“Our wounds sometimes become our best friends”
Dr. Joan Rosenberg
Dr. Joan Rosenberg is the founder and creator of “Emotional Mastery”, the only systemized emotional training that teaches people how to foster unwavering emotional strength, self-confidence, and self-esteem. She is a psychologist, master clinician, trainer and consultant whose desire is to understand why people do the things they do.
On this episode, Dr. Joan explains the different unpleasant emotions and how to deal with them. These emotions include anxiety, vulnerability, and fear. She also explains why people become mean and why is it difficult for them to admit that they have issues that need to be addressed. Listen in and learn the tips on how to strengthen your emotions and become resilient.
Listen to episode 87 on iTunes here or subscribe on your favorite podcast app.
87: Show Notes
Dr. Veronica Anderson’s Links:
LinkedIn
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Books:
Ease Your Anxiety: How to Gain Confidence, Emotional Strength and Inner Peace by Dr. Joan Rosenberg
Mean Girls, Meaner Women by Dr. Erika Holiday and Dr. Joan Rosenberg
Time stamps:
05:27 – Emotional strength
06:37 – The 8 unpleasant feelings
08:35 – What contributes to resilience
08:57 – Dealing with unpleasant emotions
11:41 – Why is hard to accept emotional issues
15:27 – Difference between fear and anxiety
21:47 – Vulnerability
26:49 – Managing unpleasant feelings
29:15 – The 90-second strategy
34:03 – Mean Girls, Meaner Women
37:47 – Fruitful conversation between women
Full Transcript:
Female VO: Welcome to the Wellness Revolution Podcast, the radio show all about wellness in your mind, body, spirit, personal growth, sex, and relationships. Stay tuned for weekly interviews featuring guests that have achieved physical, mental, and spiritual health in their lives.
If you’d like to have access to our entire back catalog visit drveronica.com for instant access. Here’s your host, Dr. Veronica.
Dr. Veronica: Welcome back to another episode. Thanks for joining me for the wellness revolution. You guys know me – Dr. Veronica. And today I have a guess where we’re going to talk about the emotions. This is a transformational lady. She is a graduate school professor and teaches people on, I want to call it resilience. We’re going to talk about some of that and she’s worked with some of the esteemed people that we know in the field of psychiatry and psychology like Dr. Daniel Amen. She’s been a TED talker. I like her a TED talker. Why do they name it TED? Why don’t they name it after a woman? But anyway, a TED talker. She is laughing at me. We need to have a woman. We as many of us women who yak we need to have something named after women because women are the yakers and that’s why we’re doing.
But Dr. Joan Rosenberg helps people transform, it helps people go from what they don’t like being to what they do want to be and that’s where we all want to be. There’s a lot of people out there now the first step is that you have to take action by getting in touch with some people like Dr. Joan Rosenberg and it’s not just about listening to her TED talk and reading her books. She has a best-selling book “Ease your anxiety – How to gain confidence, emotional strength and inner peace”. Ease your anxiety. And in a world today where so many people are anxious we need to learn how the ease our anxiety. So, I’m going to welcome Dr. Joan Rosenberg. Thank you for being on the wellness revolution.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: No, thank you Dr. Veronica. It’s always a pleasure to be with you wherever you are, so, thank you.
Dr. Veronica: So, first I always have to know from people, how did you end up doing what you’re doing? I know when you were a baby, you came out of the womb. You didn’t say I want to work on people’s transformations. How did you end up doing what you’re doing?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: My favorite line is so shy that I was round to the wall, if you’re familiar with wall flowers. So, I was, I was Bella code to the wall and I always saw, you know what other people were doing and it was like they seemed it ease with people, they sustained friends, they talk comfortably and part of my name’s just I’ve seen that they had and that also included self-confidence and self-esteem and in a kind of what seems to me to be an indirect kind of roundabout way, I ended up really over time and over it really. It’s over the life of my career I’ve kind of figured out what it is that really constitutes self-confidence and what contributes to self-esteem. So, it’s been a, you know, our wounds sometimes become our best friends. And that’s part of what happens with me.
Dr. Veronica: Wow, I got to say that’s really the case with you because having met you later on, not in the early stages, I’m like “This woman got it going on. She knows, she knows how to do life. She just, she got it, she just, she’s poised. And she could tell us all something about.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Thank you. That’s very sweet.
Dr. Veronica: So, your TED talk. You had, tell us what it’s like to be a TED talker because that’s people who are speakers and teachers. They aspire to that. I haven’t done a TED talk yet. I thought about it every once in a while, and it’s just like I don’t know. People say, “You shouldn’t, you should apply”, you know. And I’m like “I don’t know”. What was it like?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: You know, what it was? It was a real challenge and with the way I framed it to others as I was preparing for it is that it was testing every fiber of my being. I was not, I wanted wasn’t I didn’t know I mean I wanted to do it I felt like I had an idea worth sharing and I’d never spoken for that length of time, predominantly from a script and it’s a prepared remark as opposed to off-the-cuff and going in without any notes. So, for me it was developing whatever chops it took to be able to commit enough of my script in memory that I could then jump in and say what I wanted to say. And I did I hit every line. No, I missed a couple but the overall essence of the talk was fully there.
Whatever was missed it was, you know, work more crucial pieces they would have been extra explanations for what went on. So, it was it was an awesome experience. And it challenged me and it actually is an aside I have a second talk coming up at the end of July. So, the second TED talk at the end of July.
Dr. Veronica: So, now you say you’d like to talk about your favorite subject. What is your favorite subject? I have a favorite subject. I want to talk about but I want to get to your favorite subject first.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: You know, it’s, it’s really centered around this whole idea of emotional mastery and its tie into self confidence and self-esteem. There’s so much that goes into it and there’s, there’s lots of different angles to tackle it by but one is how we handle emotions, the two is the second really has to do with my view of kind of redefining emotional strength. So, that’s, that’s, those are some of my favorite topics.
Dr. Veronica: So, what does it mean to have emotional strength? I was asking we were chit-chatting before and I said his emotional strength is the same as resilience and you answered.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Yeah, yeah. Well, my answer was think of it as the elements that contributes resilience said that I guess if you were kind of can I say cause resilience. So, here’s, here’s my thinking around it. I think of it’s for me emotional strength has to do with two major kind of components if you will.
One is what I call being capable of feeling capable. The second is what I call being resourceful. We’ve got two. So, one is capable, the second is resourceful. What’s involved with being capable is being able to experience and move through what I call eight unpleasant feelings and then if we’re not able to experience and move those unpleasant feelings I don’t think we experience ourselves as capable in the world. So, it’s totally a crucial element that and I can go through that can go to the eight killings in a moment
Dr. Veronica: Yes. And either know, we need to know those eight feelings.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Okay, let me break it down and then I’ll go to the resource of the piece. So, the eight feelings are sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment in frustration. I can see me again if you’d like if there would that be good.
Dr. Veronica: That’s good. So, those are the eight emotional feelings that we all have at some point or another and are you saying that there are some people who get bogged down in one of them and so they can’t move forward?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: And as a result, that you know, there many people end up doing kind of this, this dance you know it’s, it’s like, like, they’re on hot coals trying to, trying to keep away from stuff and it, it just doesn’t work out. I also, they do, I don’t think that they capable, fully capable of down or they’ll have a difficult time ourselves to experience the very thing all of us don’t want to experience when things don’t work out the way we want the door out. So, that, so, those are the feeling of those two eight feet lines or the feeling results of things not so that that part makes sense. Yes.
Dr. Veronica: Yes. So, what about.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Okay, okay. Great. Okay.
Dr. Veronica: What about?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: The capable part.
Dr. Veronica: Okay, resourceful. Being resource.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Okay. So, let me go the resourceful piece. The resourceful piece is, is so, think of the capable pieces in front all the resources pieces external. So, what do I mean by that? That means that we feel open to and comfortable with being if we’re opened to leaning on other and then it also allowed us in elements that we need sup and most of us don’t like to ask for help but if we can, if we can see that being resourceful which means that we do turn on other do turn to others this is actually part of emotional strength then, then this represents the, the other side of emotional strength.
So, being capable which means experience in the aid on Pleasant feelings is one element and being referred to in the own others is the other element and asking for help are so, both of those then contribute to resilience.
Dr. Veronica: Okay, so it’s, it’s difficult for people, some people more than other to deal with these negative emotions. So, why is it so difficult for us to deal with a negative emotion? So, I deal with a lot of people who are having weight issues and I notice about people who have weight issues, they’re very afraid of hunger or feeling empty or not having access to food or they can’t bear the thought that they’re not going to be able to have a sweet or a dessert or something like that. Well, what’s going on there? Why is it so difficult for us to deal with these negative emotions?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Okay. So, let me let me reclassify for a moment. I don’t consider emotions negative or bad.
Dr. Veronica: Okay.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: So, my first thing is to say, “Let’s change the language”. And let’s just recast them as unpleasant or unsettling or uncomfortable but they’re not negative or bad.
Dr. Veronica: Okay.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: And so, and I do that I do that with whoever I work with because I don’t want people to have the idea that they are negative emotions. They’re just, emotions are available to us to help us protect ourselves to connect with others or to create. And so, they’re, they’re either pleasant or unpleasant and they, they’re just one set off information that we get. We, you know, our thoughts are another set of information. So, why, why do people, actually the people that you mentioned, the people who are so concerned about, about the food elements and always worried about hunger or worried about not being able to eat a sweet I would actually look at all of that mostly as distractions actually. That they’re using the focus on what I used to when I was working with a lot of women has struggled with also but we’re eating my equals and so, for me they’re easier to be focused on the food than to be focused on something they’re sad or angry about. We’re disappointed and angry about or to feel vulnerable about something and not wanting to get hurt which takes us right back to why being able to experience and move through those they unpleasant feelings is so important.
Dr. Veronica: I see, so, you’re saying is it that people focus on something else and they’re distracting themselves from really what is going on underlying most of the time?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Bingo. You hit it exactly. Yes.
Dr. Veronica: Okay. So, how do we move to the next phase of not you know, people who are these lets you know, I like to say let’s say you’re the compulsive overeater or you’re always focused on a sweet or whatever I mean I remember having a guy come in who his wife would tell me about how he would eat the whole box of dull bars in one city and yet he didn’t, he couldn’t admit that he had a problem. “I can stop if I want to” and I was like “Wow, hmm interesting”. Why is it so hard for people to stop these distractions or admit that they have a distraction or admit that they have an issue that needs to be addressed? Because it’s not serving you to eat the whole box of dumped bars and have an 1C of 11 and you face blindness and dialysis and amputations and things like that. So, people are engaging in these paint behaviors that are not serving them. Why is it so hard for people to even admit that that behavior is not serving them?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: You know what? Because I, because what they have to face underneath that is that much harder that they’re perceiving is that much harder and here’s, here’s the interesting thing for coming Dr. Veronica. The eating for instance is something that a person has control over even if it’s out of control behavior like a whole box and dog bars but, but ostensibly they’re in charge of their eating. Their putting it to the mouth, putting it away right.
So, they’re in charge of that. But when we were not in charge of the fact that we feel and we’re not in charge about what we feel. So, people will try to do things to think things and to do things because they can be more in charge of that as a way to get away from what they are feeling. Because we’re, it’s an experience we’re not in charge of, once we’re aware of what we’re feeling then we’re in charge but it but, but stuff comes up you know if, if I stubbed my toe right, it’s I’m going to react right away. The same thing if something, if something disappoints me or makes me angry that reaction comes and the way it shows up in my body and so, I have to deal with that and I don’t get to be in control of that, that it that even happens and I think that that’s why people distract so much because that they want to have some sense of control over what it is that they’re experiencing and the only way they can do that is that if they do around what’s the thinking and if they do it around what I’ve come to behavior. So, whether it’s drinking, whether it’s composable overeating, whether it’s pornography and we go on and on and on about all the different ways people distract.
Dr. Veronica: Hmm, so, when, when you’re saying distract, you’re talking about some of the common quote-unquote addictions.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Could be, but, for me you know, there’s so many so, let’s say I’m always trying to be funny and I used that as a defense against being vulnerable so the then being funny becomes a distraction. Let’s say, I don’t want to deal with stuff and what I do is I leave town or I move because I don’t want to deal with the intensity of the conflict and so now my Geographic departures my going away is a distraction if I have feelings about having feelings – it’s a distraction. If I always exaggerate and take things to an extreme – it’s a distraction.
So, there’s, there’s countless different ways to think about how distractions show up. They don’t just show up, that’s some of them you know, yes definitely, it’s the, it’s the common addictions that we think of and it goes well beyond that in terms of the the kind of if you will very nuanced sneaky ways that, that we end up distracting ourselves from what we’re feeling.
Dr. Veronica: Okay. So, me of the common unpleasant emotions that just seems so prevalent today in our culture or fear and anxiety.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Yes.
Dr. Veronica: Tell us about what is the difference between fear and anxiety? And be, they’re like the same thing you’re scared of something that’s what you’re anxious but go ahead.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Yeah, yeah. No, no, actually, I distinguish between the two and I would actually love for people to correct the language around it. So, let me, let me dive into it fear psychology likes to describe fear as danger in the moment right now. Right? So, that’s, that’s the equivalent of the you know you’re standing face to face with the tiger of the mother bear. The ones, right? So, it’s like there’s danger and it’s right now. But most people use the word fear in situations that they’re actually not fearful about. So, I’m afraid, I’m fearful of public speaking. Well, there’s no danger there, right?
Dr. Veronica: Yes.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: So, you know, probably you’re not going to be yanked off the stage and punched. So, there’s, there’s no, there’s no real danger and and lots of other things that I’m afraid of asking somebody out on a date I’m afraid of this, I’m afraid of that. But most of that the use of fear is actually not relevant. The more fitting word would be anxious and ain’t the way psychology likes to define anxiety is that it’s diffuse apprehension in the future. So, it’s just vague sense that something bad could happen and this one is a vague sense that something bad could happen. But I really kind of dismissed that too because I think underneath that it’s, it’s actually, people will use the word anxious when they’re actually feeling vulnerable. When they feel, when they are feeling like they could be hurt by something. So, then they’ll go out. Well, I’m anxious about so, now so the better fitting word would be “I’m anxious about public speaking”, right? As opposed to what I fear public speaking, I’m anxious about public speaking but really, it’s not that, that makes my public speaking is that I feel vulnerable if I go up and public speak.
So, for me even the use of the word anxiety is a cover for typically the eight unpleasant feelings and I would much rather have people identify the real feeling that they’re feeling as opposed to use the words fear or anxiety. So, does it make sense?
Dr. Veronica: Yeah, so, now, when we look at our, our national landscape. Yes, a lot of people feeling they would fall but they were really anxious and what and when you explained that it was more like people are feeling more vulnerable for a particular reason. Is that right?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Yes. Absolutely. Totally accurate totally accurate. They’re feeling vulnerable because they could be hurt there might be I mean they might be yanked from their families and deported, right?
Dr. Veronica: Yes.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Right? So, that then there’s a heightened sense of vulnerability but that’s what they’re feeling. They’re not feeling fearful and they’re not feeling anxious. They’re feeling vulnerable, they feel like they could get hurt.
Dr. Veronica: It’s something that vulnerability that people are feeling propagated by what we are seeing in our, in our 24/7 news cycle world just because it seems that in practice what’s happening is we’re seeing negative stories but by and large a lot of the negative stuff isn’t really happening.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Right. Yes, absolutely true and I mean that’s a good reason as to why I don’t watch TV. So, I’m quite I mean have a quite selective about, about what I want in pinching on my brain and I don’t want someone else deciding that for me. I want to decide what I look at my way of news to the degree that I can do that and then find the new sources that I’m willing to take a look at.
Dr. Veronica: There are real threats here is because you mentioned, you know, people of being afraid to be deported. I mean you know I look at getting my life, African American woman with a husband and you know, three sons who you know, I watched some very gruesome things happen over the last years and so, that vulnerability.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Absolutely, yes. So, yeah, absolutely true and so, when you know, and it’s very interesting this might take us down a whole different discussion but yes. You have, you have absolutely it’s not that I have to give you an illegitimate right for vulnerable. Of course, you feel vulnerable and of course African Americans have been subjected to tremendous impression. So, you for yourself, for your husband, for your sons, all of that makes total sense and to the degree that there are our greater real threats against again what we’ve seen over the past years where we dated back to you know, I mean dated back countless years, right? A Jim Crow all the way to Michael Brown. It doesn’t, doesn’t matter how far back we go there’s, there’s we can take the incident after incident.
Dr. Veronica: Yeah, say about that. I don’t necessarily walk every day of my life feeling that way. I mean for me, I can’t do that and but there’s, I think a lot of people are having difficulty getting over it. We had a change and this is not meant to be a political discussion.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Sure.
Dr. Veronica: We did a change in our administrational. All sudden there was the increase in anxiety among groups of people. Yet, these same elements were happening even under the past administrations. You see what I’m saying? So, all of a sudden it was then we want to say it was out in the open or there was a more hostility but I’m just saying I don’t personally I don’t think the level of hostility changed. There was just a few more people being vocal but I think that the climate has been exactly the same as far as. Now for and even for people who are immigrants and who are undocumented.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Well, I have said. Well, it said.
Dr. Veronica: There were there was a lot of deportation taking place before somebody stood up and said, “We’re going to do it.” It was happening. In fact, I saw it worked in my building who got taken away, you know. I’ve seen, I’ve seen it happen up close and personal way before somebody said, “I’m going to do this”. It was happening in the country.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Right, right.
Dr. Veronica: What, what makes the difference in how vulnerable people feel. I mean how do we control that? How do we be, how do we can’t control necessarily what’s happening outside of us but we have to get some levels so we’re not walking around with our cortisol up 24/7 and making ourselves sick. And that’s when I learned my senior thesis about coming out of high coming out of college actually about. Those psychosocial increased weight it was popular I wrote about those psycho-social is so close to economic situations that caused hypertension in the African American community and this was before his on popular.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Wow. I’ve got some people to introduce you to. That’s correct.
Dr. Veronica: Now it’s all been proven, right now by different, yes, but it’s not just proving the right feel a particular way it is going to have a physical manifestation so it is important to figure out how to have some measure of inner peace so that you don’t make yourself sick even though you’re walking around in a world where there’s lions and tigers and bears that can get you any talk.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Right, right so let me, let me, you’re actually bringing up so many kinds of wonderful things to talk about. So, let me take it there’s a couple different lines if I can respond to that. One line of it is I think it’s important for us to maintain kind of a low-level awareness of our vulnerability. That in essence all of us are vulnerable all of the time. So, where I live an earthquake could happen at any point right any and if anything could happen at any time and so for me it’s, it’s maintaining a low enough level of awareness that “I’m a vulnerable being in the world” that hopefully, that helps me choose to live more fully my dead day life. So, it for me it’s been awareness of my vulnerability helps me be aware of making choices about who I want to be that, that who wouldn’t want to be in the kinds of choices I want to make for my life. That’s, that’s the first thing. The second thing is I do think that the degree of vulnerability, it’s like has our vulnerability changed or has our awareness of our vulnerability changed? So, if we look at the current political climate again, that’s it nothing big too far into this the, the direct talk about threat heightens our awareness of vulnerability. It so we’re, it’s not necessarily that our actual vulnerability has changed. It might have. So, the actual threats might actually actually change our state of vulnerability or it might simply be changing the degree to which we are aware of our vulnerability. And in the case of actually in the case of Caucasians, I think with the the transitions into this administration what it did it is that it heightened Caucasians awareness of the degree to which they felt and that they hadn’t had to deal with samples more.
Dr. Veronica: Hmm, that’s interesting.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: And so, that what you may have felt on a day to day basis or a relative day to day basis. Now, Caucasians for the first time were stepping into your shoes because, because now they felt in a manner not entirely parallel but some degree of parallel to what you feel and and and that it’s so that it’s a heightened awareness, but it’s a heightened awareness of the degree to which they feel horrible. So, your other part, the other part of that question for you was unless “So, what do we do about it?” It’s, it’s vulnerabilities an interesting thing. The best way for us I say the best way but if we know that we can experience and move through the other seven unpleasant feelings then we handle the vulnerability better. So, if I know that I can experience sadness, if I know that I can experience helplessness, I know that I can experience disappointment if I know that I can experience anger and I’m okay with all experiencing all those feelings then I’m going to be better about handling my vulnerability.
So, that’s one piece of it. So, being, being able to be present to the other seven unpleasant feelings helps me manage vulnerability better and then the other part of it is making the choices it’s like I’m a vulnerable being who do I want to be today what kind of choices about how am I how I want to live my life do I want to make today and that would be the other side of it.
Dr. Veronica: So, the secret to getting there, it’s a secret to getting where you feel some measure of comfort and peace so that despite you know, we’re in the big bad world and there’s a threat to everybody all the time, there is some threat to everybody all the time, I don’t care who you are exactly now we’re getting into who has more threat than the others and we’re starting to fight another about who’s gets more threatened to the others.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Yeah, yeah. Right.
Dr. Veronica: So, now, how do we, what’s the secrets of being able to get to a measure of going through those unpleasant feelings and getting where it’s like “Okay, I can do this and I’m cool”?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Sorry, your time might actually have managed, to manage the unpleasant feelings? Is that what you?
Dr. Veronica: Yes.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Okay. Yeah. So, my, my, here’s my thing on what I realized again as much as as much as our thinking can mess us up what I realize is the way we deal with feelings I think sometimes can mess us up even more and what I so, what I would watch over time is that unpleasant feelings will really get in the way at people’s functioning. And the second part of that is as I spent more and more time figuring that out. It wasn’t that people didn’t want to feel stuff. It’s, it’s actually another piece of it. When the neuroscience started to come out, neuroscientists start began to talk about how we know what we feel by bodily sensation. Then that went that when kind of the neural hormones get fired off in our brain they activate bodily sensations. And it’s that bodily sensation that we identify as a feeling. So, what dawned on me is that it’s not, it’s not that people don’t want to feel stuff, they don’t want to feel the bodily sensation that lets them know what they’re feeling emotionally and that, that and that that’s what I realized was so difficult for people to tolerate.
So, if I can help someone tolerate the bodily sensation that let them know where they were feeling emotionally then I could help them experience and move through that feeling and make their way to do whatever they needed to do. So, and then again more neuroscience this is one neuroscientist in particular that talks about the again I know I was I will always talk about feelings coming in waves. Which seems to be kind of verified or validated as, as time went on and one neuroscientist in particular said that the again those bodily sensations, that wave of feeling lasts roughly 90 seconds.
Dr. Veronica: Really?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Yes.
Dr. Veronica: 90 seconds. That it seems like forever.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: I know. Well, it can but it’s, it’s less than what most people think it is. So, what so, what I said was if you can experience and move through one or more 90 second waves of one or more of a ton pleasant feeling you can pursue anything you want in life.
Dr. Veronica: So, how do you recommend we get through those 90 seconds? Realize that we’re feeling it is this the you know, breathe and put on the stop watch you or you know, you know, code and hit it and so watch the 90 second go by?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: The problem with the strategies is, there are two strategies. One is to take some deep breaths, just roll with it. And then this and then the second is known that it’s not, it’s really not going to last any more than 60 to 90 seconds. And, and, if you start to pay attention which I cannot tell you the number of people that have come up to me and said what a difference it’s made for them to just sit with whatever they’re going through and once they realize it, once they realize it doesn’t last that long they’re totally fine with it and then they go and they’re going to face something else and all they have to do is to remind themselves that it’s not going to last that long. And it doesn’t and they move on.
So, it’s made a huge difference and so it’s breathe – stay present whatever it is you’re feeling and then experience it. And the beauty of it, here’s the beauty of it, is that you start to get insights and you actually feel more inner peace. So, you referenced me kind of walk around kind of chilled before, right? But, but, I’m walking around kind of chilled because I know that I can experience those feelings and I don’t have to get caught up with anything that has me avoiding them. And if they come, they come -great. I also know that on the other side of that I’m going to feel inner peace and I’m going to feel because I’m not trying to avoid anything within myself. So, inner peace comes from that and so do insights. And if I do, if I avoid the feelings I don’t get the insights.
Dr. Veronica: Yeah, I like the way you say not avoiding anything because I had a friend asked me the other day “Do you ever get angry” -Yeah, I get angry. And I just I get angry I experiment I don’t stay angry but also, I tell people when they’re having these negative feels I said “Okay, I tell you what my mother told me” and I’m going to tell you this really work so that I’m going to tell you why it really works that I was going to say, “Count to 10”. I tell people “count to 10”. I said while you’re counting to 10 you’re going to take 10 deep breaths in and out and then I explained him similar to what you’re like telling people I explained and listen. Well, first of all from a body standpoint, physiology this calms you down it calms your body down.
So, physiologically when you’re accounting and then you’re able to think and they will come to you so you’ll know what to do, how to act and react and it’s not going to just be off-the-cuff. And so, when you’re saying sit with it or just realize you can go through it I know you know a lot of people they fly into it they said, “I just can’t help it, it just happens, you can’t help it”. and I say, “You’re going to count to 10 like my mother says, counts to 10 before you do anything or say anything”.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: That’s counting to 10makes perfect sense and again part of what ends up happening is our bodily sensations travel faster than our thoughts. So, whether it’s your strategy or my strategy, it doesn’t matter they both work. And they and that you’re exactly right part of the reason that helps is because the, the deep breathing, we can’t physiologically, have to we keep you all activated and physiologically becalm, right? So, the deep breathing are the 10 breaths that help us stay calm and it gives our brain time to catch off. Our thinking brain time to catch on. And then we can decide how we want to respond.
So, you know, your 10 breaths are perfect for that sort of thing or the deep breath. It doesn’t matter how we approach it but the the breathing one way or another helps slow the body down, puts us in a different physiological state and gives it a brain enough time to catch up to think about how we handle stuff.
Dr. Veronica: Absolutely. So, I know you have a free gift you give to people to help them through anxiety. How could we get that free gift?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: That is drjoanrosenberg.com/anxiety-reset/
Dr. Veronica: Of course, put that on the show notes. Of course, it will be on your show notes. So, you could just go with the show notes on drveronica.com if you’re watching it this on YouTube, you got to go to the website and it’ll be right there.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Yeah, they should be able to access it there.
Dr. Veronica: Wonderful.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: And if there’s a difficulty with that you just let me know and make sure that people got it.
Dr. Veronica: Absolutely. I wanted to talk about Mean Girls, mean or women but Mean Girls meat or women just a little swatch about. Okay, Mean Girls, meet a woman. So, what’s going on with Mean Girls and meet a woman? And it seems like it’s gotten younger that girls are being not so nice and I always noticed you know, women talk about solidarity but I’m like saying you know it hasn’t been men who have tried to take me down. It’s always women. So, what’s going on here?
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: You know, well, on to, to comments on that the first about it’s getting younger and younger I really think that’s a big part of how kids are being socialized. If we’re watching, it looks teenies set up TV and movies are set up to stimulate and part of the way that they make ratings is to do things that are provocative and so that what little girls or little boys for that matter are learning are that problem one of the ways of problem-solving is just to be mean or to be people upward or beaver flow. And so, I really think a huge piece to play in this has to do with the media perpetuation of that kind of behavior. And so, we make accept, we make an acceptable behavior that’s really out of balance. So, that’s the first thing.
The other around women being hurtful to women is that men are socialized to be able to be angry. Women are not socialized to express anger in ways that are healthy and productive nor are women typically socialized to be competitive healthy ways. So, when women are angry or competitive with each other rather than that coming out in ways that are productive and comfortable, they come out in ways that are insidious and undermining and undercutting. And so, if we’ve found ways to help women be more expressive more directly of the “I’m angry at you and let’s just deal with it” then that would make a huge difference and it would be and there would be much better.
Dr. Veronica: So, women have to find a way I’m like “We’re talking about Mean Girls meet or women” that you said women have to be more direct with each other I’m like “That sounds like we’re making a meaner”.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: No, no, no, no, no. In this case it would be, it would might be me looking at you and say “Hey, you know what, Dr. Banach one X happened that made me angry”. That’s not mean. That’s not. It’s just, it’s straightforward. And you can say “You know what? Here’s why that I was angry in that, where here’s why I responded that way or here’s why I XY or Z”. Or you know what “I’m angry with you as well, let’s just deal with, let’s put that both on the table for both of us I think you’re how we can solve has been no undermining there’s been no, you know”. There’s not meanness hostility and acrimony in it. It’s just straightforward feeling and then you can deal with the problem.
Dr. Veronica: Interesting. Yes, I think we do need to be more direct as a Wes woman. It’s interesting because when you see women who are in places of no high profile, it’s not usually men who are attacking them, it’s usually women nor attacking the women and a lot of times for stuff that has nothing to do with their skills and talents but other random things like their physical appearance. And so, instead of focusing on the, I disagree with what you’ve said they focus on “I don’t like your ankles”.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Right, right. Exactly. So, it’s a distraction from the real issue. So, it doesn’t help to stay on active. So, that’s one of my thinking.
Dr. Veronica: Okay, so, how do we begin to have a more fruitful conversation among women? How does that begin? If you go directly to somebody and say I think women aren’t used to even having that type of conversation, did you go something to someone and say I don’t like this that and the other thing that happened, I don’t know that the other women would fall in kind and have the discussion necessarily. What I’m saying is I don’t say you do this as a woman and say I feel that this well, I don’t know that the other woman is going to get out of the woman. So, I don’t know how productive it would be to go and say when you did this to send the other thing because the almost our earth is going to come back at you versus the “Yeah, let’s sit down and talk about it”.
In fact, that kind of has been my experience. This is what happened I’m not happy with this or here’s how I didn’t like this. The R- comes back versus “You know, let me think about that, let’s figure out how to solve this issue”. It hasn’t been my experience “Let’s figure out how to resolve this issue so that we can make good and move on”.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Well, I think part of it is understanding that communication really is a skill. So, if there’s going to be a change in the way people relate then you start off by saying “You know what? I want to have how we’re relating be different”. So, I’m going to I want to start approaching you in a way that’s more honest and my hope is that you can be honest with me back.
So, let’s try this out and if stuff happens then I’m going to lean into honesty, you please lean it into as well. Let’s experiment with it. It’s might be messy for a while as we figure it out. And then if someone tries to avoid stuff then you call out the avoidance and you go “Okay, I’m being honest here. Seems like you’re not coming back at me with this thing, you know. The stay wants us to this to be a solid friendship I want things to continue, let’s just stay in the messiness of this until we until we figure it out as friends”.
So, I think it is possible to do but it might actually be talking about doing it before you do it.
Dr. Veronica: Hmm, good advice. Well, I appreciate that so we can make women more soft and cuddly as we make ourselves to be.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Yes, and more direct and forth right.
Dr. Veronica: Well, Dr. Joel Rosenberg, thank you so much for being on the Wellness Revolution. I appreciate your time.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: Absolutely. And love doing it again. Wow, what a great interviewer you are.
Dr. Veronica: Thank you so much.
Dr. Joan Rosenberg: You bet. Okay.
Dr. Veronica: Wonderful.
Female VO: Thank you for listening to the Wellness Revolution Podcast. If you want to hear more on how to bring wellness into your life visit drveronica.com. See you all next week. Take care.
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Dr. Veronica Anderson is an MD, Functional Medicine Practitioner, Homeopath. and Medical Intuitive. As a national speaker and designer of the Functional Fix and Rejuvenation Journey programs, she helps people who feel like their doctors have failed them. She advocates science-based natural, holistic, and complementary treatments to address the root cause of disease. Dr. Veronica is a highly-sought guest on national television and syndicated radio and hosts her own radio show, Wellness for the REAL World, on FOX Sports 920 AM “the Jersey” on Mondays at 7:00 pm ET.
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