Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships

I'm so grateful that you're here.

It's a beautiful day.

And if you're going through something challenging, then I'm going to let you know it's all going to be okay.

I don't know how many times I've felt like the world was falling apart or the world was against me or no one cared about me or no one loved me or it just felt like everything was difficult.

I don't know how many years I experienced that, but it always felt like, is this suffering and frustration and friction ever going to end?

And I have good news and bad news.

The bigger the dream you have, the greater the challenge and the friction that's going to come.

But the more you create inner peace, you heal, you learn to love yourself and accept yourself, you release shame, you release guilt, you realign yourself to your authentic power, and you truly start to create awareness around yourself and others.

Things start to transform and you can navigate and handle difficult challenges in a much more effortless way.

So it doesn't mean like all your problems are going to go away.

You're just going to have the tools, the poise, the inner peace and presence and awareness to navigate them and look at them not as horrible experiences, but as opportunities for growth and transformation.

And we've got a powerful episode today, Dr.

Caroline Fleck, who is a body language expert.

And she's going to be sharing tools that you need to create deeper connection and really how to understand navigating these difficult times in your lives.

And as a licensed psychologist and instructor at Stanford and the author of a new book called Validation, she shares this step-by-step process on how you can truly connect with everyone around you so that they feel truly seen and heard.

And we dive into this science of validation, a skill set that revolutionized psychology and is now being revealed as essential for everyone.

So it's going to give you powerful tools to create deeper connections because sometimes when our relationships feel like they're falling apart or we can't navigate difficult challenges within relationships, we feel like we're falling apart and the world is against us.

She's going to break down the entire process and how you can truly connect with people to transform challenges into opportunities for peace, purpose, and connection.

I'm so excited about this.

I hope you enjoy it.

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Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness.

Very excited about our guests.

We have Dr.

Caroline Fleck, who is a licensed psychologist and adjunct clinical instructor at Stanford.

I'm so happy that you're here and welcome to the new set of the School of Greatness.

I am thrilled.

This is the perfect conversation to talk about because you have a book called Validation, how the skill set that revolutionized psychology will transform your relationships, increase your influence, and change your life.

And for me, I love these types of conversations and I love the research that you've done because it validates my entire life.

It validates like the struggles that I've gone through and the almost defense mechanism I had to build up through surviving in society by learning this skill without even knowing that I was doing this to fit in, to belong, to get attention, to level up socially from middle school to high school to college to business.

And as I was going through the science and the research that you had in the book, I was just like, I'm so happy you're talking about this because i believe this is everything that i have used in a good way to support me in building my business and developing relationships for good for making a difference in the world yeah for making an influence on people in a positive way yes and so i wanted to start by um

asking you we're going to do a couple parts to this but the first part i want to talk about is really what have you learned as a

as a practitioner um

what is a psychological skill that you have learned from all the different clinical work with patients that can help individuals in the real world?

All the work you've done, all the skills that you've taught, what's one skill that people could use in the real world to help them transform their life?

Validation.

So I and validation is a set of skills really.

So you learn as a clinician, you're trained in these skills to help you communicate acceptance, to help you

help another person feel seen and heard.

This is very important if you want to get people to listen to you and to collaborate with you and to work with you.

Okay.

And there's a science to this.

Like this is, we've researched what is the most effective way.

How can you signal acceptance?

And as therapists, you're trained in this method.

These specific skills were developed for a treatment called dialectical behavior behavior therapy, DBT, which is a specific treatment for folks who have a condition known as borderline personality disorder, okay?

Often characterized by self-harm and suicidal behavior, so serious stuff.

But here's the thing.

I found myself,

however old I was, getting my PhD in psychology.

studying this very specific treatment and finally being introduced to these skills that that I'm thinking, why isn't this in grade school?

Like, why aren't these, why aren't these skills taught in, you know, K through five?

Why am I just hearing about this now?

And like, this is the path it took for me to get this information.

And I mean, not only was it immediately apparent that these skills helped patients and improved, you know, were critical to doing therapy well.

Is this you learning how to validate patients?

This is me learning how to validate patients.

Because if you don't validate a patient, they're not going to trust and believe you what you're saying.

They're going to feel unseen, unheard, like you don't understand them.

So I'm just going to keep living in this world of no one gets me.

Even my therapist doesn't understand me.

Of course.

So why would I trust and listen to what they're saying and take action on the tools that you're sharing with me?

That's right.

Interesting.

It's even a little further than that.

So prior to DBT, we had this real focus in psychology on change.

Everything was, you know, behaviorism, cognitive behaviorism, which focuses on changing your behavior, changing your thoughts.

And that's great for folks who are change-focused, believe in their capacity for change, and are willing to do what you suggest.

Okay.

If you've ever raised an adolescent or just been in a relationship with somebody where you feel like nothing's working, you know that feeling of like, there are times when that approach just doesn't work.

And so for the longest time, we didn't have treatments that worked for folks who were what we called treatment resistant.

And the discovery, the fascinating insight was that if you want to help people make profound changes, you need to help them feel deeply accepted.

Really?

What if there's someone that you're that you don't understand?

Because you don't think the way they think.

They have completely opposite viewpoints or they're extreme

borderline bipolar or extreme personality disorder.

They're suicidal and you can't, you don't understand that.

How can you validate someone that you don't understand?

So the skills that we learn, you start out with just a couple that basically signal engagement, that help me engage and help me listen in a way that will foster understanding and empathy.

Okay.

But here's the thing.

I don't have to validate the entirety of someone's experience.

Okay.

So when I'm working with, say, a schizophrenic client, someone who literally is seeing and hearing things that are not there, and this person is reacting to me as though I'm a threat, I'm trying to kill them or something, and I'm not.

I don't agree with those thoughts, not by any stretch of the imagination.

That is not valid.

However,

The feeling of fear and the desire to protect themselves, given what they're thinking, makes sense.

I can validate that.

I can go a step further and say, would you feel more comfortable taping, recording this conversation?

Because I understand that you don't trust me right now.

And if I wasn't feeling trust towards the person who I was talking to, I might want some recording so I could go back to it.

Ah, to be someone more safe feeling.

Right.

I'm not saying I agree with your thoughts, but I see the validity in your feeling and I can attend to that.

Does that make sense?

So like that is critical because what we tend to focus on is behavior that we don't like, we don't agree with, and we fail to attend to the valid emotions behind it.

What would you say then is the step-by-step process for making someone feel seen and validated?

Okay.

It is

the model I use is called the validation ladder and it includes eight skills.

And I won't go through them all, but

essentially validation conveys mindfulness, understanding, and empathy in a way that makes the other person feel accepted.

So, at the bare minimum, if I don't understand or empathize with someone, all I can do is be mindful and engaged.

And to be mindful, you need to project non-judgment.

So, it's not just listening, okay?

Because people can tell when you are listening and coming up with your rebuttal and your counter-argument or your judgments.

So, you have to listen in such a way that projects curiosity.

And we know how to do that.

All right.

You use specific nonverbals and you play this little game in your head,

which is amazing and super effective.

Do you want me to talk about it?

Yeah.

Kind of embarrassed.

Okay.

So a little therapist trick, but it is, it's how we attend.

If I'm sitting across from someone and you're talking to me, The game I'm playing in my head is to solve or figure out this kind of two-part riddle.

What's your point?

Why do you care about it?

And how do I improve upon it?

How could I crystallize that argument better?

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're just thinking on your feet and you're throwing all this together.

So in my mind, I'm thinking just how do I make this point better than you're making it now?

It's kind of like when you're in a debate and you have to argue a position you don't necessarily agree with, right?

Like

why you should smoke.

And you're just in the, your job is just to kind of formulate the best argument you can.

That's essentially what you're doing.

So you start asking questions to try and understand their position better and you're just tweaking it and tweaking it.

If you watch great interviewers like late night hosts,

you'll see,

you can see them playing a version of this game.

They're trying to pull out the best interview they can.

Doesn't necessarily mean that they agree with what the other person is saying or whatever.

They're just trying to crystallize that message and that informs how they listen and then the questions questions they ask.

And without fail, there's a sense of genuine curiosity there because it's genuinely there.

Yeah.

But if there's someone that you're working with,

whether it's an elite executive or someone who's suicidal

and they're trying to make a point

in your mind, you know, that's not what they need to be thinking about.

It's actually hurting them or blocking them from creating what they want.

Sure.

How do you play the game of validating their point when you know it's hurting them or it's a false belief around something or it's not the truth that's going to support them and setting them free emotionally psychologically how do you play that game and then empower them to think a different way okay so as i'm playing that game i'm just asking at this level it's just kind of mindful awareness that i'm projecting here and as i'm listening i am hearing the emotion i am starting to make connections in my head i am looking for what is the kernel of truth in what this person is saying where is this coming from what is the the feeling behind this?

What function does this behavior serve?

With suicidality, it's often relief from pain.

All right.

If they had a way to relieve pain, they would take it.

And this is the only option they see.

I don't agree with that.

But importantly, validation does not require agreement.

I'm a vegetarian, but I could validate why somebody would choose to eat meat.

That doesn't mean I agree with them.

I just see the validity in their argument.

And I can focus on that instead of the part that I disagree with.

And importantly, if I focus on that first,

the conversation around perhaps changing their opinion is much more likely to be successful.

So validate their point first.

Validate the valid, yeah.

And then if you're trying to influence or persuade to seeing something differently, how do you move them in that direction?

That's when I pivot to more like behavioral stuff.

Okay.

So that would be, you know, we have all sorts of reinforcement shaping that we do to try and kind of nudge the person in the other direction.

But the interesting thing is

the person will just be more receptive to you.

You're curious, they absorb that curiosity.

So one of the other mindfulness skills we use here, there's that attending one, and then there's copying.

which sounds so weird, but let me tell you, if you are like up at night, you can't sleep, Google the research on mimicry or or copying.

It is fascinating stuff.

Like simply copying another person's body language.

Okay.

Does it get too weird if you're copying everything though?

It does.

Like I scratch, you scratch.

I switch my feet, you switch your feet.

I shift, you shift.

It would, but here's the thing.

So as soon as if we were talking and I was starting to feel like, ooh, this isn't going well, I would in my head just say like copy.

I'm not going to be too,

you know, drilled in, but I just give like myself a message, copy.

For you to copy me.

For me to copy you.

I just tell myself copy.

And I slowly start to assume a similar position.

Okay.

And I'm intentionally doing that because I'm trying to attune to you.

And this isn't me just being weird.

Doing this activates mirror neurons.

Wherein, as a result of copying your expression and your body language, I will start to feel, I will start to taste some of what you are experiencing.

All right, that is how mirror neurons function.

We are designed to copy.

Babies mimic the facial expressions of people, of their parents and caregivers.

When we're attracted to people or we want to impress them or we like them, we naturally copy them.

When we sense threat, we tend to close up.

and interestingly those are the moments oftentimes conflict right where connection would serve you best

it's just not what we're wired to yeah because we're in the defense that's right we're guarding protective

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So copying is similar to mirroring or mimicking?

Mirroring?

Uh-huh.

Mimicking.

What is the science behind copying or mirroring that shows you how much more influential you can be in any relationship?

Oh my gosh.

So I'm trying to think of some of these really quirky studies.

They looked at, for instance, when waiters simply repeat back an order

compared to those who don't, they get a 25% higher tip on average.

Right.

Copying increases altruistic behavior towards the person who did the copying.

It also overcomes implicit racism.

So

they have ways of measuring kind of subtle forms of racism that you're not even aware of.

They'll give you an assessment to measure that.

And then they'll have you copy someone of the opposite race, copy their movements in a move, in a video or something, and then they'll measure it again.

And that implicit racism has has significantly decreased wow just by copying just by copying yeah so this is what i'm saying about how you use these entry skills to cultivate more understanding and empathy and that is how you move to higher levels of validation because my full-time job is working with people who are saying doing and believing things that are distorted to the extent of being pathological.

Can you give me an example of what someone might say, you know, to say who or

what it was exactly, but an example of a distorted belief?

Well, Caroline, it's clear.

I guess this is done.

I guess we're not working together anymore.

Me saying, I'm sorry, what happened?

I emailed you yesterday.

You didn't respond?

Didn't respond to me?

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I had so many.

Immediately I'm getting defensive, right?

I am so sorry.

I had so many.

You know that I self-harm.

Wow.

You don't care you don't care you think this is fun you think this is fun just really kind of wow ramping it up taking it to a whole nother level it's like a different world in their mind right it is and in my heart i'm feeling responsible for what's going on for them harming themselves mentally potentially physically wow and then like i need to get this under control so it's that type of those types of situations and if if these skills work in those situations

their potential when the stakes are much lower and folks are much more rational

is significantly

when someone's more receptive.

Exactly.

You know, less aggressive or less like, or just in the same world as you.

Yeah.

Mentally, emotionally.

Yes.

I mean, it's much easier.

Interesting.

But if someone's extremely combative or in a completely different world like that, how do you walk them off the edge?

I mean, not physically, but how do you walk them off the edge, I guess, pull them back into a place of like getting back into a reality?

Or is that not even possible for some people?

There's a lot of different things that go into that.

At that point, what I would start doing genuinely is actually to copy back.

Okay, so let me get this right.

I want to make sure I've got this.

You emailed me yesterday.

From your perspective, this should have been a signal to me.

that you were in crisis.

Okay.

I, okay.

And I need to be careful not to say that wasn't in your email.

Just like, so, right now, I got it.

You're feeling like I totally betrayed you.

Like I'm intentionally trying to hurt you.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay.

I get, I see, I see, I see.

Oh, I am so sorry you feel that way.

Oh, my gosh.

That is no, no, no, no.

That is not what happened.

Not from my perspective.

Can I share my perspective?

It's okay if you don't want me to, because that could sound offensive.

But I really, I, I, I'm, I'm, it hurts my heart that there was this miscommunication.

But doesn't that feel like you have to walk on eggshells?

Yeah, a little, I mean,

if that's the real world, maybe with a patient who's personality disorder, but

no, because I am seeing like that's their world, that's their perspective.

I do see that.

Right, right.

I'm not saying anything I don't believe.

Now,

here's the thing.

It's acceptance and change, not acceptance or change.

They are two sides of the same coin.

So I can validate.

And then once there's,

once I see that that has resonated, I switch gears.

Okay.

But let's look at this for a second.

If you keep responding to people in this way, when they miss a message from you, I'm worried you're going to start burning people out.

Because the other thing I felt just now was attacked and scared

and not in a good way.

All right.

Is there anything we could have done, do you think, that could have brought down the intensity just a little bit so you could give me that message, but not, you know, make me want to hide under the couch?

Wow.

So that's it.

That's that combination.

You see how I'm going from validation to change.

Interesting.

Right.

Okay.

But you said attending was the first step in the ladder, right?

Yeah.

And the second is copying, which is that mimicry that I do.

And attending includes eye contact, proximity, gesturing, and nodding.

That's right.

So it's a two-parter.

It's that little game that you're playing in the head, and then it's non-verbals.

All right.

And what was the first thing to go out the window once we were in shutdown from lockdown from COVID?

Proximity.

Proximity.

Eye contacts.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, all of it, I guess.

Gestures get really awkward.

Everything.

Yeah.

Everything.

And so it's hard to feel validated if you're not in person.

It's hard to feel seen.

It's hard to feel connected.

Right.

And I'm not saying that that explains all of the loneliness we experienced.

But as a therapist,

I can vouch for the fact that it was significantly harder.

I had one hand tied behind my back because these skills that I've learned to rely on, I could not use.

And that is, that's hard.

And that is something we sacrifice by being so

online.

And if you think there's nothing meaningful there, I would challenge you to look at the research on

kind of how folks who are online for hours and hours a day fare in terms of mental health and relationships.

Yeah, it's not good stuff.

So attending is the first thing.

Copying is the second thing.

I also saw this quote that I loved in your book on page 81 that's by Henry David Thoreau that says, the greatest compliment that was ever paid to me was when someone asked me what I thought and attended to my answer.

It was the greatest compliment.

And I believe that,

you know, in a world of 8 billion plus people, the thing we want the most is validation.

It's the thing we want the most is to be acknowledged, to be seen, and to be accepted freely, which is being validated of our existence.

It's like you're alive.

I see you.

And then there's different levels of validation.

It's like, I see you, that you're a human being.

Right.

And I see that the suffering you're going through.

Yes.

I see the greatness or the goodness in you.

I see the kind acts you're generating with the world.

I see that you're a good friend.

It's like, I see that you're a good employee, all these different things.

Or at the top, I see myself in you.

That is real power.

What does that mean?

When I look at you, it's like looking in the mirror.

I see so much of my own experiences.

I can relate so deeply to what you're describing.

It's like we're one in the same.

That's that, the moments you have, perhaps in self-disclosure, right?

When someone says to another, hey, man, I'm also an AA, right?

Immediate.

There's an understanding there.

There's a sameness.

Connection.

There's connection.

And I would actually go a step further with

how critical validation is.

This sounds like controversial.

I see that.

But I think it is more important than love.

I think you cannot have true love in the absence of having been and having consistently been validated.

Not being validated.

Yeah.

I mean, if you're, if you've been, if there's not enough, if there isn't validation in the relationship, it's hard to feel loved.

Because if you don't feel accepted or seen, what does the person love?

So love is not enough.

No, you can love a facade, but that doesn't feel good.

I can, you know, create all these stories about myself and, you know, filter this and filter that and get all sorts of likes and praise, which is a positive judgment.

Praise says, I like how you look or I like how you perform.

Validation says, I accept you independent of how you look or perform.

Okay.

In the absence of feeling seen, feeling accepted, it's hard to feel deeply loved.

We don't, I mean, we haven't been vulnerable.

We haven't shown ourselves or we have and the other person has been like, whoa, that's weird.

And we shut that down.

Yeah.

Right.

And so they love the parts of us that we've shown or dressed up,

but perhaps not the entirety of who we are.

But I'm curious if you have behaviors that are not verbal to validate someone,

whether it be mimicking or copying, is that a way to someone to be more attracted to you?

Yeah, so the research on attraction is often with copying.

So we are more attracted to people who copy us, which is like just if you're going on a, a first date.

Always try to copy more.

Always try to, right?

So don't do the opposite of what they're doing.

Right.

Right, right, right.

But like, don't be, you know, again, I, I, as I said before, I give myself just this little cute copy.

That's it.

Because if I'm like really dialed in on it, it gets awkward.

It's too much.

It's too much.

You're shifting when they're shifting constantly.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

That's right.

But again, we're naturally wired to do this.

And so if you just kind of remember it in a moment, that's sufficient.

Yeah.

I mean, when you see someone smile, you tend to smile back.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, it's just a quick mimic.

You see them walk at you, unless you're like guarded guarded that day and you're like don't look at me but if you have an open relaxed state of being that's right you're more willing to smile when someone smiles at you a quick gesture right that's right that's right it's we see it as almost a common courtesy yeah but it is at a deeper level and when it's used more intentionally to kind of establish connection

it can be used in those ways so after attending and then copying, what would be the next level of validation?

Yeah, the next level up is to say, is to show some degree of understanding, right?

And usually this is like logical understanding, cognitive understanding.

I can see how you got there, right?

And there's a couple skills here.

You can do the anyone in your shoes would feel that way.

Right.

Like

anyone in your shoes would be

probably anxious about this set coming together.

That's interesting.

Last minute.

Yeah, yeah.

As opposed to saying, I can understand where you're coming from, you'd say, anyone in your shoes.

Is that what you're doing?

You can do anyone in your shoes.

A way more effective way to do it is like, oh my God, yes, I would be so anxious to.

Like, me too.

If you think about going to a doctor and them saying, like,

if you're like, yeah, I don't know, I think I might, I don't know if I should get a second opinion.

You should absolutely get a second opinion.

If it was my child, that's what I would do.

Right.

We're like, yummy, that feels good.

Right.

There's this sense of like, okay,

I'm valid.

What I'm thinking is valid.

It's reasonable.

I'm not being dramatic.

I'm not being X, Y, or Z.

Yes.

That's kind of what

these understanding skills communicate.

One of them happens to double as a Jedi mind trick.

I've just got to worry about

proposing.

What's proposing?

Proposing is when, you know, I was playing that little game in my head earlier where I'm trying to figure out like, you know, what are you, what are you thinking?

Why does this matter to you?

I don't answer.

I don't, I don't actually communicate any of that.

This is all just in my head to keep me engaged.

But if I come up with some stuff,

I I can throw it out there and see what sticks.

I can propose something you haven't said.

All right.

It's also known as like mind reading.

Can you give me an example?

How do we mind read someone?

You know, a great example was actually an interview with Oprah and

Megan

Markle.

Markle.

Yeah.

And Megan Markle is describing, you know, this

life of being in front of the paparazzi

and feeling like she couldn't be her true self.

And then she's obviously kind of pained and shamed about having not stood up for herself.

And

she looks at Oprah and she says,

I just, I was silent throughout this experience.

I just, I was just silent.

And then Oprah, being Oprah, says, Were you silent or were you silenced?

Boom!

Oprah effect,

right?

That's proposing.

That's articulating something the person hasn't said.

And if you're really good, if you really nail it, perhaps you facilitate an insight that they didn't even have.

And you might be wrong, but if you're feeling it and you throw out, okay, what about this, this, or this?

Maybe your intuition picks up on one of them.

And it's like, oh my God, you understand me.

You're reading my mind.

So this is such a critical point.

I'm glad you dialed in on that because I can't emphasize enough, these are skills.

All right.

And to develop any skill, you've got to strike out.

Right.

Usually, you, if it's a, you know, a skill for like a sport or something, you're getting coaching on the side.

As therapists, I'm getting a lot of coaching on the side.

And you're just taking that feedback in to sharpen those skills.

But with this stuff, we tend to really internalize the feedback and get shut down or feel rejected or like, oh, God, I'm just going to make things worse.

And that is a mistake.

You have to look at these things as skills that you develop.

And you're right.

You strike out, you get some feedback.

Oprah strikes out all the freaking time.

It's amazing.

Like go watch these and she's throw things out and it's just like, no, I wasn't scared.

I was humiliated.

You know, and she's like, humiliated.

She goes back down the ladder copying.

Humiliated.

Hmm.

What was humiliating about it?

Attending.

She gets more information.

She gets more.

Then she tries again.

It doesn't stick.

She drops down that ladder, starts back with just being mindful.

and then tries again.

Yeah, you got to tend.

The mindfulness is about attending and copying, right?

It's like, how can I be present with you is what I'm hearing you say.

Yeah, be curious.

How can I focus on you rather than think about myself or what I'm going through or what I want to say in this moment?

That's right.

Yeah.

How do I not, how do I be curious and

continue to follow up with asking questions as opposed to acting like I'm smart and having the answers?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's the mindfulness part of this ladder, attending and copying.

Yeah.

But when you propose something, it's like you're trying to understand them.

You're trying to show that you understand.

That's right.

by proposing, oh, when you were feeling this, when you had your, your, you know, your child, I'm assuming it was a lot of anxiety, but also a lot of joy at one point.

And maybe you can be like, no, it was a nightmare.

Like the whole 24 hours was not joyful.

And I thought the baby was going to come and I was going to have this connection and I didn't.

Yeah.

Right.

Some women say that.

Yes.

Another woman was like, it was amazing in this spiritual moment and then brought him to my chest and I felt one with my child.

Yeah, great example.

So it's like showing a few different options, but you might be wrong.

Now, here's the thing, though.

A perfect example, what most people do in that first scenario, when they said, oh, you must have been so excited.

And the person goes, actually, no, I was, I struggled with post-part impression.

They go,

really?

Oh,

yeah.

And they don't.

They might kind of, they just don't ever try again to show understanding.

They've like, they're like, okay, I don't get it.

I don't want to make things worse.

And that is the biggest mistake.

You've got to stay in the game.

Just take it as feedback.

Clearly, you weren't paying close enough attention.

So go back to those two skills, keep working them, and that goes.

Starting out and ask questions again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Copying.

Oh, tell me, what was that like?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so this is like, you know, I talk about each of these skills individually, but the real skill is being able to kind of like move between these things.

Interesting.

And know when to, how to correct, course correct.

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And whether I'm traveling, I'm training, or I'm working, I always have a few packs on hand, and we've even stocked up in the studio as well.

My favorite are the orange and the citrus.

I'm actually drinking out of a can of citrus salt right now, and it's amazing.

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so every day

we are in relationship with others when we're around other people whether we know it or not we're either validating or not validating someone right or at the worst uh we're invalidating them invalidating right right

and

I would say that the quality of our life is related to our ability to validate effectively, it sounds like, with the people in our life, right?

Friends, family, teams, employees, bosses, whatever it is.

If we're not attending and listening, if we're not able to contextualize or propose opportunities for people,

then we're probably not going to be enjoying our relationships that well.

Yeah, that's right.

We're going to be struggling.

Yeah.

And what is the next level level from mindfulness to understanding?

What is the next level of validation that you talk about?

So at the top, you've got these empathy skills, and they communicate mindfulness, understanding, and empathy in one foul sweep.

This is powerful stuff.

It's also at like the top of this, if you visualize a ladder.

So you can imagine when you fall down from a high position, it hurts.

Yes.

So if you strike out with these, it can be a little ugly.

All right.

And, you know, there's

they're not all super intense.

Some of the most basic ones are just like emoting, like expressing your genuine emotion.

Okay.

But I'm trying to think of, I almost need to like show you what it looks like.

Give me an example.

Yeah.

There was a great example of Jon Stewart actually

talking to the talking to Congress on behalf of the

9-11 first responders.

And he's advocating on their behalf.

I remember that.

And it's very, I mean, he's, and he's Jon Stewart.

He's incredibly articulate, very eloquent.

Passionate.

But as he's talking, he starts getting choked up.

He just gets so mad.

And it's just such an injustice.

And like, holy cow, you can feel how much, like,

he just so swiftly validated their outrage,

their sorrow, the injustice of it, simply through his emotion, right?

He broke character from his like standard, you know, how John Starr, like that was not who showed up.

It was a person

who was deeply vulnerable and it was clear that he was deeply affected by their experience.

And that's kind of what it can show.

It doesn't have to be negative emotions.

Like I'm a big one for jumping up and down and like high fiving and hugging.

It's just like, it's breaking character, I I think.

Expressing yourself, emoting.

Okay.

What is disclose?

What does that mean?

Like self-disclosure.

Okay.

So that would be, um,

for instance, I struggled with depression for about a decade.

Personally?

Yeah.

Yeah.

From when I was 15 through about 26.

It's one of the reasons I wanted to become a psychologist.

To understand your own suffering, your own pain?

I mean, I'm kind of an jerk.

Yeah.

Like, I wanted to see if I could treat depression on some level.

In part because so much of what I received felt damaging.

In retrospect,

I felt invalidated by most of the mental health providers I saw.

There was this,

and I can see it.

I was high functioning.

There was this disconnect between like, you look fine, what's wrong?

You know, and the fact that I'm saying like, no, I'm really struggling.

I'm really struggling here.

And so I felt dismissed.

I felt

I doubted if this was even real a lot of the time.

There was this whole narrative of, like, what's wrong with me?

I've got everything, like,

poor you.

You know, it's just, um,

yeah, it was just swirling around my head big time.

And fortunately, I got treatment and got better.

And now, when I work with clients and I've got someone who says,

you know, like,

you don't possibly, you couldn't possibly understand.

You're sitting here and you're like, you're with your degrees behind the wall and you think you've got it all.

And

I say, yeah, but I had ECT

for depression.

That's electric shock therapy.

Okay.

That's a big deal.

I understand suffering.

I understand being at that level of pain where you would do anything

to relieve it.

And it kills me that this person I care so much about is in this exact same situation.

But I got through it.

And I won't quit.

I will do whatever I can to see how to get you through it.

Okay.

There is a connection there.

There's, you know, you can feel that.

Again, it's, I see myself in you.

I'm not better than you.

We're in this together.

That's what disclosure can do.

What if you disclose something where you're like, okay, I had a little something,

but someone else is feeling like they have a much bigger something.

So you're like, okay, I see you're trying to relate to me.

By your example of having a weekend of depression or whatever, I'm not making this up.

It's not a decade of what I've been experiencing.

It's not suicide.

It's not

harming myself.

Right.

Not being medicated constantly.

Right.

What if it makes them angrier by you trying to disclose?

Remember when I said the higher you go, the harder it hurts.

Oh, right, right, right.

Right.

So it's like, you have to be sensitive in how you approach it.

And maybe it's like, listen, I know this isn't anything you're going through, but I've, I've gone through my own periods of like not understanding or feeling pain or feeling sadness or depression.

That's right.

And it's probably nothing like what you're experiencing.

Yes.

But it was, it felt overwhelming for me.

Yes.

Yes.

So it's approaching it in that delicate.

That's right.

That's right.

And I have all sorts of tips in the book around how to kind of repair if you think you've screwed up how to avoid you know making some mistakes there but the fact of the matter is i can't emphasize this enough it's a skill all right and so if you want to get good at this you practice it you practice it you know i wasn't coming on podcast saying that i had had ect and major depression like i I figured out a way to communicate that in a way that feels effective to me and focused on the topic.

Why wouldn't we disclose earlier earlier in a conversation?

If someone's going through a challenging time, why wouldn't we disclose and say, by relating and mimicking or copying through disclosure, why wait to go up the ladder to disclose to the very last moment?

Well, you don't have to wait to the last moment.

So that's an important point.

With validation, you want to go as high as you can authentically and effectively.

So if I get it right away, I could go pretty, you know, I could go for it.

Right.

Yeah.

But if I don't have rapport with the person

and I don't know.

So I have, I've, I made that mistake actually once with a moating that I remember with a client

whose mother, this mother had come to see me.

Her daughter had gone to one of these like wilderness programs, which are just a complete scam.

She was there for eight weeks, came back and attempted suicide and was in the ICU.

Wow.

And mom was devastated.

Mom's seeking treatment for her.

And she's telling me about this.

And I'm allowing myself to just kind of tear up a little bit.

Interesting.

Okay.

Cause I am feeling like just, oh, I hate the system and this poor kid.

I'm just having all this stuff.

And I just, I lost control of it.

I work with suicide and self-harm day in and day out, but I just got worked up.

I like lost the

she probably thought you were more out of control than her because you were emotional, feeling emotional.

I got too emotional.

And so she probably didn't feel safe.

She was shut down.

She was like, oh, I can't talk about my experience without someone reacting, you you know yeah in a way that you're reacting that's right interesting so that i mean that was a mistake wow it happens but you got to try stuff

and you can't be inauthentic too like if you're really feeling the sadness of what someone's going through you want to emote and connect with that person and say man i'm so sorry you're going through that that's right you don't want to be a robot and say okay let me tell me the next thing that that's and and i unfortunately i think that's where we've kind of been pushed in society and especially with all of like the facades and this or we'll disclose like the things that are really really trendy to disclose, you know, that you're struggling with this or that because everyone's talking about, I don't know, menopause now or something, right?

But the other stuff that's not trending, what's acceptable in society right now to talk about anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But maybe the other stuff,

someone hints at something they're going through that you've also gone through, but that's not something we talk about.

What's not really talked about in society right now is suicide not an open conversation?

Because I feel like mental health from the pandemic, like menopause, like like you said,

I feel like sexual abuse, sexual trauma is come a lot in the last five to eight years with Me Too and other kind of movements that have brought people more safety to talk about these things.

But what is a big taboo topic that people are unable to talk about these days?

There's always the trends of I, it's deep down, I hate myself,

which people are not

comfortable kind of disclosing or opening up about.

What's the percentage of people in the world that you believe

they believe truly hate themselves?

That are, I'm truly unlovable.

I hate myself.

I get everything wrong constantly.

No one's going to love me.

I'm an idiot.

What's the percentage?

You know, I don't, I couldn't say because there's also all sorts of like cultural variations and stuff there.

In the States, I mean, I think it's really quite high.

Really?

Yeah, I'd say maybe like 60% of people

unloved.

I was at this this Tara Brock

training once.

I don't know if you know who she is.

She wrote this book on radical acceptance years ago.

It's this hardware.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She did this very risky thing, in my opinion.

She's got this, you know, whole audience of folks, maybe 80 folks, all mental health providers.

And she says, everyone, close your eyes for a second.

And I want you to raise your hand.

If you believe there's something about you, something you've done, something specific to your character that makes you unlovable.

Okay.

Now open your eyes.

Like, don't do that, but you open your eyes and everybody's hand was up.

Wow.

These are mental health experts.

These are mental health experts.

Trained psychologists or therapists or teachers.

Yeah.

It was one of the most kind of moving, insightful moments of my life.

Really, it was like, oh, this is deep.

Like this is, there's something going on here.

This is cultural.

So, I mean, mean,

if

most people in the States don't love themselves and have a hatred towards self, then how do we learn to validate ourselves in a way that is healing for our mental health and helps us move forward in our lives?

It's just, like, I almost get worked up because it's something I'm so passionate about.

I think, unfortunately, most of us were raised on problem solving.

When we came to our parents with a problem, they had a solution.

Study more.

Let's get you a tutor.

Don't worry, you can try out next time.

This kind of impulse to make it better.

To fix.

To fix.

And unfortunately, in the process, there's this subtle message that you shouldn't be feeling that way.

Stop feeling that way.

Okay.

Not, it's totally valid that you're disappointed.

I get it, man.

I get it.

Oh, God, I remember being your age.

Oh, I once failed a math test, but it was nothing compared to this, but like, and I couldn't even, my mom came and picked me up from school.

I was crying.

I can't believe you made it through the day.

We just, we're not raised on that.

And so it's no surprise that as adults, when we make a mistake,

we struggle to see the validity in our emotions, our reactions.

We, we're not trained to do that.

It's such an interesting balance because I remember,

I remember feeling like supported and encouraged, but also like told not to cry and like toughen up.

But it was like a mixture of both.

It was like sometimes it was like, okay, I'm here to hug and support and like watch you cry.

And then other times toughen up, don't cry.

It was like a, it was a mixture of both.

Yeah.

And so it was always kind of confusing.

Like, what am I supposed to do?

Am I supposed to like toughen up?

Am I supposed to show emotion as a kid?

And

we can't all be like crying all day long as adults.

Also, it's like we have to be able to regulate emotions and process and like have some thicker skin in some scenarios.

So we're not just like every little thing triggers us and makes us react emotionally.

Our nervous system needs to be calm under chaos.

Yes.

But also we need to be able to express ourselves when we're feeling certain feelings, right?

Well, there's a difference between recognizing an emotion, realizing it's valid, and choosing to regulate it rather than express it.

Right.

So I can, there are plenty of times where I'll feel sad, okay, about something and I'll start going down that loop.

You know, the story starts coming together of like why I suck and how I should have done something better.

You know, it makes sense that I'm sad.

I was really looking forward to this.

Didn't come through.

This is, this is pretty, this is upsetting.

Right now, it's not going to be effective to

focus on that.

I'm going to feel worse.

if I draw more attention to myself.

So how can I take care of myself right now?

I probably just need to get through this.

And then, when I get home, I'm going to take a hot bath.

Right.

So, it's like, and I can let it out, I can express it how I need to.

Yeah, yeah.

But there is this, this, there's, there's not, we have this fear that if we recognize our emotions, they will over take us and like we'll just be at the mercy of them and express, you know, kind of falling apart all over the place.

It's really the exact opposite.

When you see the validity in your emotions, you stop wrestling with them, okay?

And you get to be the pilot a bit more.

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And if you're tired of electrolyte drinks that are loaded with sugar and junk, Element is for you.

Element is a zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix that delivers a science-backed dose of sodium, potassium, and magnesium with none of the artificial stuff.

So there's no sugar, no coloring, no BS.

And it's trusted by Navy SEALs, pro athletes, and health-minded folks from around the world because it actually works.

And whether I'm traveling, I'm training, or I'm working, I always have a few packs on hand, and we've even stocked up in the studio as well.

My favorite are the orange and the citrus.

I'm actually drinking out of a can of citrus salt right now, and it's amazing.

A lot of my team says watermelon is their go-to, and we also have a lot of raspberry fans here in the office as well.

So, you really can't go wrong with any of their flavors.

They're all so refreshing.

Get a free eight-count sample pack of Elements most popular drink mixed flavors with any purchase at drink lmnt.com slash greatness try it risk free seriously if you don't love it they'll refund you no questions asked stay salty with lmnt

again drink lmnt.com slash greatness

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When is the time that we should express our emotions versus regulate our emotions?

How do we know which one to do in each scenario?

It's important to feel like you can regulate.

All right.

So if you're going to get yourself to a place that you can't get yourself back down from, that's a problem.

All right.

Like that, it's just not going to be constructive for you.

And so

knowing how to regulate pretty much determines the extent to which you should kind of wallow or not wallow.

But in general, the interesting thing about emotions, I mean, they're called feelings because we feel them.

And if you just sit with the feeling, like whatever feeling you're feeling right now, if you just sit with it,

this is part of self-validation you first kind of notice the emotion you label it

and then you just try and feel it as intensely as you can without feeding it the narrative like if you do that if you just say okay i'm sorry i'm going to feel this as intensely as i can sadness sadness no story about why just sadness sadness feel it really really squeeze out that sponge it will decrease

That is how emotions operate.

They go up, it goes to I know you're saying it's not going to decrease, Caroline, it's not going to decrease, but it will.

But if you divorce yourself from the narrative and you just feel it it can and if you suppress the emotion then what happens it just gets bigger it just gets hungrier it's like a child waiting trying to get your attention isn't it right screams louder and louder right so you stuff and stuff and stuff and try to contain it it's going to react in some way right either whether it be energetically in your body or nervous system yeah eczema or some other condition later right seriously yeah it's going to come out in some ways that's right that's right or you're just going to have headaches or it's just going to be like i can't sleep and i'm ruminating it's going to be expressing itself internally until you express it externally that's right i think what you'll find you know um if you struggle with being alone i think that's a real tell

for the degree to which you are facing and at peace with your emotions because when there's no one else around and your phone is dead and you're the only person you're with, if that is painful and uncomfortable and you can kind of feel things trying to like crawl out,

that suggests that you're, you're not, you're not quite at peace with yourself.

Man, so how do we get at peace with ourselves?

Practice a lot of self-validation.

Interesting.

That, I mean, this is, I go through these steps almost every single night in bed.

I go through these steps of like.

What's this process look like?

If we don't feel like anyone else in the world is validating us,

what is the, how many steps are there to self-validate?

I, I had a breast cancer about a year ago, and I had to go through all of the nastiness, the chemo, the radiation, the mastectomy, the surgeries, all this.

Wow.

And it profoundly affected my daughter.

And

she felt like after I lost my hair, I was a different person.

She's 11.

but she has felt this really acutely.

And

I've had to really work on rebuilding that relationship.

Wow.

And so we're here in LA

doing all this great stuff.

And I had an article that I needed to get out by 9 a.m.

this morning.

And so she's wanting to watch Friends in the Hot Tub.

Like, come on, what's better than that?

Right.

Like, we're staying in this fun place.

And I just didn't have time.

Like, I was able, you know, we did a little bit of time in the hot tub, but she's like, can we watch it in your bed?

And I'm like, I got to write this, you know, and I'm texting my my husband, can you like read to her tonight?

And so I got in bed and I just felt so bad about myself.

Like I felt, so I had to sit there and be like, all right, what am I feeling?

All right, this is uh, this is shame.

Okay, um, now that I've the first step is just to acknowledge it, give it an adjective.

Yeah, mob guilt or yeah, sure, guilt, shame, devastation, disappointment.

And then I repeat whatever that emotion, I copy it.

I keep repeating it.

This is shame.

This is shame.

And as I'm repeating it, I'm trying to feel it in my body.

Where is it?

Is it in my chest?

Is it behind my eyes?

Try and feel it as intensely as you can without reliving the evening or replaying it in my head or all the reasons why I'm a failure as a mom or I've screwed up my kid.

I'm never going to be able to repair this relationship.

Here I am now prioritizing my career.

All these things that want to like fight their way in to feed and stoke that shame.

I'm just putting them over here and i'm just my mantra is this is shame this is shame feel it this is shame feel it

and it goes up and it does come down and once it comes down i need to look for the kernel of truth in that shame where is it coming from why am i feeling this way

well of course i'm feeling shame i'm I'm not being the type of parent I want to be.

That makes sense.

There's a lot of societal expectations around

being

a mother and a working mother, what that's supposed to look like.

And I don't feel like I'm measuring up.

That shame makes sense.

Okay.

I get where that's coming from.

If I were to look at this from the outside and see a friend in this position,

I wouldn't think they were a bad person.

I would have empathy for them.

Okay.

So I do this kind of understanding, kind of looking for the validity

in the emotion if it's there.

At the same time, maybe challenging it if it's not serving me.

And then the most important things I do are kind of the last two steps.

The first is to take action in some way to self-soothe.

Okay, so I'm usually lying in bed when I do this, so I'll do like soft touch.

So rubbing your shoulder, hand on the tummy, whatever it may be.

And then you got to pay that forward.

You got to do something with that negative energy.

So if I'm, if it's during the day, I would go and

I've done all sorts of wild things to like, you know, everything from working out to fostering kittens, right?

Trying to just do something I wouldn't have done that day were it not for this suffering.

Interesting.

And last night it was just a loving kindness meditation.

So I thought about all the mothers out there who had had cancer and who were also struggling and just like, you know, imagined,

like, let me take that on

and like, let me just imagine them being more more at peace.

Wow.

And that's it.

But so that's like, that's a problem.

It sounds really process.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It sounds kind of exhaustive, but like, it's, oh, it's so soothing.

Well, I mean, it's, it's not exhaustive.

I think it's necessary.

And it should be as long or exhaustion as it takes until you get back to peace.

Yeah.

There's no better place to be than at peace.

And if you're in stress, then it should take as long as it needs to of your time and attention to get back to regulating your emotion through expressing your emotion.

It's such a good point, right?

Like there doesn't have to be the stopwatch.

It doesn't mean, ah, I should be in two minutes.

I should be back to like perfect.

No, it's like, it might take hours.

It might take days sometimes.

Yeah.

A case like you've been through, it might take a year

longer to process a complete transformation

of who you've become and your validating.

And your daughter thinking that you're a different person, whether it be physically or emotionally or just like energy wise.

And you having to grieve the person you once were and the relationship you once had with your daughter and be create a new person inside of you and a new relationship with your daughter, right?

It was so validating.

That was like really good proposing.

That's good.

That's good.

I'm like, though, like I felt that.

I mean, I really.

I feel it with you opening up because I'm like,

I can't even imagine what that would feel like having a daughter where you have a certain relationship.

And then all of a sudden she says, mommy, you're different.

What happened?

Like, why are you different?

What's wrong?

Like, something wrong or

you seemed off or something.

Nobody else sees it.

Like, why doesn't anyone else see it?

Like, you're not the same person.

You're a different person.

But you're not the same person.

I know.

You've had to let go of an old way of being physically

and transform into a new human.

Yeah.

But you know what's so fascinating?

Despite having written this book and knowing all this stuff,

there have been times when my inclination has been to say like, no, honey, I am the same person.

Okay.

I love you just as much as I did before.

And that is invalidation.

You probably love her more.

I love her more, right?

But me saying, no, nothing has changed.

I'm invalid.

I'm dismissing her emotions.

I'm saying they're wrong.

And I have done that.

And then I have followed up the next day to say, last night, when you said this to me, my knee-jerk response was, I haven't changed.

And that is not fair to you.

Like, and I said that

you must feel like you're grieving a parent that's still alive.

Like, that is some heavy stuff.

I know that feeling.

Yeah.

And I,

yeah.

And I don't know how you're dealing with it.

So you can screw it up in the moment, as I have, and every single parent will.

Yeah.

But you also have those opportunities to circle back.

Repair.

Yeah.

Repair and reconnection and bringing it even stronger together the next day or the next month or whenever, whenever you decide to repair or reconnect.

And revalidate, right?

That's right.

Because that's what I want her to do as an adult.

I want her to circle back with people when she realizes, ooh, that was, that was invalidating or that was unkind.

The only way kids can figure that stuff out really is through modeling, by seeing it.

That's it.

That's it.

What would you say then is the difference between validation and persuasion or influencing someone?

Like if you want to get something out of someone, maybe not in a bad way, but you're trying to create an opportunity, try to create a connection, you try to make an introduction, you're trying to get a deal, whatever it might be.

What's the difference between validating versus persuasion and influencing?

Well, the two are not mutually exclusive in the sense that

people are

more easily influenced by those that they trust.

Okay, that is just a fact.

If you trust that I understand what it takes to run this podcast and I'm the best podcaster in the business, you're gonna you're gonna trust my suggestions you're going to be more likely to be influenced by me okay so those two things kind of do go together yeah um but influence is kind of a change agenda like i'm trying to push you in some direction rather than the acceptance of just what is maybe if you're you know the the experience with your daughter or if you're working with a patient yeah who you're trying to influence to take a certain action yeah whether it's be in intimate relationship with you, with your daughter or someone in your life or a patient or client that you want them to take action.

Yeah.

How do you then shift from validation to

let's take action on the next step together or you need to take action on the next step?

Yeah.

So it just kind of, the one kind of bleeds out of the other, as I kind of described earlier with that one patient, it's this like, oh my God, you're like, I totally see where you're coming from.

I totally valid, you know, this is all valid.

i see you

and i think you know once that's and i keep saying once that's landed and like to me it's really clear having done this a lot there is a look you feel it you feel it yeah there's a moment and after that moment then there's a door that opens and you can say like but is there a better way for us to come at this um

you know i'm I think that if you had, okay, so I imagine if you could regulate, like if you could just bring down that intensity, you wouldn't have come at me so angrily right I think that's what we need to work on oh I actually just read this article about there's this technique you can try called the mammalian dot when you put your face in cold water and you come out it drops your heart blood pressure and then you feel better whatever so then I turn at that point I turned

into yeah skill data solutions yeah let's try this let's try that interesting yeah okay

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