And the way that Ann Lemke describes it

13:40

is almost like you have these two little

13:42

teams of competing gremlins in your brain that

13:44

you eat the chocolate and then these little

13:46

gremlins come that sort of pick up your

13:48

sensitivity to pain actually and discomfort to balance

13:50

and lets you out. And that's

13:53

when you have that sensation of I really

13:55

want another piece of chocolate now that like

13:57

that dopamine has worn off. So

14:00

she talks about how sometimes when

14:02

people are addicted to something, a

14:04

substance or a behavior or something

14:06

like that, they will think that

14:08

their discomfort, their anxiety, their depression

14:10

is what's driving the addiction. When

14:13

really it is this, you

14:15

seek out more dopamine, your body balances

14:17

it out, you feel bad, you feel

14:19

cranky, you feel irritable, maybe you're literally

14:22

feeling withdrawal symptoms, so then you seek

14:24

more of that dopamine producing thing,

14:26

your body tries to balance it out again that

14:29

the thing that you're addicted to itself, the thing that

14:31

you are seeking to produce that dopamine is making

14:34

it worse potentially creating the cycle. And what

14:36

we often see with addiction is then like you need more

14:38

of it and more of it for or

14:40

you need to do whatever the behavior is

14:43

for longer periods of time or more intensely

14:45

in order to get that same effect which

14:47

then often gets balanced out by an equally

14:50

intense come down or

14:52

irritability in some way. And

14:54

then there's also a balancing on the other side

14:56

where when we do some of these things that

14:58

are less comfortable like exercise

15:01

is an example that she gives,

15:03

our body will then make more dopamine to balance

15:06

us back out because we're feeling a little bit

15:08

in pain and a little bit uncomfortable. Like if

15:10

you've ever heard of the runner's high that like

15:12

marathon runners will experience it in my life. Yeah,

15:14

I've never felt it either. I think it's a

15:16

lie. Yeah, I know. I was

15:18

like, how much discomfort do you have

15:21

to get in order to feel that

15:23

because... I've never been willing to push

15:25

really to get there. No, thank you. Interesting.

15:27

But definitely felt it while working

15:30

out. Yeah. Right. Yeah,

15:32

it can happen then. I've definitely experienced that the runner's high

15:34

and the cool thing about that one is the more you

15:36

do it, the faster you get to the high part which

15:38

is cool. But it's essentially that.

15:40

It's your body saying, hey, you're doing something

15:43

uncomfortable. Okay, you're still doing

15:45

it. I better try to fix it by

15:47

making you feel a little bit better. And

15:49

so on either side, our body

15:51

is trying to find this balance. So sometimes

15:54

actually doing the less comfortable thing will ultimately

15:56

help us feel a little bit better. Now,

15:58

the next thing here is that... that if

16:00

we're doing these things to avoid

16:03

feeling uncomfortable, especially when it comes

16:05

to our emotions, like if I'm

16:07

ever bored or I'm ever anxious

16:09

or I'm ever worried turning to

16:11

social media or gaming or whatever

16:13

it is, that that has

16:16

been correlated with alexithymia,

16:19

which is something we've talked about a while

16:21

back just briefly, but it's worth talking about

16:23

a little bit here because it's kind of

16:25

related to this whole discomfort cycle of things.

16:28

Alexithymia is also known

16:30

as emotional color blindness.

16:32

And essentially, if we're

16:34

to define it, it

16:36

is basically trouble identifying

16:38

or understanding or expressing

16:40

emotions. I think all

16:42

of us to some degree have this

16:45

at one time or another. We did

16:47

an episode on this a while ago

16:50

where we discussed this a little bit,

16:52

but also just discussing how difficult it

16:54

is sometimes for us to even know

16:56

how to put emotions into words. 10%

16:58

of the population is

17:01

believed to be affected by

17:03

alexithymia, at least moderately. So

17:06

I think some of us have

17:08

an easier or harder time putting

17:10

emotions into words, but then those

17:12

of us who maybe have a

17:14

moderate to more difficult time, that

17:16

could be labeled as alexithymia. And

17:19

there is this link between alexithymia

17:21

and difficulty separating emotions from bodily

17:23

sensations. So it's that

17:25

idea that if you feel something

17:27

really uncomfortable within your body, which

17:29

I think often will happen if

17:31

you're feeling anxious or feeling upset

17:33

or feeling tired or feeling scared

17:36

or any of those things, that

17:38

it's difficult to understand, okay, that's

17:40

an emotion that I'm having, not

17:42

just a really crappy, awful bodily

17:44

sensation. It's like not being able

17:46

to marry the two together and

17:48

understand that one is happening because of the

17:50

other. Yeah. So there's a

17:53

scale that's used in a lot

17:55

of assessments for alexithymia, which is

17:57

called the Toronto alexithymia scale or

18:00

tests. And some of the

18:02

questions on there, one of them is,

18:04

I have physical sensations that even doctors

18:06

don't understand and you kind of rate

18:09

on a Likert scale of agree or

18:11

disagree or I'm often puzzled by

18:13

sensations in my body. A lot

18:15

of the questions have to do with not

18:17

being able to name emotions or not knowing

18:20

how to describe them, things like that, but

18:22

that there's also these ones about I feel

18:24

physical things that I don't have a reason

18:26

for. It can be linked to like hypochondria

18:29

type feelings of like illnesses, but that

18:31

there doesn't seem to be any physical

18:33

cause for. And basically what's

18:35

going on is that emotions

18:38

have a physical component to them. And there's

18:40

a lot of research to back up that

18:42

they may actually be physical first before they're

18:44

ever mental, even though we kind of experience

18:46

them as if they start as a mental,

18:49

emotional experience and then become physical. There's

18:51

actually some research suggesting that connection goes the

18:54

other way around, but that through

18:57

the way that we're raised or through

18:59

avoiding experiencing these things or feeling like

19:01

we're not able to, we can kind

19:03

of lose the ability to realize these

19:05

are emotions we're feeling. And so instead

19:07

it's like, why am I having this

19:10

symptom that feels like a nausea or

19:12

a tightness in my shoulders or like

19:14

a pain or like pounding of my

19:16

heart, am I having a heart attack?

19:18

You know, like these kinds of fears

19:20

that can be very serious. So severe

19:22

alexithymia can be a quite severe thing.

19:25

But what we're focusing on for this

19:27

episode is more in the kind of moderate

19:29

territory, which affects a surprisingly

19:31

large number of people, especially men. So

19:34

there's a term for this that's called

19:36

normative male alexithymia, which I think for

19:38

the most part tends to be on

19:40

this low to moderate end of the

19:42

scale. So a lot more

19:44

men in general are diagnosed with alexithymia.

19:47

That's really interesting and I'm not surprised. It's

19:50

not surprising at all, right? Yeah. Because...

19:53

Do you think that's a nature or a nurture thing? I think it's

19:55

nurture for sure. But I tend to land on the side of

19:57

nurture for most things. But if you think about it, it's a

19:59

natural thing. about it like as men

20:01

were generally, and this is

20:03

changing, but generally not raised

20:05

to think that emotions are

20:07

okay to feel besides anger

20:09

and that's it, right? Like

20:13

that fear or

20:15

vulnerability or loneliness or

20:17

anxiety, these things are

20:19

seen as weak or

20:22

like not unattractive. And

20:24

so I can't feel those. It must not

20:26

be that because if it was those, I

20:28

would be a weak, shitty, unlikable person. So

20:30

it can't be that. So it must

20:33

be nothing. So we kind of lose

20:35

this ability to describe those. And

20:37

that has to do with how we're raised. There's

20:39

a really fantastic video that if this

20:41

is something that's interesting to you,

20:43

there's a YouTube channel by this

20:45

guy named Dr. K called Healthy

20:48

Gamer GG. And

20:50

his whole deal is he's a psychotherapist.

20:52

His whole thing is making

20:55

videos explaining psychological phenomena to

20:57

gamers. So generally his audience

20:59

is kind of like pre-teen

21:02

through young adults, maybe 20s,

21:05

30s men. Specifically aiming at male

21:07

gamers generally, right? Yeah.

21:10

Right. Yeah. People

21:12

who play competitive online games like Fortnite

21:14

or League of Legends or whatever, those

21:16

sorts of things, Apex Legends, like those

21:18

types of people who can get very

21:20

addicted to the gaming side of things.

21:23

Anyway, his channel is great. He very much

21:25

speaks to that audience and tries to speak

21:27

the language of that so he can be

21:29

like a little bit crass and a little

21:31

bit intense sometimes. But I just I

21:33

love what he's doing that he's actually kind of putting this

21:36

out there in a way that will actually reach some people

21:38

who really need it. Anyway, he's got

21:40

a lot of videos about Alexithymia that will

21:42

have titles like Why You Feel Nothing or

21:44

How I Go Through Life With No Emotions

21:46

or things like that to kind of get

21:49

you to go, oh yeah, that might be

21:51

me. Let me go check that

21:53

out. And one of the things that

21:55

he talks about is that there is stuff you can

21:57

do to treat it. growing

22:00

number of women showing up with it. He

22:02

thinks that that mostly has to do with

22:04

this correlation between social media and technology use

22:07

as a way to kind of numb out,

22:10

especially starting at a younger age with

22:12

men being raised, like boys being raised where

22:14

it's more okay to express your emotions. So

22:16

it's like it's getting a tiny bit better

22:19

for men and it's getting worse for women,

22:21

but it's also kind of getting worse for

22:23

everyone because of technology and how

22:25

easy that is as an escape. So

22:28

anyway, very interesting, but one of the things that

22:30

he talks about is like, it's going to be

22:32

uncomfortable as you get better from it. Like

22:35

it's going to be this, it gets worse

22:37

before it gets better because when you first

22:39

start learning to identify and face and be

22:41

present and mindful of those emotions, they're not

22:44

positive, happy emotions. So it's going to be

22:47

difficult. So quick shout

22:49

out to episode 348, transforming

22:51

feelings into words, where we talked about

22:53

the emotion wheel. And that is actually

22:55

something that can be used in Alexis,

22:58

I me a treatment to kind of

23:00

work your way from the inside of

23:02

the wheel, which are like big emotions,

23:04

like sad, angry, happy out to the

23:07

more nuanced things of insecure

23:09

or kind of those more like nuanced

23:11

emotions is kind of learning how to

23:13

identify these as you move farther out

23:15

in the circle. So there

23:17

can be some negative effects

23:20

to avoiding discomfort, avoiding emotions

23:22

on a habitual basis outside

23:25

of just creating dependencies

23:27

on your brain or creating this particular addictive

23:30

cycle in your brain. It

23:32

also reduces your ability

23:34

to cope with stress in general. It

23:37

encourages a lack

23:39

of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. It

23:42

can contribute to mood disorders, anxiety

23:44

disorders, and then also suppression of

23:46

emotions increases the stress response. And

23:48

then if your stress coping ability

23:50

is reduced as well, this can

23:53

be yet another vicious cycle that

23:55

happens. But it can also impact

23:57

your relationships as well that if

23:59

you're avoiding. avoiding your emotions or

24:02

if you're really not able to even

24:04

pinpoint your emotions and talk about them,

24:07

that that can be a stumbling block

24:09

to emotional connection. It can make it

24:11

really difficult to understand and respond to

24:13

what your partner is feeling or for

24:16

your partner to understand and respond to

24:18

what you're feeling. And then also

24:20

that can lead to communication breakdowns because

24:23

if you can't really identify and express,

24:25

well, when you were

24:28

just on your phone and not paying attention

24:30

to me when I was trying to talk

24:32

to you, if you can't hit the nuance

24:34

of I was feeling ignored, I was feeling

24:36

lonely, I was feeling confused, whatever it is,

24:38

and all you can do is act out

24:40

or shut down or something like that, that

24:42

there probably isn't going to be any resolution.

24:44

There are mutual understanding. This

24:47

is really interesting for me because

24:49

I feel like I've had partners

24:52

in the past who it's as

24:54

though I can't really discuss complex

24:57

emotional things with them or almost

24:59

like we're speaking different languages. And

25:02

I think that if people don't have

25:04

the words or the understanding of what's

25:06

going on within them internally, then it

25:09

is going to be really difficult to be able

25:11

to have those types of conversations with them. Even

25:14

with all of the tools that the three of us

25:16

have and that we're trying to

25:18

give to the world at large,

25:20

if somebody is unable to really

25:22

discern and understand what's going on

25:24

within them at a very basic

25:26

level, then how can you really

25:29

have a conversation that is as

25:31

complex as some of the ones that we

25:33

tried to have with our significant others? It's

25:36

going to be kind of impossible. So this

25:38

is very basic and yet extremely

25:40

important. Yeah. This is

25:42

also helping me connect the dots on

25:45

a particular relationship from my past where

25:48

I was with someone who he

25:51

really identified that he was just

25:53

like super chill and laid back

25:56

and very even keel all the

25:58

time. And he

26:00

really kind of harshly defended that to a certain

26:02

extent, a lot of denying being upset

26:05

too much and always really kind of coming

26:07

back to this very even keel place or

26:09

at least an alleged even keel place. And

26:12

he also had so much

26:15

medical anxiety. And

26:17

I would probably label the hypochondria as well.

26:19

All of these weird... It's the same thing,

26:21

like weird health issues that would come up

26:23

that doctors couldn't really explain or put a

26:25

diagnosis on, but they would still prescribe stuff,

26:28

which would kind of add into this cycle.

26:30

And yeah, that's giving me some question marks

26:32

of, I wonder if those two things were

26:34

connected. I don't want to get all conspiratorial

26:36

with it, but it does seem like it

26:38

tracks. Yeah. And

26:41

it's like Emily was saying, these are

26:43

all very fundamental skills that are kind

26:45

of like the prerequisites to having good

26:48

communication in your relationships. And

26:50

kind of what I'm hoping that we can get at

26:52

in this episode is to not

26:54

just say, you should be

26:56

more emotionally available, or you should

26:59

communicate better about your emotions, but to say

27:01

like, but how? It's like, sure, maybe

27:03

I realize I need to do that, but how? And

27:06

part of that is learning

27:08

to be a little bit more mindful.

27:11

And by that, I mean, when you're

27:13

feeling these uncomfortable things, just

27:15

realizing that the being uncomfortable can be

27:17

okay. That could

27:20

actually be really important, not just okay,

27:22

but like necessary to learn how to

27:24

identify those. And now of

27:26

course, you might be saying, but I don't want to.

27:28

And so that's what we're going to get into next

27:30

is all the reasons why you might not want to

27:32

do this, or all of the objections that you might

27:34

come up with. But first we're going to

27:36

take a quick break to talk about supporting this show. It's

27:39

really important to us to be able to put this

27:41

out into the world for everyone out there for free.

27:45

And we do that in a

27:47

couple of ways. One is through

27:49

direct support on our Patreon. If

27:51

you go to multiamory.com/join, or

27:53

just find us on Patreon and join there,

27:55

that directly helps support our show. And of

27:57

course, as a thank you, we have various

27:59

tiered. and rewards in our amazing

28:02

private community on Discord. But

28:04

also we have our advertisers who really make

28:06

it possible for us to keep this show

28:08

going and to keep it growing. And

28:10

so please take a moment to check them out.

28:12

If any seem interesting to you, use our promo

28:15

codes. That really does directly help support our show.

28:18

Support for Multiamory comes from Paired.

28:21

So recently on Paired, I got

28:23

suggested this game called Guess the

28:25

Emotion, where it presents you

28:29

with a number of scenarios where you're supposed

28:31

to give the answer for yourself of what's

28:33

true for you in that scenario and then

28:35

what you think is true for your partner.

28:38

So for instance, one of the questions was,

28:40

you're having a serious discussion with your partner

28:42

but your partner is struggling to maintain eye

28:44

contact. It's probably because they're what? And

28:47

so you answer that for yourself, right? And

28:49

so I'm like, okay, if I'm having a

28:51

serious discussion, I'm not maintaining eye contact, then

28:53

the answers were distracted, lying, focused or something

28:55

else. And my guess for Jace is

28:57

that it was because he is distracted but that your

29:00

answer was actually, oh, it's focused, really. That

29:03

was kind of a theme. The one that blew

29:05

both of our minds was there's this question that

29:07

says, you're cuddling in bed together when your

29:09

partner turns away from you. It's probably

29:12

because they feel what? And

29:14

the answers were tired, upset, like being a

29:16

little spoon or something else. And

29:19

I assumed, okay, if Jace is turning away from

29:21

me in bed, it's because he's tired. But then

29:23

it turns out it's because you want to be

29:25

the little spoon, which was also my answer. I

29:27

also thought that it was just because I was

29:29

tired. So now I know to little spoon you

29:31

when you give me that signal. But what I

29:33

loved about this is that it really goes to

29:35

show, and like Jace and I have been together

29:37

for 10 years, that you can still have these

29:39

assumptions about your partner that you don't realize. And

29:41

I really appreciate that Paired offers all these opportunities

29:43

for us to clear that up and discover new

29:45

things about each other. Yeah, we've

29:47

been having fun using Paired pretty much

29:49

every day, sometimes multiple times, just finding

29:52

some of these fun quizzes or questions

29:54

or discussion prompts or sometimes picture prompts.

29:56

So for those of you who want to get in on

29:58

the fun, this is an app. we're talking about

30:01

called Paired. It's a relationship app for

30:03

couples. So you and a partner download

30:05

the app, you pair your accounts together

30:07

and then every day you get questions,

30:10

quizzes, games like this to stay connected

30:12

and also have conversations about them. And

30:14

it's really fun like these examples that

30:17

occur with talking about some of them

30:19

are silly and goofy, some are actually

30:21

very serious and it's really cool to

30:23

have that variety of things to keep

30:26

those discussions going. Whether you're

30:28

just a few dates in or have been together

30:30

a long time, it's time to lighten the mood

30:32

and have fun with your partner by using paired.

30:34

Head to paired.com to get a seven-day free

30:39

trial and 25% off if you sign

30:41

up for a subscription. Just

30:43

head to p-a-i-r-e-d.com to

30:48

sign up today. Connect with your

30:50

partner every day using paired. A

30:52

happier relationship starts here. Multi-Amory

30:54

is sponsored by BetterHelp. I've been

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spending some time recently thinking about

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my own social battery. Now, if

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I was going to define and

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describe my social battery, I would

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31:06

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GPS once for five minutes and

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it's down to like 2%.

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31:15

think you give yourself enough credit,

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but okay. That's so interesting because

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31:25

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31:27

around these people. When I left that group

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32:46

And now we're going to get into

32:48

some of the reasons why many of

32:50

us may not want to feel overwhelm

32:52

or discomfort or fear or anger, all

32:54

of those things because yeah, it does

32:56

not get- Doesn't sound very fun when you

32:58

put it though. There's a lot of good reasons to not. Definitely.

33:02

And yet I think that we've tried to

33:04

highlight some of the good reasons why it's

33:06

okay to feel those things. And honestly, would

33:09

all of us want to feel good

33:11

all of the time? I mean maybe

33:13

the answer is yes but it puts

33:15

into perspective the times when we do get to

33:18

feel good. It gives us some

33:20

context for realizing like, hey, I've

33:22

had some really shitty moments in my life and this

33:24

moment right now where I'm feeling on top of the

33:26

world is because I have gotten

33:28

myself to that place where yeah, like I've been

33:31

through a lot and now I get to have

33:33

a great time in this moment. And I don't

33:35

know, we can't have everything be

33:37

good all the time. So just going to

33:39

put that out there but it's also understandable

33:41

when you don't want to feel shitty because

33:43

that does suck too. So

33:45

let's go down a list of some of

33:47

the reasons why we may not want to

33:49

feel discomfort. The first is

33:52

this feeling and fear of emotional

33:54

overwhelm. So a lot of

33:56

us may think that facing my discomforts

33:59

will overwhelm me emotionally. I think

34:01

that's a really understandable one. I think

34:03

a lot of us don't necessarily know,

34:05

especially if we have varying degrees of

34:08

alexithymia, we don't really know how we're

34:10

going to react in a situation where

34:12

we're feeling a large amount of discomfort.

34:15

And that may be really scary to

34:17

us. And we may feel concerned that

34:19

confronting uncomfortable emotions could lead to an

34:21

inability to cope with the intensity of

34:24

those feelings. Even if you are looking

34:26

at really big decisions in your life,

34:29

you may want to put those decisions off

34:31

because you're like, shit, I don't know how

34:33

I'm going to feel about this. It may

34:35

lead to something that ultimately is going to

34:37

really be sad or difficult for a while,

34:39

and I just don't want to feel that.

34:41

So I'm not going to even go there.

34:44

And sometimes the emotions and

34:46

feelings that we're avoiding, it can be

34:48

that that emotion first showed up at

34:50

a time when we didn't have the

34:53

ability to cope with what was going on.

34:55

There's a reason why so much of our shit

34:57

stems to childhood at a time when we

35:00

were young and not developed and didn't have

35:02

knowledge and didn't have skills. And so sometimes

35:04

in order to protect ourselves, we had to find

35:06

ways to avoid it because we really didn't know

35:08

how to deal with it. But then we can

35:10

sort of get stuck in

35:12

that assumption that it's

35:14

always going to be overwhelming if I let myself feel this

35:16

way and I'm not going to be able to deal with it.

35:19

And I think that kind of leads us

35:21

into this next one, which is this belief

35:23

in ineffectiveness, thinking I've tried

35:25

to face my feelings before and

35:28

it didn't help or it didn't put

35:30

me in a better place emotionally, ultimately.

35:32

Maybe again, just because at the

35:34

time when that happened, you didn't have

35:36

coping mechanisms to help you through that

35:39

moment. And maybe now if

35:41

you're a little bit older or a

35:43

little bit wiser or have gone through

35:45

more things in your life, perhaps you

35:47

actually will have a bigger capacity more

35:49

easily to deal with something. I

35:51

think there's also that in real life, we

35:53

lack the little bitting of the achievement that

35:55

you get for like face and emotion and

35:57

then you know that you completely... I

36:00

remember years ago someone talking about like,

36:02

oh, I think mindfulness is bullshit because

36:05

there was this study that showed when

36:07

people who are stressed out meditated, they

36:09

felt worse. And I'm like, well,

36:11

yeah, because they're just sitting with their thoughts

36:14

one time or for a short amount of time.

36:16

It's like, yeah, it's gonna be a little

36:18

bit worse. It's like saying I'm out of shape, but

36:20

I went to the gym once and I was sore.

36:23

So like, that's not a good solution. And

36:25

I think that we can give up a

36:27

little too early sometimes on this. Yeah. Yeah.

36:31

I think there can be this general

36:33

sense of, oh, it might be overwhelming and

36:35

I won't know what to do. But then

36:37

there can be also this more tangible sense of

36:40

like, really though, if I sit with this emotion, what

36:42

am I gonna do with it? You know, if

36:44

I get myself upset, all I will have

36:46

done is just gotten myself upset and then

36:48

I don't know what to do, right? So

36:51

this perceived absence of coping mechanisms or the

36:53

emotional intelligence to be able to process it

36:55

or manage it. And this is

36:57

the basis of DBT that it's

36:59

about, okay, what we need is to

37:02

get people equipped with the right skills

37:04

and the right tools for being

37:06

able to regulate and handle their

37:08

emotions. Related to this

37:10

fear of overwhelm or fear of I

37:13

don't know what I'm gonna do or I don't really have

37:15

the skills to handle this discomfort

37:17

is the fear of repercussions.

37:20

So this could be, if I let

37:22

myself feel this way, what if it's gonna get worse?

37:25

Or what if something bad is going to

37:28

happen? And I think this one is a

37:30

legit anxiety that if I let myself feel

37:32

the sadness and I cry a

37:35

whole bunch and I'm sobbing for hours, if

37:37

I let myself feel the anger and I'm

37:39

very visibly angry to the people around me

37:41

that that could damage my relationships or that

37:43

could really make me spiral and

37:46

maybe at the other end of it,

37:48

I won't feel better. Maybe I'm gonna

37:50

feel even much worse and maybe this

37:52

is not gonna get resolved. This

37:54

happens a lot with anger when I'm

37:56

working with clients that anger

37:58

is one of the earliest emotions that we tend

38:01

to get shamed out of us because of

38:03

its negative consequences. And so

38:05

sometimes people get really scared feeling

38:07

into their anger, feeling like if

38:09

I actually let myself feel this,

38:11

what if I completely lose control?

38:14

Which is so funny because very few people actually

38:16

do. We have a lot

38:18

of inhibiting responses coded into us that

38:21

helps for most people keep their

38:23

anger under control. But sometimes

38:25

there is this fear of this black and white that

38:27

if I tip over into too much anger, then something

38:29

really bad is going to happen. Then I'm going to

38:31

destroy the house. Yeah, I

38:33

mean, maybe not quite as extreme as that,

38:35

but like I literally had almost

38:38

that exact conversation with a counselor

38:40

that I was seeing. This

38:42

would have been like 16 years ago or something

38:45

quite a while back. But you

38:47

know, she was talking to me about expressing

38:49

basically, I would say in my modern day,

38:52

I would say it was about expressing boundaries

38:54

and also expressing some anger or being upset

38:56

about certain things. And

38:58

I just could not go

39:00

there. I was like, but everyone will hate

39:03

me. Like I will ruin every relationship I

39:05

have. Everyone will hate me. This

39:07

is I can't I can't do that. It was it

39:09

was a really confronting thing to

39:11

even think about. And what

39:14

what she said there was tell people

39:16

first, don't just spring it on them,

39:18

but like let them know this is

39:20

something that you're working on to try to let

39:22

them be on a team with you a little

39:24

bit and understand they might get a little bit

39:26

upset by some things, but that

39:29

that's kind of part of the process. And

39:31

it was a slow many year process of

39:33

like figuring out how to unravel all that.

39:35

So I just want to say like I

39:37

feel super sympathetic to this concern because like,

39:39

yeah, 100% was exactly

39:41

feeling that like but I can't because

39:43

there's going to be repercussions. The

39:45

next one we have is a comfort in familiarity.

39:47

So on the other hand, you could say, well,

39:50

but I mean, avoiding discomfort works for me

39:52

playing video games all day every day works

39:54

for me. Why should

39:56

I change or pretending that I'm super

39:59

stoic that works? for me. There's a

40:01

lot of people hung up on that.

40:03

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Pretending that I'm

40:05

just so unaffected and I'm a real

40:07

rock of a person, right? That just

40:09

can't be shaken by anything. Like, well,

40:11

that's working for me. People seem to

40:13

react well to it. Or like,

40:15

I feel fine. Why is this a problem? And

40:18

unfortunately, a lot of times it's like, yeah,

40:20

it's not a problem until it is. And

40:23

then everything falls apart. That's when your partner's

40:25

like, Hey, I'm sick of being with someone

40:27

who sits on the couch every day or

40:30

your parents finally kick you out because they're

40:32

like, you need some motivation to get you

40:34

out there to actually do something because as

40:36

it is now, you're not, right? Like there's

40:38

a lot of different ways this can look,

40:40

but yeah, this could be when you're losing

40:43

your job, losing your partner, losing relationships and

40:45

friends. Like it can have very serious consequences,

40:47

but they might not happen until later. So

40:49

better to get ahead of it. And then

40:51

related to that is kind of what the

40:54

stoic thing is the vulnerability of it. It's

40:56

like, well, but people will see me as

40:58

weak. And I'd say that the second part

41:00

of that thought is, and therefore unattractive

41:03

or undesirable or

41:06

unhireable or whatever

41:08

goes along with that, right? This kind

41:10

of stigma and this sort of romanticism

41:12

of our heroes from movies and games

41:14

who are kind of unaffected by everything,

41:16

except when appropriate for them to be

41:18

sad enough to motivate them to take

41:21

action or something, right? That we can

41:23

get caught up in that idea and

41:25

then feel like, well, I couldn't ever

41:27

express being sad or being scared or

41:29

being vulnerable or being afraid of being

41:31

alone. Cause then everyone will go, ah,

41:33

ha, we knew it. You are a weakling.

41:35

Get out of here. I think

41:37

a lot of people out there look

41:40

at a thing like emotional growth

41:42

and they sort of dismiss it

41:44

or they say that

41:46

emotions in general shouldn't control what

41:48

it is that we're doing in

41:51

our lives, for instance. So if

41:53

they see discomfort and can pinpoint,

41:56

okay, this is an emotional reaction

41:58

that I'm having. then maybe

42:00

they will shy away from doing

42:03

something to help that because they're

42:05

saying, okay, the emotion isn't going

42:07

to control me and I don't

42:09

want it to dictate my actions

42:12

instead of realizing that it can

42:14

hopefully lead to emotional growth and

42:16

resilience building. Yeah. My

42:18

favorite analogy with this one is it's like

42:21

saying, well, I don't like being held down

42:23

and so I don't really believe in or

42:25

think about gravity ever. And it's like,

42:27

no, it happens to you no matter what. Yeah. Learning

42:29

about it can then help you figure out ways

42:32

to fly, but pretending it doesn't

42:34

exist isn't going to help you. For sure.

42:36

Also, a lot of people will say that

42:39

it just takes too much time and effort

42:41

to deal with discomfort and

42:43

to move past it or figure

42:45

out coping mechanisms for it. And

42:47

I think that just the belief

42:49

that the process of facing and

42:51

processing discomfort, it's demanding. A lot

42:53

of people think that it's way

42:55

too difficult and so they're just

42:58

not going to invest time and

43:00

emotional energy into working on that.

43:02

And instead, they'll turn to these

43:04

coping mechanisms that are just going to

43:06

kind of mask the problem instead of facing it head

43:08

on. I honestly, I

43:10

can relate to this one. I forget if I've

43:13

talked about this on the show before. So my

43:15

apologies if this is a repeat, but I

43:17

have a certain amount of what I call my junk

43:19

drawer issues, which are the

43:22

issues or the uncomfortable feelings that

43:24

are maybe not front of my mind or

43:26

top of my mind all day, every day,

43:28

but maybe old stuff,

43:30

stuff that I haven't dealt with

43:32

yet. And I think of

43:34

it like the junk drawer where I'm like, well, I don't know how

43:36

to deal with this. I don't know where it

43:39

belongs. I'm just going to stick it here and

43:41

then forget about it. And it does become a

43:43

little bit of this. It's going to be too

43:45

much effort to organize that junk drawer or to

43:47

like find a place for this screw

43:49

set or whatever it is.

43:51

Like I'm just going to leave it in

43:54

the trunk drawer. Like there are some things like

43:56

seriously for me where I'm just like, I don't know if

43:58

I'm ready to deal with that yet. I'm just. going

44:00

to not think about it. And that's how I'll deal

44:02

with it is just not thinking about or just avoiding

44:04

the things that make me think about it. And that

44:06

leads me to this one where I feel very called

44:08

out by also is having

44:10

a preference to just leave it to

44:12

the professionals in the sense

44:14

of, well, when I

44:16

get into therapy someday, then I'll

44:19

deal with this stuff. You know, I don't really

44:21

have the ability to deal with it on my

44:23

own or it's going to be too big and

44:25

too overwhelming. I really shouldn't deal with it on

44:27

my own. I'm going to put it off until

44:29

I can talk to a therapist. Now, sometimes that

44:31

could be the right choice. You know, you're the

44:33

one who's going to make that call. But

44:36

also part of the whole point of

44:38

therapy is to develop your own sense

44:40

of resiliency so that you're not reliant

44:42

on a therapist the entire time.

44:45

But I'm definitely guilty of this one. There's a

44:47

certain list of issues where I'm kind of like,

44:49

well, when I have the time and money

44:51

to just jump into like

44:54

six somatic sessions back to back, then

44:56

I'm going to deal with that. But I've got

44:58

other friends that I want to deal with. Are you

45:00

surprised really? A little. Yeah. Just because I almost

45:03

thought that you were saying that you were called

45:05

out by this because you are in the therapy

45:07

sector and that you're like, how dare people don't

45:09

come to me as soon as they can. Nah,

45:14

man. No, man. I

45:16

got like literally my current

45:18

therapist that I've been seeing for a number

45:20

of years now, we're like finally getting

45:23

to some junk drawer issues that

45:25

I've had. And some of it is down

45:27

to like if I've kind of run out of like

45:29

the chronic stuff that I'm facing in my day to

45:31

day life, then I know it's time to dip into

45:33

the junk drawer of the stuff that I've been avoiding

45:35

and it's not fun. I

45:38

mean, I just want to acknowledge for a second and

45:40

kind of celebrate the fact that you're running out of

45:42

the more pressing stuff is actually a great place to

45:44

be. But here's the nature

45:46

about life though, James, is that life

45:49

will always present you with new chronic

45:51

stuff to do with. So it becomes

45:53

very easy for me to guide the

45:55

therapy session away from. But

45:57

like, let's talk about actually this other thing that I've been

45:59

thinking. And just this stuff is tricky. I just want to

46:01

normalize it that... Yeah. Definitely. That

46:03

yes, I feel this too. There's stuff

46:05

that to me feels like it goes

46:07

beyond my own sense of capacity to

46:09

cope or willingness to dive into the

46:11

discomfort. Yeah. So

46:14

with all of these objections, I think

46:16

the point we're trying to make is

46:18

they're all pretty reasonable. But

46:20

also I would argue that

46:22

none of them are good enough reasons

46:24

to put these things off completely or

46:26

to put them off forever. And that

46:28

working through this is going to involve

46:31

one, listening to this episode and hopefully

46:33

feeling like yes, this is important enough.

46:35

This is something that's valuable enough to

46:37

do even if it might be uncomfortable.

46:39

But also generating some understanding of yourself

46:42

and kind of have a little empathy

46:44

for yourself too. Don't feel like, ah,

46:46

just tear the band-aid off and kind

46:48

of force it, right? You might

46:50

want to seek some guidance from a

46:52

professional or maybe someone else in our

46:54

online community, you could form a little

46:57

group of like, hey, let's support each

46:59

other in trying to do this. Finding

47:02

some way to help you get into that

47:04

and navigate the complexities of this is really

47:06

important because it is hard. There's a lot

47:08

of reasons to not do it. And hopefully

47:10

we can get into now some things that

47:12

you can do and some tools you can

47:15

do that I'm hoping are something that feels

47:17

reasonable. It doesn't feel like, oh, I just

47:19

suddenly have to face every bad feeling all

47:21

the time every day because I don't think

47:23

that's reasonable and I don't think that would

47:25

be very helpful. So we're going

47:28

to get into that, but we're going to

47:30

take another quick break to talk about some

47:32

sponsors and hey, you know what? If you

47:34

don't like listening to ads, you could also

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the promo codes and links because they

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do directly help support our

47:57

show and to keep this going. This

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49:53

if you're someone who's identified that maybe

49:55

you need to start leaning into discomfort

49:57

and uncomfortable emotions a little bit more.

50:00

Or what are some things that we can do? I

50:02

think a really good place to start is

50:04

just see if you can identify

50:06

areas where there may be tolerable

50:08

or healthy discomfort. Some

50:11

of this is going to be

50:13

identifying what is situational uncomfortable feelings

50:15

versus chronic uncomfortable

50:18

feelings. So what

50:20

is temporary discomfort that I'm going

50:22

through because I have to face

50:24

a difficult conversation or I'm going

50:27

through a life transition versus long

50:29

term patterns of ongoing discomfort and

50:31

ongoing emotional avoidance. So this is

50:33

things like identifying your life when

50:35

boredom pops up. A super easy

50:37

way to identify this is whenever

50:40

you grab your phone, like literally,

50:42

literally, whenever you grab your phone, chances

50:45

are very high that it's because

50:47

you're bored or there's something uncomfortable

50:50

going on. For me, I've really identified that

50:52

if I'm in the middle of a task,

50:54

if I'm writing, usually it happens when I'm

50:56

writing and the minute that I don't

50:59

know what to say next is when I

51:01

feel the strongest urge to look at my

51:03

phone. It's always that when

51:05

I'm just like, I'm not sure what to say next or I'm

51:07

not sure what word to use next. Even

51:09

that tiny bit of uncertainty is uncomfortable enough

51:12

that I'm like, I need to

51:14

find a little dopamine hit right there. So this

51:16

is probably the easiest thing for you to track

51:18

to get a sense of that. There

51:21

can be other things like you can have the

51:23

little moments of loneliness or little moments of frustration

51:25

or annoyance. This is

51:27

in contrast to having panic

51:29

attacks all the time or having

51:31

really overwhelming PTSD

51:34

episodes or crushing

51:36

depression that is getting in the way

51:38

of your ability to live your life,

51:41

that it is important to distinguish the

51:43

different shades of discomfort, of the stuff

51:45

that maybe you could lean

51:47

into, that you can learn to tolerate, learn

51:49

to get curious about versus something where maybe you

51:52

need to go get some help. And

51:54

some of this is going to be when you

51:56

identify those areas is adopting

51:58

that growth mindset. acknowledging

52:00

that, all right, I can, you know, like when

52:02

I'm writing especially, I have to remind myself, it's

52:04

okay, I can sit in this discomfort of not

52:07

knowing what I'm going to say next. I can

52:09

just lean back in my chair, I can space

52:11

out a little bit, I can stand up, I

52:13

can go get some tea or something. I can

52:15

literally do so many other things to just wait

52:18

through that moment of discomfort instead of immediately reaching

52:20

for the thing that's going to make me feel better

52:22

right away. But you have to have that

52:24

sense of, I can accept that this could

52:26

be good for me, that this could help me grow.

52:29

And also some of it is developing

52:31

that body awareness, actually starting to pay

52:33

attention to the physical cues that when

52:35

you notice, okay, I am bored or I am

52:37

feeling not sure what I should do next. And

52:40

scanning to see how does that feel? Does

52:42

it feel like a tightness in your chest?

52:44

Does it feel like a restlessness in your

52:46

legs? Or does it feel like an absence

52:48

of feeling as well? That can also be

52:50

really interesting to track that if you

52:52

scan your body and you're like, I don't notice anything, how

52:55

does that feel to not notice anything in your

52:57

body? There's going to be some information here.

53:00

Some tangible tools for navigating

53:02

emotional discomfort may include things

53:05

like a mindfulness practice. So,

53:07

that can be observing

53:10

emotions without judgment, which

53:12

can hopefully foster self-awareness

53:14

and non-reactivity. It can

53:16

be journaling, something that Detterger

53:18

just talked about that Jace loves,

53:21

that I have really found is

53:23

super important when I'm going through

53:25

extremely difficult times emotionally that just

53:27

getting it out on paper is

53:30

so helpful instead of

53:32

having it just kind of be internal,

53:34

be inside of you to get it out

53:36

there in some way. And

53:38

often that for me is journaling, it can

53:41

just feel really great. And then you can

53:43

also look back on it and sort of

53:45

see, okay, this is where I was in

53:47

this moment in time and it's great to be

53:49

able to see where you are now versus how you were

53:53

feeling then. Just a quick

53:55

note on this because I know that it's become like

53:57

a meme now about Jace being the one who's always

53:59

encouraging. journaling exercises. I think

54:01

that the interesting thing here is that it's

54:04

the writing, not the keeping a journal for

54:06

me. Yeah. I actually almost

54:08

never have looked back at any journal entry

54:10

I've ever done in my whole life and

54:12

most of them are in notebooks that have

54:15

been thrown away or I've gotten rid of.

54:17

I think that there's a keeping a journal thing,

54:19

which is one thing and is really cool to

54:21

be able to look back like Dedeker does that

54:24

and she always has these cool stories of like,

54:26

literally four years ago is when we went and

54:28

did this thing and I felt this way. Oh, wow. But

54:31

for me, what I really appreciate is what

54:33

you just said, Emily, of like just getting

54:35

it out of my head onto something else.

54:37

It kind of gives you that sense of

54:40

like I did something about this without just

54:42

like ignoring it or distracting or whatever. And

54:45

then you can also name it to tame it. We

54:47

talked about this in episode 348 where we

54:50

were discussing kind of figuring out

54:52

how to name emotions, how to

54:54

understand emotions, understand what's

54:56

going on in our minds and

54:58

bodies and brains because simply just

55:01

trying to label an emotion or

55:03

say like I feel anxious in

55:05

this moment, it can help reduce

55:07

the intensity of that emotion. If

55:09

you can't name it, then that

55:11

sometimes can make it feel more overwhelming

55:13

to you and kind

55:16

of increase the fear-based response of I

55:18

don't know what this is, I'm just

55:20

having a really intense emotion. Instead, try

55:22

to name it, try to tame it.

55:25

And using an emotion wheel can help with that. Definitely.

55:27

I kind of be like, I don't know quite

55:29

what this is. I often run into this actually

55:32

where I'm like, I'm feeling sad? I don't know.

55:34

What is it? I'm not sure what this is.

55:36

But an emotion wheel can be a helpful tool

55:38

for being like, okay, it's in this

55:40

area. What are some of these other words?

55:42

Do you think maybe it's one of these? Could it

55:44

be one of these? As a way to sort of

55:46

explore that. The next one here

55:49

goes back to the boredom thing that

55:51

Dedeker was talking about and that is

55:53

to give yourself some time to be

55:55

bored or uncomfortable without avoiding

55:57

it. So kind of like Dedeker

55:59

was saying. how she's writing and feels

56:01

that urge to pull out her phone. It's

56:03

like, okay, I'll do something else. I'm gonna go get

56:05

some tea. I'll go for a quick

56:08

walk or I'll just like stand up and

56:10

stretch for a second. Like doing something that's

56:12

not so clearly distracting, getting

56:14

my mind away from this thing. So

56:17

when you feel that urge to

56:19

turn to something like video games,

56:21

scrolling on social media, drinking, weed,

56:23

masturbating, any number of things like

56:25

that, that's kind of a quick,

56:27

I'm gonna feel good and it's

56:29

gonna distract me to instead take

56:31

some time to just

56:34

let your mind wander. And this is

56:36

surprisingly hard to do. And so what

56:39

I'd like to encourage is to think

56:41

about it not like I won't masturbate

56:43

or I won't go on my phone,

56:46

check social media, but just don't

56:48

do it right away. So an example of this

56:50

is like when I'm having really busy days, I

56:52

will sometimes hit this point where I'm like, I'm

56:55

too overwhelmed. I don't know what's going on. I'm

56:57

gonna go for a walk and I'll put

56:59

on my shoes, go out for a walk

57:01

and I'll immediately reach for my ear pods

57:04

to start listening to a podcast or music

57:06

or something like that. And what I've been

57:08

doing recently is right as I

57:10

start to do that going, actually, I'm already

57:13

feeling all over the place and overwhelmed. Let

57:15

me not do that. And so what I'll

57:17

do is like the first 10 minutes or

57:19

so of my walk will just

57:21

be that. And then I'll say, okay, now

57:24

I'll listen to a podcast. And usually at that

57:26

point, I'll make a better choice of what podcast

57:28

to listen to. So instead of something

57:30

that's maybe like scary about current events

57:32

or online security or something like that,

57:35

I'll listen. I know. It's the

57:37

kind of podcast you listen to. I

57:39

know. Delving into jizz of mine. Spooky

57:41

online security stories. Yeah. That instead I'll

57:43

listen to the secular Buddhism podcast or

57:45

something that is more about mindfulness or

57:48

something that is not as much of

57:50

an escape, even if it's still a

57:52

little bit of fun. Right. So what

57:54

I would encourage you to do is

57:56

start with small challenges and kind of

57:58

build up your tolerance. for that. And

58:01

actually, some of the idea for this comes from

58:03

a lot of guides about quitting

58:05

smoking. That when you're quitting smoking, one of

58:07

the things that will happen is you'll have this urge

58:10

for a cigarette. You'll have that craving. And one

58:12

of the tips is to just tell

58:14

yourself, I have to wait 10 minutes, set a

58:16

timer, and then kind of go do something else,

58:19

distract yourself. Which I guess in this case

58:21

we're saying don't distract yourself. And the same

58:23

principle applies of after 10

58:25

minutes, that urge will

58:28

have lessened enough that then you might

58:30

go, actually, I'm not going to

58:32

have the cigarette. And so

58:34

in this case it's that like

58:37

give yourself that five, 10 minutes

58:39

of not immediately going to your

58:41

phone, not immediately putting on Netflix

58:43

or YouTube or whatever it is. Give

58:45

yourself a little bit of time and maybe it'll

58:47

change the choice that you make in terms of

58:49

what you consume or maybe it will change the

58:51

amount of it or even what you do. So

58:54

just kind of give yourself that

58:56

little time or on the other side you can

58:58

do a dedicure with talking about which is when

59:00

you're scrolling, stop yourself sooner. Realize, you

59:03

know what? This page has

59:05

refreshed two times now. I've scrolled

59:07

too much. I should stop and

59:10

just sit here for a second. And it

59:12

can be uncomfortable at first, but there's actually

59:14

been a ton of research into just sitting

59:16

and spacing out for a moment, being one

59:18

of the best ways to actually learn new

59:20

things and succeed in things that

59:23

you are actively trying to do, even

59:25

if it doesn't feel like you're working on them,

59:27

is to just kind of space out for a

59:29

little bit and not distract yourself. And

59:32

if you find yourself with a

59:34

particular behavior or a habit that

59:36

is becoming too compulsive or is like

59:39

taking up time that you really don't

59:41

want it to be taking up, that

59:43

doesn't mean researcher that I was talking

59:45

about earlier, Ann Lemke, she recommends taking

59:48

a 30-day break from something. Now, if

59:50

you have a physical addiction to a

59:52

substance, we would not recommend doing a 30-day

59:54

cold, tricky break. This is a whole other issue.

59:57

But I am talking about the things that we've been talking

59:59

about, like... impulsively swiping on

1:00:01

a dating app, very, very addictive, or

1:00:03

a particular video game or pornography or

1:00:05

things like that. And she warns

1:00:08

people that like the first two weeks are

1:00:10

going to suck. You're going to go through

1:00:12

being cranky. Everyone around you is not going

1:00:14

to like being around you because you're

1:00:17

irritable of, you know, all of those

1:00:19

things, right? But then at

1:00:21

the end of 30 days, your brain is

1:00:23

going to be in a more neutral baseline.

1:00:26

And it doesn't mean that at 30

1:00:28

days, oh great, I never have to

1:00:30

look at social media again. It's not

1:00:32

necessarily about totally kicking it, but it's

1:00:34

going to give you a leg up

1:00:36

in being able to make decisions about

1:00:38

what sort of relationship you want to

1:00:40

have to this dopamine producing thing and

1:00:42

give you some power back about how

1:00:44

you want it to be in your

1:00:47

life instead of it being a compulsive

1:00:49

thing that you can't really control. And

1:00:51

last but not least, if it's not

1:00:54

obvious already, you are not the only

1:00:56

person in the world dealing with avoiding

1:00:58

emotional discomfort. Okay, we all do this.

1:01:00

And what that means is that you

1:01:03

can reach out and find people to

1:01:05

support you in this. I

1:01:07

guarantee you, you can find a friend who

1:01:10

also wants to kick social media and

1:01:12

where the two of you can support

1:01:14

each other in that. I guarantee that

1:01:17

you can find a family member who

1:01:19

is willing to talk to you

1:01:21

and you can share about the particular emotional experiences

1:01:23

that you both have a hard time dealing with.

1:01:25

Of course, this can also be more formal. This

1:01:27

could be a support group. It could be connecting with

1:01:29

others who maybe understand similar

1:01:31

experiences, whether that's a compulsion

1:01:34

or whether it's having a

1:01:36

particular traumatic experience that has been hard

1:01:39

for you to sit with and to deal with that

1:01:41

can really reduce a sense of isolation. And

1:01:43

of course, always seeking professional help.

1:01:45

Therapy, counseling, coaching is great for

1:01:48

these kinds of things, for being able to

1:01:51

have someone who can be non-judgmental, something

1:01:53

that often holds people back from therapy is again

1:01:56

this fear that as soon as I go into

1:01:58

therapy, I'm going to have to die. dive straight

1:02:00

into ground zero of my most uncomfortable emotions

1:02:02

and all the things that I never want

1:02:04

to deal with. And a good therapist is

1:02:06

not going to make you do that. A

1:02:09

good therapist is going to recognize when

1:02:11

you have the capacity for starting to go there and is

1:02:13

going to help guide you through the

1:02:15

more scary territory at a pace that

1:02:17

makes sense for you. Did

1:02:19

we learn something today, everyone? I

1:02:22

learned that I

1:02:25

still love avoiding certain

1:02:28

emotions. We're young. Yeah.

1:02:31

Yeah. Now, I do

1:02:33

think this is, for me, has been

1:02:35

really encouraging in putting together this episode

1:02:38

to think about developing my skills of

1:02:40

identifying the emotions I'm feeling. And I

1:02:42

think that in general, I'm a fairly

1:02:44

emotionally available person. I'm not

1:02:47

afraid to admit those. I think I've come

1:02:49

a long way in that over the last

1:02:51

15 years of my life especially. But

1:02:54

I still think there's certain areas where I

1:02:57

just, it's like

1:02:59

there are just areas where I

1:03:01

don't know the difference between like

1:03:03

chartreuse and eggplant and violet. It's

1:03:05

that thing of like, yeah, I get there all

1:03:07

in this general area but I don't know how

1:03:09

to identify the different ones by name. And

1:03:12

so that's something that has got me thinking about

1:03:14

that kind of exercise of how to spend a

1:03:17

little time using motion wheels, things like that. I

1:03:19

feel like I recently did a

1:03:22

big thing that I really didn't

1:03:24

want to face because I knew

1:03:26

how difficult and challenging it would

1:03:28

be from an emotional standpoint. And

1:03:31

that was get out of a relationship that wasn't really

1:03:33

right for me anymore. And so

1:03:35

I feel like even just taking the

1:03:37

first plunge of realizing, yeah, you can

1:03:39

do difficult things and it is going

1:03:41

to suck but it kind

1:03:44

of shows me that I am

1:03:46

able to keep doing that

1:03:48

in other situations too, that I

1:03:50

don't just have to avoid the discomfort forever because

1:03:53

hopefully better things will come on the

1:03:55

other side of that discomfort. I

1:03:58

love that. That's a great note to end on. Yeah,

1:04:01

we would love to hear from all of you

1:04:03

as well on our Instagram. I mean, if you're

1:04:05

taking a 30-day break from social media, actually, never

1:04:07

mind. Don't even worry about it, seriously. Like we

1:04:09

don't want to hear from you. I will not

1:04:12

be offended. I will. We will not hear from

1:04:14

you for 30 days. That's super cool. But if

1:04:16

you would like to go on our Instagram stories,

1:04:18

we're going to be posting the question of what

1:04:21

type of discomfort do you avoid

1:04:23

that might be better if you faced

1:04:26

definitely interested to hear from people. You can

1:04:28

answer us by responding to the story there.

1:04:31

Also, if you want to discuss this further

1:04:33

or look for people to help support you

1:04:35

in this, the best place is to share

1:04:37

your thoughts with other listeners in the episode

1:04:39

discussion channel in our Discord server, or you

1:04:41

can post about it in our private Facebook

1:04:43

group. You can get access

1:04:46

to both of those groups and

1:04:48

join our exclusive community by going

1:04:50

to multiamory.com/join. In addition,

1:04:52

you can share publicly on the social medias

1:04:54

again, if you're not taking a break from

1:04:56

those. Multiamory is created

1:04:59

and produced by Dedeker Winston, Emily

1:05:01

Matlack, and me, Jase Lindgren. Our

1:05:03

production assistants are Rachel Chenowerk and

1:05:05

Carson Collins. Our theme song is

1:05:08

forms I know I did by Josh and Anand

1:05:10

from the Fraxel Cave EP. The

1:05:12

full transcript is available on this

1:05:14

episode's page on multiamory.com. Hey

1:05:21

there. Did you know Kroger always gives you

1:05:23

savings and rewards on top of our lower

1:05:25

than low prices?