Overcoming Overwhelm: Exploring the Fear of Intimacy and Vulnerability in Our Relationships with Kent Weishaus

Overcoming Overwhelm: Exploring the Fear of Intimacy and Vulnerability in Our Relationships with Kent Weishaus

Jeffrey Besecker:

This is The Light Inside, I'm Jeffrey Besecker.

Throughout our daily lives, we often find ourselves surrounded by it. And sometimes, nothing is more overwhelming, than the stories we regularly tell ourselves.

Yet still…our stories matter -  But how and why?

Yet still, our stories matter. But how? And why?

Overwhelm is all around us in modern culture, perpetuated in the media, throughout our social interactions, and even within the tactile and sensory stimuli prevalent throughout our environments. Our auto-noetic, self-aware consciousness has empowered us with the ability for abstract future thinking and past-aware reflection, serving both as a benefit and liability. As a developmental and evolutionary trait of the human species for many of us, this is traumatic.

Yet it is this auto-noetic cognitive ability that has allowed us to rule the world. And perhaps as our greatest strength, abstract thinking has a serious weakness. We frequently get caught in cognitive storytelling loops, both about ourselves and others. that comes at times to feel like truth.

Today we look at the role Cognitive Fusion plays in shaping the stories we weave, and how this impacts our relationships, both for better and worse. Tune in to find out how, when we return to The Light Inside.

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In cognitive behavioral therapy, the internal family systems model is an integrative approach to individual psychotherapy. Developed by Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s, it combines systems thinking with the view that the mind is made up of relatively discrete subpersonalities. each with its own unique stories, viewpoints, and qualities. When we experience a perceived threat or trauma, our sub-personalities or parts, in the form of protectors, tend to become more fragmented, taking control of how we make sense of the threat, and as a result, we become the authors of an ever-increasing play of stories that serve as the script of our lives. Much like when an actor bumbles their role in a play, when one part acts in a self-protective way and the other part doesn't understand, we make up stories to explain the unexplainable in our behavior.

Therefore, the script's shaping our feelings and thoughts. Repeating these stories, these subconscious grips, at times, become self-sabotaging. This occurs as our protective parts continue to try to keep us safe, even if they can't see that they are doing more harm than good. And in this manner, the stories we often tell ourselves become the great divide between human interconnection and the miles of separation that often stretch between. In this episode, we share a conversation with psychotherapist and social worker Kent Weishaus, discussing the role these subconscious scripts play in frequently eroding our intimate relationships, leveraging them instead as an emotionally insecure protective mechanism.

Today, we learn how to move beyond the breakdown of interpersonal dysfunction and into a more empowered story of healthy interconnection. Kent, I'm excited to explore how subconscious grips lead to self-sabotaging behaviors in our intimate relationships. Leaning in today, many of our self-sabotaging behaviors stem from deep fear of being vulnerable or getting hurt in our relationships, and we unconsciously push our partners away to protect ourselves from potential emotional pain.

In that regard, Kent, How do deep-seated fears of vulnerability influence subconscious behaviors in our intimate relationships? And what can we as individuals do to address these fears more constructively?

Kent Weishaus: The fear of intimacy is a part of many of us and it can be stronger or weaker depending on the individual. And I say a part because we are composed of numerous sub-personalities. I conjecture along with a guy named Richard Schwartz who came up with the internal family systems approach. And this goes back as well to gestalt as well as voice dialogue type approaches. the idea that we have a number of subpersonalities, and their job, much of the time, is to protect us, to protect us from deeper hurt. What Richard Schwartz would call the exile would be sort of the deepest hurt, the most intense pain or fear. And so when we push somebody away, it would be a mechanism or a part of us that is trying to protect us, is trying to protect us from deeper hurt. And paradoxically, we spend a lot of energy, some of us some of the time, spend a lot of energy in this sort of mode with this part of us sort of driving the bus. And it steals energy from other parts of us that we would prefer to be using the energy for. In other words, thought ruminations, thought distortions, which lead to our sub-personalities creating a protective barrier. They siphon off energy that we'd often rather be using to do something more constructive, more positive for ourselves.

Jeffrey Besecker: And we often carry unhealthy associations, conditioned beliefs, and emotionally reactive patterns from our past experiences into our relationships. Therefore, these beliefs can lead to self-sabotage as we form self-constructs like seeing ourselves as unworthy of love or we expect rejection in our relationships. Could you explain the impact of implicit memory, ego filters, and emotional filters play when influencing our negative self-beliefs from past experiences and how this shapes self-sabotage in our relationships?

Kent Weishaus: Well, you're getting into a strong paradigm to explain this is attachment theory. And attachment theory came about with the studies of John Bowlby in the 1940s and has been greatly expanded upon that we sort of have imprinted on us expected ways of attaching to our caregivers or our parents. And if you have a validating, nurturing relationship with your caregiver, with your parent, this is going to lead to an imprint of an expectation that intimates, as I grow up, as I become a young adult, intimates can be validating, can be nurturing, and will lead to being drawn towards people who are capable of that, as opposed to so many of us who have trouble with that. So a secure attachment, as opposed to an insecure, anxious, ambivalent attachment, and I urge your listeners to look up attachment theory to get a greater understanding of it. A secure attachment is actually one of the strongest things we can strive for, both with our children and in relearning our attachment styles ourselves. Because even though it's been imprinted on you at a young age what to expect, how to unconsciously expect to interact with friends, intimates, colleagues, family members, even though it's been imprinted on you, it can be unlearned. And you can pay attention to who is validating you in your life, who is a positive presence in your life, and gravitate towards them. Now, I'm not saying we all need to agree with each other all the time. We are creatures who have different opinions, vastly different opinions. But it doesn't mean that we have to invalidate one another as we talk, whether we're intimates, business partners, friends, family members. Dr. John Gottman's done decades of research on what predicts successful coupling. And one of the most important things is the style of communication. So if I disagree with my partner on something, I do not want to say, oh, that means nothing. You don't know what you're talking about. I do not want to say that. I want to say, you know, I don't see it the same way you do. I don't really agree with you on this, but I'm curious to know why you see it that way. So that we are, even if we disagree, we can validate the other person's two feet on this planet, basically, that their existence is valid, and this is a form of nurturing. And, you know, it starts with our children may act out, we may have all kinds of stressors on us from modern day living, and it's a challenge to validate that they have a particular experience while not necessarily agreeing with it.

Jeffrey Besecker: What role do our self-constructs play in this process and how can we leverage healthy ego development as a tool to build a more empowered ability to emotionally self-modulate throughout this cycle?

Kent Weishaus: This goes back to the parts approach. When we have parts of us that are protecting us, for instance, as we talked about before, a part that will be pushing away or fearful of intimacy, a more healthy approach to ego development is to, and this is not something that can be done instantly, this takes time, possibly therapy or else possibly a lot of self-work, the idea that we have a wounded part deep down in us, that we're doing anything we can do not to access. The challenge is to actually turn towards that wounded part. And many times we want to say, oh, I just want it out of my life.

Jeffrey Besecker: I just want it gone.

Kent Weishaus: I don't want to pay any attention to it. And that is, as I said before, paradoxically not constructive. if we can turn towards it and really see it as a sub part of ourselves, generally a younger part of ourselves, sometimes very young, that never had the nurturing or did not have adequate nurturing and the challenge is how do we nurture ourselves How do we gently go around the protecting parts who are giving us anxiety attacks, or depression, or even psychosis? How do we gently go around them to understand what's creating these protective parts? To find the wounded part and to be with it, parent it as though it wasn't parented, it missed out on parenting in its developmental stage.

Jeffrey Besecker: Subconscious and unconscious patterns influence our emotional behaviors on a day-to-day basis. One of those patterns we often unknowingly engage in subconsciously are emotional control dramas. If we may, Kent, how would you define an emotional control drama and where do they tend to surface throughout our day-to-day lives?

Kent Weishaus: emotional control drama to me suggests a rumination cycle that we are ruminating about something and thoughts are going round and round and round to almost always these have to do with these either have to do with or generate thought distortions. And so the thing we're ruminating on tends to feel more and more real. In other words, our thoughts as we revisit them over and over tend to make themselves feel like granite hard truths. And in fact, no, they're just thoughts and often they are distorted thoughts. So to be able to step back and question, step back and look at the parts of you that are creating distorted thoughts and This is not that hard to do. It's slowing down your thinking. The idea that because we are by nature ruminating thoughtful creatures, we make meaning out of the events around us by telling ourselves stories. And this is both a blessing and a curse because the stories we tell ourselves frequently can lead to great collaborations among us where we get lots of things done. but they can also lead to huge distortions that feel like they're truths but in fact they're just our thoughts leading us down a dead-end blind alley.

Jeffrey Besecker: So as we engage in these control dramas, in these patterns of control, and we're seeking inherently to modulate or regulate our emotions, we often experience emotional inference, where we start to project our assumptions about the actions in the emotions guiding someone else's behavior. Could you elaborate a little bit on how we experience emotional inference in our relationships and why we tend to do it?

Kent Weishaus: Sure, exactly. This goes back to the thought distortions, the inferences. One of the biggest ones we do is we over-generalize, we mind-read, we tell ourselves, I know what this other person is thinking. And in fact, no, we can see how they are behaving. No question about that. But we cannot get inside their skin and know what they're thinking. We tend to predict the future. I know how this is going to turn out. And there may be a history that suggests it may turn out that way. But in fact, no one can actually predict the future. So Anytime you're in a situation where I know, I see you say to yourself, I know what that person's thinking and I know what's going to happen. Take a step back and go, wait a minute. I see how they're behaving, but I don't actually know what they're thinking. If you say to yourself, I know how this is going to turn out. There's no question it's going to turn out this way. Take a step back and go, wait a minute. No one can predict the future. It may likely turn out that way, but the universe is more chaotic than that and something may happen to change this. The study of thought distortions is really quite fruitful. We tend to magnify or minimize based on small numbers. In other words, you may have an interaction with one person and then infer from that one person that all of the rest of the world is going to behave in a certain way. Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel-winning psychologist, talks about the law of small numbers. And this is a statistical observation on his part. Anytime we use the behavior of one or two people to then extrapolate and generalize about a group of people, that it's almost always going to be distorted because statistically it takes great numbers of people to predict behaviors, not behaviors from one or two. The way we talk to ourselves has a lot to do with, as I said before, meaning-making, storytelling creatures. We want to make sense. We want to create structure around us. And so this comes out in our language with should statements. I should behave this way, I should have done it that way, he should have done it this way, he should do this. Sometimes should statements, many times should statements, wind up setting a goal that's unreachable. I should do it this way, and you get yourself into a trap of it's not attainable, or at least not entirely attainable. A much better story to tell yourself is, I want to do it this way. I'd like to do it this way, but I should. It tends to put your feet to the fire, and if you don't, if you wind up failing, then there's an element of shame that comes in. I should have done it that way, but I'm shameful because I didn't. I want to do it this way. I want it to turn out that way. It's a much more healthy way to talk to yourself. The stories that we tell ourselves are all important. Again, we have our parts generating, our sub-personalities generating these stories, and so it's important to step back, look at the parts of you that are generating these stories, and think about them. Think about the systems around you that are in play and influencing you, and I say systems around you, but and also systems within you. What is your viscera telling you? As mammals who evolved over, you know, millions of years, we have mechanisms that create unconscious feelings of danger, and they're far from our conscious mind. Why are my guts twisting up this way? Why am I getting a butterfly feeling in my stomach? And these things send a message to the brain, a subconscious script to the brain that says danger is right here. And in fact, we live in a a world now where all these lines are blurred, whereas you used to have to be 10,000 years ago cautious of the tribe that lived across the way, now we've got many tribes living together. And so our unconscious visceral feelings about danger frequently are simply distortions where something feels dangerous, it usually is not.

Jeffrey Besecker: It's interesting to see how social mirroring can amplify and reinforce these dramas by causing us as individuals to adopt our behaviors based on the emotional cues we're receiving from other people.

Kent Weishaus: Yes, the emotional cues, and that goes back to behavior. We see how others behave, and there is certainly an infusion of emotion there. If someone behaves angrily, if somebody behaves jokingly, Someone behaves dismissively. These are cues that we then want to immediately explain. We want to immediately explain them to ourselves and we'll create a narrative very quickly, which may or may not be accurate. As Brene Brown says, it's very important in an ongoing slowing down your thinking process to ask yourself, Is this a story I'm telling myself? Yes, I'm getting cues from this person that lead me to believe they feel a certain way or that I can predict what my relationship with them is going to be or lead to. But is this a story I'm telling myself? Number one. Number two, what other story would you prefer to tell yourself? What's an alternate way you would like to see this interaction play out?

Jeffrey Besecker: Our approval motives have been shown to have a profound impact on how we relate emotionally with approval motive defined as being accepted so that we avoid that sense of rejection. From this perspective, what role does approval motive play in forming control dramas and what factors specifically influence how we form these motives themselves?

Kent Weishaus: Approval motives. This goes back to attachment and what we expect from people. It can be very jarring if you expect an approval, and in fact, it's 180 degrees out. So depending on how you grew up, if you had a secure and insecure attachment, you may be more or less able to handle this. And your defenses may come into play in a more pronounced manner if you have an insecure attachment or a less than secure attachment. We all want to be approved. Okay, we all want approval, we all want nurturance, we all want validation. This is a key thing to keep in mind when interacting with anybody, whether it is your intimate, your colleague, your friend, your family. And again, the approval motive, it can lead, if you keep it in mind, it can lead to much better relations with people because understanding we all want this. If you have a disagreement with somebody, again, you can say, I disagree with you, but don't invalidate them. Be curious rather than hostile. Be curious rather than hostile, which is something Dr. Gopner would say. And that will predict a more successful outcome.

Jeffrey Besecker: It's often a fine line between the two of those where we can simply say, tell me more about that. Right.

Kent Weishaus: It's hard to do in this polarized environment we're in in terms of politics and other family members with disagreeing stances. I'm curious to know why you see it that way. Tell me more about that. Can be a very hard thing to say. Yes. Theoretically, it's a fine podium to stand on and say, this is how we should be doing this. But when it comes down to it, it's really hard. And again, slowing down your thinking. Because when someone says something that we disagree with, that is provocative to us, that angers us, you feel anger begin in your viscera first. If you can, with slowing your thinking down, go, oh, there's the angry part of me. There's the angry part of me. It wants to take control. How do I want to react now? It's like putting your foot in the door before it gets slammed. You want to just get enough space to slow things down so you can not react instantly. as our mammalian ancestors did, but slow it down, use human thinking to decide how you want to react to something which may be perceived as an attack, a verbal attack. Again, if you look from an evolutionary standpoint, instant reactions is what kept our mammalian cousins alive. The idea that you could instantly react to a threat or to an opportunity. kept them alive, prolonged their lives. In our multicultural, very complicated, 10,000 systems around us world, it's not nearly so clear as it was 10,000 or 100,000 years ago. Slow down your thinking and see where primitive forces are influencing your thoughts, your stories, and your feelings.

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Kent Weishaus: Well, we talked a little bit about this before. What's imprinted on us at a very young age is exactly that, imprinted. Imprinted means we grow up expecting relations to be that way. So if I've been demeaned, if I've been outright abused, if I've just been subtly made to feel unimportant, I will tend to grow up expecting others to continue treating me this way. I don't want to say one causes the other. These are statistical predictions. Some people wind up having other forces in their life, other nurturing forces in their life that kind of make up for primary caregivers. who are promoting insecure attachments. So I just want to say that it's not a theta complete. A does not cause B. A says B is more likely. So expecting others to treat you in a dismissive, abusive, unhelpful way, demeaning way, tends to be the outcome. of less than secure attachments. Now, what we can do about it? Again, be aware of the theory, study it, take a look at it and see how it might be affecting you. I'm a therapist, so my approach is largely via attachment and parts theories. So I'd certainly recommend therapy as a way of helping insecure attachments or less than secure attachments, but it's not the only way. Again, slowing down your thinking, reading about the theory, taking conscious steps to move towards people who are validating, nurturing, and not the people, not the kinds of reactions that you grew up expecting to have. So yeah, what can we do about it? off the top of my head, therapy is a great one. That's my business. But also, there are ways to learn about it and take action yourself. Again, we are meaning-making storytelling creatures, and the meaning that we make out of the insecure attachments that we experience as younger people tends to drive the boat, tends to drive the bus, better metaphor. However, it doesn't mean it has to be that way. You can change things. And there's a lot of research that suggests even insecure attachments, severely insecure attachments, can be unlearned as we go through our developmental, lifelong process use.

Jeffrey Besecker: In the course of our relationships, we often engage in decontextualization as a coping device. This is a process of examining or interpreting something that's separate from the context or in the way that it actually happened. In short, the hidden meaning we often subconsciously plant in our perspective regarding our interactions. How does decontextualization affect our relationships and how can we leverage reciprocal self-disclosure to create greater closeness and intimacy in our relationships? Wow, that's a mouthful.

Kent Weishaus: Let me address this with what I think you're asking me to do, the contextualization part. I think this is pointing towards a thought distortion that within the context of what's going on, a number of different systems are at play. And then we boil them down to, no, it's not a number of different systems, A caused B. And that's the context right there. I dismiss all the other contexts. And A caused B is almost always untrue. especially in personal relations. There are hundreds of systems within us and without us, outside of us, that are affecting us at any given time in our lives. And so to not include the context of where interpersonal relations are going on the rocks. To not include the context of all the systems at play around that is only going to be less than helpful in terms of the outcomes. Because if we're able to see a fuller story with more nuance, more context, it's going to help us slow down our thinking so that we can react appropriately.

Jeffrey Besecker: Defensive coping mechanisms like avoidance, projection, or passive aggressiveness can sometimes surface or manifest in our conflicts in our relationships, hindering how we can effectively communicate or problem solve. What are some of the common defensive mechanisms that surface in our intimate relationships and how can we as individuals effectively address these behaviors to improve our communications and our ability to connect?

Kent Weishaus: Common defenses. Well, we talked about one big one earlier, which is simply a fear of intimacy. Why is my viscera telling me to keep my distance from this person who I tell myself I love? you know, in that case it would be an unconscious defense mechanism. Why do we engage in these things? Again, to protect ourselves. It is a fear, going back to how you started the interview, it's a deeper hurt, okay? I was once vulnerable and I was hurt. I never want to experience that again. So, these defense mechanisms of being angry or passive-aggressive or pushing away or demeaning are protecting us from having to feel vulnerable with our most intimate partners. And Sue Johnson therapy addresses this elegantly. in that she encourages people with the therapist mediating, she encourages people to be vulnerable. And if the partner does not react in a validating or nurturing way, then to discuss what that person's feeling in terms of the fear of their vulnerable parts. It's a very tricky thing to do. Again, Sue Johnson does it very well, a handful of other therapists. Her force of personality just gets right to the core of things and is able to cut through what is a defense and what is a person terrified about being vulnerable with somebody else. And so, yes, these defense mechanisms, they operate in our daily lives. And even if you're among the healthier people walking around on the planet, you're going to still have them, which is why it's important to slow down. These defenses are very similar to what we would call protectors. The idea or just the thought distortions that parts of us become active when they are engaged in trying to protect us from deeper hurt or fear. And so probably what I think we talked about before, it's easy to see this from a distance, but it's not so easy to see it close up. Simply a fear of intimacy. a part of us is fearful of intimacy because of the vulnerability and the idea that when we're vulnerable we're going to be invalidated, kicked to the side, made to feel invisible, the opposite of made feeling worthy. And so if we have an ingrained, something that's been inputted in our brain earlier in life that says we're that other intimates or other close people, other nurturers cannot be trusted to consistently validate vulnerable times in our lives, vulnerable feelings, vulnerable parts of us, then we will be fearful of vulnerability. And there are a number of mechanisms that can keep us from staying or becoming close with people. And as you said, passive-aggressive behavior, that's more of a primitive, I would say it's more of a primitive response because it's a knee-jerk response. The idea that somebody says something and you can be hostile to it regardless of what the context is, is more of a knee-jerk primitive response that might have served our ancestors 100,000 years ago well, when they had to quickly determine what was dangerous and what wasn't. But in this day of greater abstract thinking and opportunities for intimacy, safer opportunities for intimacy, the idea of a knee-jerk reaction in terms of a passive-aggressive is going to be not useful. And this is where I would suggest that listeners or viewers step back from their thoughts, step back from their internal feelings that are saying, not step back from, but pay attention to thoughts and internal feelings that say, you're in danger, this is dangerous. and look at the feeling, look at the visceral feeling state, look at the thoughts and go, wait a minute, am I really in danger here? How do I want to behave? Because I don't think there's arrows coming or bullets coming at me. Is this really dangerous? And so other mechanisms, hostility, avoidance, as you said, avoidance is perhaps the easiest one if I just avoid by coaching intimate behaviors, then I don't have to worry about feeling vulnerable. All of these can be, you can see an etiology of them within your viscera and also within your thoughts. It's hard to say what comes first. Do your guts tell you you're in danger first or do your thoughts tell you? Either way, there's a loop between the two. And to be able to step back and put distance between yourself and your visceral feelings or yourself and your thoughts and say, wait a minute, I don't think this is really dangerous. It feels dangerous, but I don't think it really is. How do I want to react here?

Jeffrey Besecker: You mentioned that knee-jerk response or that visceral reaction to alarm and how that sometimes connects to our state of fear. The fear of being abandoned can be subconsciously linked to our childhood attachment styles or our present state of our autonomic ladder, leading to behaviors designed to unconsciously test our partner's commitment. As a result, we push the partner away to gauge their response and validate their worthiness in some regards. Could you discuss the fear of abandonment and its connection to self-sabotage?

Kent Weishaus: Sure. Most of the time you can see it coming from a much earlier developmental period where nurturance was not consistent, either not consistent or just outright not there. And it's peculiar because as young, vulnerable, helpless creatures, We rely on our caregivers to give us the stuff that keeps us alive. And it can be said that a roof over your head, a meal in your stomach, and clothes on your back is all that's necessary. But as humans, we have much greater emotional needs than that. that because we're meaning making storytelling creatures it is important to feel important or at least worthwhile and so an attachment style that is inconsistent where maybe basic needs are being met basic physical needs are being met but emotional needs are mostly not being met will lead to insecure attachment style, which is a thing that's imprinted in the brain. Again, research shows epigenetically that this comes to bear on genes being able to work or shutting down. not so much a predisposition genetically, but which genes are turned on or off by our early attachment styles. And so, if we take that into later developmental periods, we see that we have an imprint of, I can't trust others to be there for me. I can't trust others to consistently be there for me. And so if somebody is consistently there for me, I may push them away because my ingrained in me from an early age says, nope, this ain't going to last. So the idea then of abandonment. which comes from, again, an early experience where you may feel emotionally abandoned and you may actually have been physically abandoned. You may actually have been subjected to abuse or neglect that has put a younger part of you in great fear, in great pain. And so that wounded part down deep inside you, we want to not feel that pain. throughout our lives, as we grow up, as we go into the later developmental periods, we want to avoid feeling that pain. Consequently, we develop mechanisms to ensure that there will be no chance that we'll feel that pain. And these are defense mechanisms. These are the kinds of behaviors that come out to make sure that when we're in a vulnerable state, no one's going to hurt us or that the part of us that is deeply buried, perhaps exiled, as Richard Schwartz would say, that part of us is never to be accessed. I never want to feel that kind of pain. And so these behaviors where we push people away can be quite salient. And yet in therapy, or perhaps with really knowledgeable self-work, if you can begin to stand next to the wounded part of yourself, and allow that it's there, slowly over time, you may be able to take away the power of the defenses that are working so hard to keep you from experiencing intimacy and vulnerability.

Jeffrey Besecker: You know, that's a curious way to illustrate that role of implicit memory and how that affects or hinders sometimes our ability to create that psychological distance you mentioned earlier. In that regard, what role does healthy psychological distance play in our ability to learn to trust ourselves, first and foremost, and when creating that ability to be more open and vulnerable to our partners or other people?

Kent Weishaus: It's interesting. It's kind of a conflicting question you asked me, I think. If I'm getting this right, what role do boundaries, do healthy boundaries play in our lives? And I don't want to minimize them either because there are going to be people that come into our lives who perhaps are hopefully not intimates, but they're just people we encounter, perhaps we have to work with, family members. who will consistently try and demean and invalidate and just be generally hostile to us, there's nothing wrong with clearly identifying this person as someone in my life that I need to have a boundary with. And I may have a relationship with them, but they don't get to poke at my wounded parts, basically. So having a healthy boundary with people who are not necessarily intimates can be a very good thing. The problem is, if there's someone that is your intimate, that you do rely on day in day out for emotional nurturance, to have a strong boundary with them can get in the way of intimacy. But again, it's a tricky thing because boundaries are there to protect us from people who are not trustworthy. There's plenty of people in the world who are not trustworthy, at least in my experience, but there's also plenty of people who are nurturing, able to be there for you, at least 80-90% of the time, who you can let in without having a firm boundary.

Jeffrey Besecker: Are there times when that projected sense of trustworthiness might revolve simply around our inability to trust our own sense of self-concept? And might we sometimes reflect or project that out towards others in perhaps the case of inference and counter-transference?

Kent Weishaus: Yeah, no, that's actually a very good point, that the scripts that we run in our minds about how we are not worthy, how we can't accomplish something, how we are less than, again, imprinted from an early age usually, they can certainly be projected outward as, again, a part of a defense mechanism to avoid intimacy so that not only might there be passive-aggressive or hostile behavior, but this might actually be the manifestation of something that I'm feeling deeply and unconsciously about myself, or maybe it's seeping into my consciousness a little bit, but then I'll project it outward.

Jeffrey Besecker: Do you feel we sometimes utilize that as itself a suppressive mechanism or an avoidant coping device rather than addressing those underlying emotions?

Kent Weishaus: Oh sure. Transference and projection are tricky, slippery slopes. Again, to be able to step back and look at what's going on within you, the systems within you, and then the systems frequently in the form of the other person outside of you with whom you're having transference, to be able to step back and say, I'm feeling a certain way. about this person. Now, is it appropriate to act on these feelings? Frequently, professionals may get into this quandary, and it's really important to step back and say, no, it's not appropriate. I'm here in a professional position, and if I have secret feelings, I'm not going to act on them. In fact, I might have to refer this person out if I feel these feelings are going to get in the way. So the idea of transference and then when we talk about clients coming to us, we refer to as counter transference where clients may feel a greater sense of intimacy than is appropriate for us. It's really important to be aware of it. Again, it's part of stepping back from your thoughts, stepping back from your viscera and asking what's going on within me that may not be helpful.

Jeffrey Besecker: Do you feel sometimes we get caught up in that cycle where we're in our interactions, we're conversing, and we take something out of context, either a body gesture or the actual words or expressions being used, and start to form assumptions based on that that might sometimes become self-sabotaging? Definitely.

Kent Weishaus: And this goes back to the original concept of Aaron Beck's thought distortions. We see people's behaviors No question about that. And then because we have the power of abstract thinking, we infer from the behaviors what we believe they're thinking. And I think I said before to you, no one can read another person's mind. a behavior certainly can stand by itself, and there may be a past history of behaviors, you can make a judgment about that. But if it's a one-off, if it's someone you don't know that well, or if it is someone that you do know well, to infer from their behavior what they're thinking is going to be a distortion almost always. And in fact, I think I mentioned before, Sue Johnson's really good at this in her intervention to be able to get people to actually say, Well, this is what I was feeling during that moment to each other with a safe referee in the form of a therapist. So yeah, reading minds and predicting the future, but particularly reading minds, can be a very tricky business. Interpret behaviors, but don't read minds.

Jeffrey Besecker: How do we differentiate some of those common senses we have, like being able to pick up intuitively on energetic interactions or learning to recognize some of those common facial expressions? You know, I was just listening the other day to a great Lewis Howe podcast talking about just the simple act of recognizing a genuine smile by Howe. our cheeks will puff up and when we're forcing that we kind of draw our eyes down. You know, how can we start to recognize those differences in cues without self-sabotaging and starting to read into some of that? Good question. That may be diving into a whole other conversational dynamic itself on context today.

Kent Weishaus: This does kind of speak to the primitive parts of us that may be still quite valuable. If you have a visceral feeling about something, and it's not necessarily anchored in your past, if it's a visceral feeling about a current danger or perhaps a current pleasure. Again, it's a slippery slope, but it's important to listen to your viscera. Is that smile authentic? that may be just a feeling that smile feels authentic. This person feels very warm to me. That's okay. Again, I would urge that you pay attention to what your body is telling you and step back and go, yeah, feels pretty safe. Feels pretty safe. Maybe this is okay to proceed with a more vulnerable relationship with this person.

Jeffrey Besecker: that might be venturing up to that slippery slope of our internal biases and heuristics. So I'm going to kind of leave that hanging out there today. In that regard, we frequently are unaware of our self-sabotaging behaviors. Making it challenging to address and change them in a lack of our ability to introspect can penetrate or perpetuate, I should say, can perpetuate negative relationships. And as we slip into that introspection illusion heuristic where we don't have that full ability to access our inner dialogues. What are some of the strategies or practices that can help us become more aware of our behavior patterns and subconscious scripts as we empower ourselves to recognize these unhealthy patterns?

Kent Weishaus: Good question. I'll just say that the last third of my book, Stop Breaking Down, addresses a number of these kind of across the board, from traditional therapy to EMDR to somatic experiencing, even to psychedelic assisted therapies, as well as self-practices. One thing that people can do, I'm pretty sure most people are capable of commencing some kind of meditative practice. And I'm not going to say there's one size that fits all, because in my talks with many, many people, a number of people say they can't do it, number one, but the people who do do it, do it in vastly different ways. But a meditative practice wherein you're paying attention, in my opinion, the point of meditation is to pay attention to what is, not what will be, not what you're thinking about, But what is, and what is manifests through the senses. What am I seeing? Perhaps if my eyes close, what are the back of my eyes seeing? What is my skin feeling? What's my tactile situation? What's the smell I'm smelling? What is the wind feel like against me? And then the observation of thoughts. Oh, there's a thought. I put a label on that thought and gain distance from it. The idea with what is, is a practice. It's not a light switch that goes, flip it on and you're enlightened. That's not the point of meditation. Meditation is a practice that will sort of after some months or even years sort of remind you, oh, you've been practicing. Now you've got a greater awareness of what you just experienced and you can step back and decide what to do about it. So I would say whether it is a meditation that is sort of a grounding meditation with what is right now in this moment in your life or whether it's a guided imagery meditation about a place that you're imagining yourself but still experiencing through your senses. or some other kind where thoughts are not in the forefront. Thoughts are seen from a distance and recognized from a distance so that what is right now is the practice for could be just two minutes a day, could be 20 minutes, could be two hours, but it's a practice that after time will resonate throughout your body and give you the distance that you're looking for.

Jeffrey Besecker: I want to emphasize in show my appreciation for that fact that you pointed out that visceral response, how that is kind of an embodied approach. So often I feel we get locked into that notion or idea that our thoughts are in control, our thoughts are creating the action. I want to recognize that we're kind of reaffirming today how those other processes come into play.

Kent Weishaus: This goes directly to the heart of how we evolved. I observe, we all observe mammals, animals, all different kinds, whether there are pets, cats and dogs, or whether we see them on TV, there's a giraffe, a lion, a rhinoceros. We observe mammals behaving, and again, I don't pretend to read their minds. but their behavior suggests they're behaving as though they are in the now. This is now, okay? And frequently you can see it manifest with opportunities there, I move towards opportunity. Danger is there, I move away from danger, or I face danger with anger, right? So we can learn from animals that being in the now is valuable, but it's only a part of us, because as humans, We have the power of abstract thinking. I, again, conjecture most animals don't have this, if any of them do. They may have some of it, there's a continuum, perhaps, where you might point to simians, apes, chimpanzees, having some of it, perhaps dolphins, perhaps octopi, but not nearly as much as we do, not nearly as much of the ability to be able to say we have common beliefs together. that help us greatly to collaborate together and that also we're able to project into the future and remember in great detail the past. So that this add-on to human, great huge add-on to human consciousness is both a blessing and a curse. Because I suggest it's the source of our neuroses, to use that 1950s term, what we call mental illnesses, lack of functioning because of mental processes. It's because we have this great power of abstract thinking. And so to move towards a what-is-right-now state, a meditative state, perhaps a more mammalian state, is a valuable way of taking advantage of what's in us while allowing our human side to take a rest for a minute, our human thought side to take a rest for a minute.

Jeffrey Besecker: I want to thank you for pointing out that power of being in the now, of just being open and present and vulnerably available to each other. I feel that sums up our conversation so neatly and succinctly today. Thank you for sharing this wonderful, insightful conversation with us today. I am so grateful to be in the now with you here on Now Today, Kent. Namaste. The light in me acknowledges the light in you. Thank you for sharing this wonderful conversation with us.

Kent Weishaus: I'm honored to have been here. Thank you.

Jeffrey Besecker: Thank you, my friend. Let's do it again soon. Where can our guests go to reach out to your book and learn more about your programs, Kent?

Kent Weishaus: The book is called Stop Breaking Down, The Secret to Avoiding Overwhelm and Crackup, and you can find it on my website. KentW.net will take you right to the link to get it.

Jeffrey Besecker: Thank you again for sharing this conversation with us today. Reach out to Kent and check out that book. Let's do this again soon. Thank you. You got it, Jeffrey. Thank you.

It's often said that you can judge a person's character by the company that we keep. However, when it comes to the stories we keep about ourselves, we discovered today many of these stories lie just below the surface of our conscious appraisals.

As a result, many of our self-concepts and constructs leave much to be explored and understood. Authenticity is the new social currency in modern pop culture. Yet, if our own stories remain somewhat of a mystery, even to us, in terms of our own character, what can be considered to be a justifiable truth? Ultimately, it's up to each of us to decide what we consider to be our personal truth.

The values and beliefs that shape how we view the world and how we tell our stories are each unique. It's up to us to take the time to explore and form a greater understanding of these stories, so that we make the most informed decisions throughout our lives. If you found this episode meaningful, please share it with a friend or loved one. And as always, we're grateful for you, our valued listening community.

This has been the Light Inside. I'm Jeffrey Besecker.