Why Success Never Feels Like Enough | Dr. Marisa Franco | The Art of Charm

this idea that when we arrive at the thing we've always wanted, the job, the relationship, the book we wanted to write, that every every all of our insecurities will be behind us. In psychology, we call this the arrival fallacy. I'm sure you and I both know very successful people who are still really struggling because something external can't heal these deep wounds. You know, I mean, I'm not saying feel bad for everybody who's rich and successful, but I am saying for those of us who are waiting for that one thing to happen in our lives that will heal everything, perhaps it's time to look more inward than outward. [music] >> Welcome to the show. It's great to have you. >> Hi. Thank you so much for having me. >> I'd love to start somewhere a little uncomfortable. I think compliments are something that are supposed to feel good. What actually happens in someone's body when we tell them something positive that they don't actually believe about themselves? >> Well, it's actually quite threatening. It triggers a kind of identity crisis where you feel like this person doesn't understand me. There's all this pressure for me to live up to this compliment. And so that's part of the reason why research finds people with lower self-esteem tend to deflect the very thing that you think would elevate their sense of self-esteem, which is the compliment. >> I think what's also challenging in a lot of those scenarios is everyone else around you will assume you received a compliment, so you should receive it in a certain way. So you're feeling this internal threat and hearing that, and everyone else is wondering, well, why did that cheer you up? Why didn't it make you feel good? Why did you react positively? >> Exactly. It's um it people are sort of like uh confused as to why it's hard for people to receive love. But if you understand self-esteem, self-worth as a theory of self, the theory that you have if you have low self-esteem or self-worth is that people will reject you, bad things will happen to you. And so when good things happen, it's sort of like, oh, this is going to manipulate me to feel good about myself so that I will only be further crushed when I inevitably get rejected. And so that's why it can feel so threatening particularly if you struggle with low selfworth to receive love, compliments, affirmation from other people. >> Well, let's talk about selfworth because I think many in our audience have probably seen it online, seen it on social media, and might have some beliefs that we want to shift today around what it actually means and and where it comes from because I think it's online everywhere now, but many of us don't really understand it as the science shows. >> Yeah. So, this also confused me too. I'm writing this book on how to feel worthy. I'm reading all this research on self-esteem on people with high self-esteem who say they feel good about themselves. They say they feel worthy. They don't feel like a failure. And I'm seeing that there's really two different types of people with high self-esteem. one type which I call better than self-esteem because they have to act better than everybody and they brag and they're defensive and they're reactive and they're hostile and they're aggressive and they have the worst relationships worse than people with low self-esteem versus the other type of high self-esteem which I call equal to high self-esteem because they're not trying to be better than anyone. They're only trying to express who they are. They're compassionate. They're kind. They're non-reactive. They take accountability. They have the best relationships of all. And so AJ, I'm trying to figure out what's the difference between these two types of high self-esteems because I don't want to guide people to be the type of high self-esteem that comes at everyone's expense. And I'm talking to one of my colleagues about it who seems to have the more positive kind of high self-esteem. And she's saying, I'm trying to think about when I'm defensive, it's because I feel ashamed. Someone has touched on some sort of shame. And I see in real time what the research shows me is that people with this more equal to positive type of high self-esteem that's connecting to self and other, they're able to acknowledge their emotions and their internal world. Whereas the people with the other kind, right, they're not able to acknowledge their own shame and so they just firebomb it over to the next person. And so that led me to define self-worth ultimately as treating your own internal world as if it matters. being able to look at difficult emotions, tolerate them, have compassion for yourself when you're feeling whatever emotion it is that's coming up for you. >> And where does this theory of self come from? >> Yeah. So, this is a great question that took me a year to answer cuz I was like, yeah, this like makes no sense. This whole self-esteem, like why are people with low self-esteem rejecting the very things that should make them feel better? Like, I started to think of unworthiness. >> It's an inability to accept love. How does that make any sense? And so started to understand it as a theory. Started to understand why that's happening. Why insecurities are adaptive. They don't want you to feel so good about yourself and be crushed more deeply. But but why do you have that theory that people are going to reject you? And so I came across researchers who said memories are the database of self-esteem. That the reason that you think you're going to be rejected or harmed or hurt or bullied is because you have been. And the thing about memories is they don't just record the past, they predict the future. So a part of you thinks that this is going to reoccur again because that's what memories do for us. They predict, they help us predict the future better based on past experiences. And so that's why it all just makes a lot of sense. Well, let's talk about memories and double tap on that because I think many of us have been in situations where we'll share a childhood story maybe with a best friend at the time or a family member and we have a totally different memory of that than the other person. Why do we hold on to certain memories and then how do they imprint the self-worth on us? >> Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. So when I was trying to read about memories and how they affect our sense of self, there was this study that looked at whether a memory is open or closed. And I'll define that in a second. But when people went back to their memories, some of them felt confusing. Some of them felt like they still triggered emotion. Now they would think back to them and get upset, angry. They were confused as to why it happened. They didn't have closure about it. They tried not to think about it. Maybe they would get tearary or aggressive or mad at the person when they thought back to that memory. And that's defined as an open memory versus a closed memory is something you can go back to in a regulated way and it doesn't trigger new emotions. It doesn't trigger old emotions and you're not trying to um avoid the memory in any way and you understand why it happened. Maybe you've made meaning out of it and you're not like why did this happen to me? And when people went back to negative memories, these were the same kinds of negative memories. You know, people maybe someone broke into your house or you went through a really negative relationship and after they reported their self-esteem, self-esteem was only lower for people that had open memories. So those open memories where they didn't make sense of it, they're still angry about it. They're still upset. They're still ruminating on the memory. They try not to think about it. Those are the ones they're still open in a way because they're still almost they're still present for us as we experience the world now. Um you know and in a very visceral way literally like if you let's say get criticism from your boss and you have these open memories of a parent always humiliating you. Your body is literally going to reexperience the experience of that humiliation when you receive that criticism. And so open memories function not only it's not only that you're sort of scared of the past happening again, but the truth is you're actually experiencing in your body the past happening again, even if the current situation is different. >> So it sounds like the healthier way is to identify those open memories and work to find some closure so that we're not reliving them again and again. And how can we practically do that? >> Yeah, exactly. This is this is it. Um, and there's this psychoanalyst Philip Bramberg and he says we don't go to therapy to deal with what's happening what's happened in the past, but what's still happening now. Like we're literally still living in the reality of those memories in terms of our emotional reactions to everyday events. And you know, this may sound tragic, people listening, I can't change the past, it happened already. You know, often this is a the what people say with like attachment theory, if people are familiar with that. Um, but it's basically things that happened in your past that still affect how you perceive relationships now. But what I found in my research is that you you can kind of change the p. I mean, you can change the way the past lives inside of you. You can change whether in a memory is exactly the impact of the past, whether the memory is open or closed. Now, this is according to a theory called memory reconsolidation theory. this finding that when people would return to a negative memory, picture their current self intervening in that memory, maybe I'm able to go to my younger self and say, "You're safe. I'm here. You're not alone. Nothing was ever wrong with you. The way they're reacting to you is about them, not you." And do that as vividly as I possibly can. That after people do this exercise, which is sounds simple, but is quite transformative. Not only do they report lower trauma symptoms, higher self-esteem, but you also see changes in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that records the memory. And so there's many different ways to reconsolidate our memories, both conscious and unconscious ones that I can get into and that I share exercises in detail in the book worth. Yeah, I I would love to unpack some of these exercises because I think listeners are now thinking about some moments that maybe lead to social anxiety or intense self- judgment at work based on past experiences that are still open. And the key thing you said there is is vivid like really putting yourself back in that scene. Not just saying a mantra or saying, "Oh, you should feel better about this or it's okay. You're going to be okay." But like actually picturing yourself in that moment being okay. >> Exactly. Exactly. And you know there's a study that came out about how like remembering is reliving that the same parts of your brain active when you go through an experience are active when you remember that experience. So in a way it's kind of like you're going back to it when you can vividly evoke the memory using all of your senses, sight, you know, sound, smell, and really trying to picture and visualize that memory again and also the sensations in your body that went on at the time. >> Okay. So give us an exercise. Let's let's close a memory. Okay. All right. Do you want Wait, do you want to give the memory or you want me to I can share a memory, too? There's one that I've done and shared um a lot. >> Yeah, maybe we'll start with you and then I'll jog [laughter] my memory. >> I'm in soccer practice. Practice is over. I am waiting for my mom to pick me up. And I feel really nervous because everybody's parent has come to pick them up and I am all alone and I feel like a burden and I'm waiting in the parking lot with the coach and the coach is sort of ignoring me and I'm off to the side and I'm just waiting for my mom to get there but feeling anxious and feeling kind of embarrassed and ashamed and feeling like maybe I'm not as important as the other girls whose parents arrive on time. And I also feel pressured to not feel that way because I know that my mom will tell me that she's really busy. And so I am feeling a little bit detached from myself at the same time. And it it looks um I don't know, it looks kind of picturesque with the the green grass and and the parking lot and everyone being happy and being really connected. And I I feel really alienated and off to the side because I'm not a part of that experience and I'm I'm not hanging out with everybody because I was invited. I'm just hanging out there because no one has come for me. Um and so at that moment, I would bring in my current self to myself at that time waiting for my mom in soccer practice, which is a a common memory. And I I would say, "Hey, I'm here with you throughout all of this. Nothing is wrong with you. The reason that your mom's not here doesn't mean that you're less than or unworthy. I know you feel really alone right now, but you're not. I am here with you. Tell me how you're feeling. If you're upset or angry, I'm here to hear it. You can cry. You can be angry. I want to know how you feel, and I want to make sure that you're not alone." And then I would have my younger self ask for anything else that they needed from me, which might be, "Thank you so much, but I really wish my my mom was here. I think that would mean so much to me." Um, I'm angry at her. And then my older self would say, "I'm going to get your mom here right away. She's going to be here, and she's going to apologize to you fully and acknowledge how hurt this makes you feel, and she's going to promise to never do that again, and to always pick you up at the right time. And also, I'm going to have these girls invite you in to hang out with you, too, and welcome you in the meantime while you're waiting. Um, and then you would end with a reflection on how the new memory changes how you perceive yourself and the world. So, for me, this new memory would make me think that my feelings are valid. People will show up for me. I'm not alone. I feel connected to other people. People want to welcome me in. I can be part of the group and I don't have to feel embarrassed or ashamed. >> Okay. So, there's multiple steps here. I was picturing the the vividness of the soccer field and waiting there, coach near you. >> So, walk us through the the three steps that you just went through. >> Yeah. So, the first is to activate the memory. And so, this will be you visualizing it, trying to remember, use the five senses. um recited in the present tense. What did you see, smell, hear, taste? If any of those senses come up for you, um then you are going to intervene as your current self in the memory and provide your younger self what you needed. Then your younger self is going to ask for anything else that they need. Then your adult self is going to provide those additional things. That's what I said. I'm going to get your mom here right away. I'm going to get these girls to invite you in. And then you're going to end with how does this memory now affect how I see myself and the world. What's really important as you go through this process because it's really about changing the emotion of memories is that you welcome any emotion and that the new experience should trigger new emotion. And so it's not just you you sort of wrote saying it intellectually, but you're actually sort of savoring and feeling emotionally what it would be like to have that different experience. >> And you're not trying to define the emotion then. It's like now you're feeling happy or now you're not sad. You're just letting it be. >> You're letting it be >> with that intervention >> and you're acknowled you're feeling it in your body. Like what does it feel like if someone picked you up? What would you feel in that moment? More tr what does that feel like? >> And is there some sign that we feel that it it might be working or it's sitting especially for those memories that right now we've been holding on to for so long in the negative. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean the sign is that when you then think of the memory, you're less activated. You're it's less charged to you and you feel calmer. And for sometimes cuz this is like a repeated memory for me. My mom was a teacher or she did home instruction. I was always uh my mom always came late. Um and you might have to do it a couple time you might have to return a couple times. >> Okay. >> You want to do it, AJ? >> Yeah. I I have a memory that came up >> when I was in uh second grade. So, my parents had been divorced and my dad actually won custody and my mom wasn't in my life. And I vividly remember a moment where the second grade teacher was handing out permission slips to the class. >> I would say if you could do it almost in the present, the second grade teacher is handing out permission slips. Yeah. >> Okay. So, this second grade teacher is handing out permission slips to the class. We're all sitting at our desk and it's towards the end of the day and the teacher says, "I want you to make sure that your mom signs this permission slip for you so that we can take the field trip in like 2 weeks." And I remember that sinking feeling of not having a mom in my life to take the permission slip home to and looking around the room and feeling like everyone else had that and feeling very alone and different and isolated. And in that moment of receiving the permission slip, I was over I'm overwhelmed with emotion and tearing up and that embarrassment of now crying in front of my classmates. I lift my desk and I shove my head inside of the desk to avoid being seen in that moment. Feeling sad, anxious, and disconnected from everyone in the group. and the teacher is having a very strong reaction to me now crying and and making a scene and not realizing what was happening. And that's was then amplifying the guilt and shame that I was feeling in that moment of having my head in the desk crying. So that's the the memory for me of of just being different than all of my classmates and not having that mother figure in my life. >> Okay. and maybe just taking a moment to acknowledge even I was feeling with you through this memory. It's it's heartbreaking. >> So, as I think about it and I put myself in that memory now as me, as my older version, uh you're not alone. your dad is coming to pick you up and he's excited to sign the permission slip for you and you are going to go on this great field trip with all of your classmates and uh how else should I be intervening in that in the present to to shift it? I would ask your younger self what he needs to hear um in that moment. What he would wish he would have maybe heard from that teacher instead. Yeah, I think I needed to hear it's okay for your parents to sign the permission slip and uh yeah, I think the reaction of the teacher was triggering even more of the guilt and shame. So, I would imagine the reaction being more calm and and less reactive to me, like it's okay. Um, I'm excited for everyone to go on the field trip and um and probably not asking for for the mom to sign it, but for your parents to sign it. >> So, could you picture yourself saying that to your younger self? >> Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting putting yourself back in that that memory in a vivid way, remembering the sense and to involve all the senses like the sights, the sounds, the smells of the the markers. And what does your younger self um feel or think when you said all of that to him? >> I feel safe. I feel connected. I I feel accepted >> in that moment. >> And how does that change how you be yourself or others moving forward? >> Yeah, I think it makes me feel more part of the group, less disconnected and and less different than my classmates. Maybe just like taking a moment to to receive those new emotions. >> Yeah. Feeling calmer, feeling more at ease. I think that is definitely something that as I look back at that memory and it's it's been triggered so many times in my life, it's vivid in that negative way. So, I could see by doing this exercise how it can start to shift it to be more neutral and and more um connecting than disconnecting. >> Yeah. I just have so much empathy for younger us. You know, you have no resources at the time. You just it's just really hard to not internalize things. Um you don't always have the support you need as you're having a reaction or in pain. And um I just have a lot of compassion for both of us and our younger selves who felt really alone at critical moments and yeah just had a hard time gaining some some closure or peace with those instances. >> Yeah. And I think so much of our youth is around striving to fit in and be connected and and not be that outsider. And in those moments where you feel like that they are really impactful to the way you view yourself, that self-worth and that disconnection that you might have from other people that you really value or want to be connected to. >> What so many of us like didn't have in our lives because the adults didn't know how to do this is someone to say like you could have emotion like you could be angry, you could be upset, you could have emotions and that's okay and I'm here to support you and care for you. I'm not here to make you feel worse. You don't have to hide the ways that you feel. And I think finding worth is about we begin to do that for ourselves. Like for me, it's become a practice that when I notice myself being activated or triggered or knowing that a memory is coming up because I'm reacting really strongly instead of I shouldn't feel that way. Let me push it away. It's now how do I invite this? This is a part of me that needs my attention. It's a part of me that needs my care. Well, I think unfortunately in a lot of these situations, the people around us mean well, but they often dismiss those. It's going to be okay, AJ. It's not a big deal. [clears throat] It's just a permission slip. You You can think about all the ways that when someone is having an emotional reaction, your first reaction to that emotional reaction is to try to dismiss its impact or or make it smaller or make it feel less negative than it it might be for the person who's experiencing it. But of course that does the opposite. It it often disconnects us more. Like I'm feeling the strong emotion and someone else is telling me, "Oh, it's just a permission slip. It's not a big deal." >> Yeah. Exactly. Like I think what I'm going for in this book is that we need to just be able to tell the truth. Like when that's happened to us so much, it's it starts happening internally where you no longer know what your own thinking and feeling because you're pushing away and suppressing it just like someone taught you to do. And you know, for me, it's been really a process of of welcoming emotions. And it's AJ, it's even ones that I wish weren't there, that I don't want to feel that don't feel particularly rational, right? Like, you know, I'll give an example. I I um had a friend and I was trying to get close to them and hang out with them. And um it was hard to get on their calendar. I eventually did. They had an injury and they had to take care of themselves. So, they had to cancel our ultimate hangout. What did I want to feel? compassion and care for them. Take care of yourself. What did I feel? I feel kind of rejected. I've been trying to connect with you for so long and it's not working out. And past me would have been like, no, I shouldn't feel rejected. Be a good friend. Just say the right thing. But current me is like, let me take a moment with that rejection. Like, it's okay. I feel Let me label that. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. It's okay that you feel this way. You're loved. You're loved. You're loved. Right? like doing that kind of mini memory reconsolidation because I'm sure it comes from a deeper place for me. And then when I do that, I am able to say, "Take care of yourself. I hope you're okay." In a way that feels actually genuine and not like I had to force myself, jerk myself to that place before I was there. And so I think there's this big misconception, I'm sure you know, AJ, that like people think that to be a good person is to push away or discount the emotions that are there. But in fact, that's what makes those emotions hijack us. We can only regulate the emotions we are willing to acknowledge. And I me acknowledging I felt rejected, even if I felt like I shouldn't, allows me to come to peace so that I can then actually attune to the person in front of me. >> Well, what I think you're talking about, many of our audience will label as mastering their emotions, right? like I just shove that negative emotion of rejection aside and I just can wish my friend well and and I'll deal with that later or like it didn't impact me. But it does in many ways it'll it'll leak out in other ways that we weren't expecting and it'll be even harder for us to process versus having this practice of recognizing it and not looking at it as something you should master or shove to the side. >> Right? It's just there. It's okay. Let's just tell the truth. And actually this in this book, it's funny because I wrote my first book, Platonic, on being a securely attached friend. I'm critical of not attachment theory, but the way that it's used in that secure attachment has become the status symbol and it feels like we all want to be secure and have to be secure and put that on our profiles and tell people how secure we are. And then what happens when I feel anxious? I'm like, push that away. I'm supposed to be secure. So now I'm presenting to you as if what I am supposed to be rather than the authenticity of what I actually am and secure attachment is being used to alienate me from myself. And so what I instead say is there's no hierarchy of attachment. It's just about where you are. And if you're anxious and you acknowledge that and you feel that you can actually soothe the anxiety and the ways that a lot of influencers are like you shouldn't be anxious because your crush didn't text you and a secure person like you know never has any doubts in themselves. It's like not only are you anxious now you're also ashamed of yourself for being anxious. And so actual healing is let's now be vulnerable about just how insecure we are because only from that place can we care for have compassion and ultimately heal our insecurities. What is often easier in this situation is to label ourselves than it is to actually work on ourselves. So it's easier to say I'm secure attached like it's a destination and not recognize that there are different relationship dynamics that will come up in our life that lead to us feeling anxious or lead to us feeling avoided. There's not one label for every relationship in our life and you might be in a very stable healthy relationship right now where you feel secure but recognize that this is something we're working on through our whole life just like self-worth and self-esteem. It's not okay I have high self-esteem. I don't have to worry about that. let me just focus on everything else that's on my plate. >> Yes, that is the paradox of self-worth. People that truly have high selfworth can admit when they don't and they can say, "Hey, I'm feeling a little insecure right now. I'm feeling a bit vulnerable. This is hard for me. I could use some support. I'm going to offer myself from support." Whereas people that have the better than kind of high, they never admit when they're vulnerable. They never admit when they feel less than or they feel weak. And it's that agility of being with where you are that marks true having true selfworth is that I'm I'm going to feel low. I'm going to feel insecure, but I have high regard for myself no matter where I'm at. >> I think with that often times as our listeners chase confidence as this destination, it's hard to see when it's fake and when it's real, even in ourselves. Like very often we can have that other side of the mirror where it's just completely fake and we're defensive and we're doing everything we can to project this high selfworth when internally we're not feeling like that at all or feeling like an impostor. >> Right. Exactly. And it's it's ironic that sometimes, you know, if you're faking it in a way that leads you so far from where you actually feel that ultimately you're you're only feeling worse because now you're burying the very things that need to be healed. And so I just I'm for us telling the truth. A like this is it like it's okay. Like I my own therapy for example, I've been working on my own worth because who want writing a book on worth is very intimidating. So I [laughter] have to work on my own sense of self to be prepared to release it. But I just remember this moment where there was a part of me that felt so needy and dependent and I felt ashamed and you know part of me wanted to push this part away. And in my therapy we work with the divine. And so my therapist is like what would if you like give this part of you up to the divine what do you hear? And I did. I pictured like a divine force like being alongside this insecurity. And that force said, "You're perfect, too. You're perfect, too. You're perfect, too." And in that moment, I was like, "The problem was never that I'm needy or dependent. The problem is that I felt ashamed of that." And when I no longer feel ashamed of that, that needy dependent part of me finally calms down because it's received some care and compassion instead of continued internal alienation. And I think, you know, I went through this experience um becoming a new dad, feeling like I was letting my family down, my work was suffering, I was letting my clients down. And I just had this crisis of my own self-worth and recognized that a lot of it was built on external validation than working on myself. And I had my best friend at the time, I was sharing this with him and he's like just going on and on about how much he appreciates me and and how much he sees in me. And of course, you know, in his mind, he's he's trying to get me back to that confident version of myself, but I was not ready to hear that. And that was even more difficult for me. And then after working through it, I came back and he was sharing that again, like how much he looks up to me and some of the the challenges that I've faced headon and the way that I live my life. And and I was ready to hear it and it felt better. So, I think that's another part of this that we have to recognize that it's a dance and there's going to be moments where you're not ready to hear that and it feels really difficult and that compliment from a friend or someone who knows you can spike your blood pressure and make you feel really tense and then you you find some other source of truth and you work through some things and then you come back to that compliment, it feels good again and that's a part of the process. >> Yes. the fluidity of it. And I think I love what you're saying because it teaches us how we need to calibrate care to where we're at, both for ourselves and others. So, there's a study where people did affirmations and they said, you know, I am loved. And people that had like sort of like mid-range self-esteem and higher, that made them feel better. But for people that had low self-esteem, it made them feel worse because it was like, I now recognize just how firmly rooted my poor self-esteem is because this I am not internalizing any of this. And it feels like I'm gaslighting myself. And so for me, like this has been revolutionary cuz even with my friends, I love giving them compliments. When my friend didn't accept my compliment, I was like, I'm going to give you a compliment. You have to accept it, [laughter] >> right? This is my gift to you. is and I realize that's not about who's the compliment for clearly it's not for her if she's becoming uncomfortable and now I'm trying to force her to receive it. So now I really understand the importance of if you have friends that are struggling with selfworth either for a moment or chronically the importance of just witnessing and saying hey it's okay to feel like you do like this these situations they bring up a lot for people. Thank you so much for sharing with me. Tell me more about what's coming up for you. >> Yeah, the validation piece of that is often more impactful than the wrote compliment we'll give in those moments where we're feeling someone that we really look up to, rever, care deeply about is is struggling with their selfworth. >> Exactly. Cuz like I said, it's not the problem isn't that you have an insecurity. The problem is that you feel ashamed of it. And when I'm trying to tell you you're great, I'm I'm I'm sort of implying that like how you feel, how negatively you feel isn't okay and I have to pull you out of it. And what you need is for people to the validation says there's no shame in exactly where you're at. >> Well, I think the challenge for a lot of us who are striv and working on ourselves, there is a lot of external validation around. there's there's opportunity to fix your body and feel like, okay, now I'm in great shape. Other people are noticing I'm in great shape. I still don't have the self-worth that I was after by that. Or getting the promotion at work or the salary bump, the title, and other people looking up to you now like, "Wow, you're really climbing the ranks and feeling like, well, I'm not deserving or having other internal struggles around it." And it can be a bit difficult when up until that moment, we felt like, well, that's what I needed. I I needed the six-pack. I needed to complete the marathon. I needed to get that promotion. And it still didn't give me the self-worth that I was after, the confidence that I was building. >> Yeah. In psychology, we call this the arrival fallacy. This idea that when we arrive at the thing we've always wanted, the job, the relationship, the book we wanted to write, that every every all of our insecurities will be behind us. But I'm sure you and I both know very successful people who are still really struggling because something external can't heal these deep wounds, you know, and um like you said, like speaking to like a doctor who was in medical school, finally became a doctor and told me that he's more depressed because at least before he had this hope in front of him that when I become a doctor, I won't be struggling with my mental health anymore. and now he is that doctor and now he no longer has that hope and it it feels even worse. I mean I'm not saying feel bad for everybody who's rich and successful but I am saying for those of us who are waiting for that one thing to happen in our lives that will heal everything perhaps it's time to look more inward than outward. Yeah, I think that's such an interesting perspective that I [clears throat] I know that I felt in the past around hopefulness of of reaching a revenue goal with the company or a certain number of downloads and recognition and feeling that validation of like, okay, I was working on this thing. I proved it to myself and others. Maybe had some outside family pressure too around being the the most advanced degree in the family or being the most successful one in the family and then not feeling it internally when you reach that destination. >> Exactly. And I think AJ so often when we don't feel it internally, I'll say in my own experience as a recovering hyper ambitious person [laughter] that like it's I I I do the thing that I I should do for everybody to be impressed with me. There's a momentary high, then I forget about it. I move on with my day and there's not really a sustainable change in my sense of self or mental health. And then I'm like, "All right, I guess I got to find the next thing." [laughter] And then it's just like, all right, I guess I'm going to be on this hamster wheel for the rest of my life. Always hoping, always looking to the next thing and never being at peace in the moment that is. >> Well, I think another challenge many of us will face is just the being agreeable and easygoing to avoid conflict or avoid feeling those difficult emotions. And then something like envy pops up with someone that you're really close to. You're you're a friend and and you are excited for them, but at the same time, you're now feeling this emotion and self- judgment tied to it. >> Exactly. Yeah. And that's, you know, I just want to say all of these these emotions are so human and I think this is a good time for me to talk about like cuz we're talking about changing memories and there's also something called implicit memories which are memories you don't remember that still affect how you feel right now. And part of the reason this happens is because the part of our brain that that records like conscious memory is different from the part of our brain that co that um records the emotion of memory. That's the amygdala. And the amydala is fully formed when we're young and before the hippocampuses. So that means when we're infants, we're kind of recording all these memories in a way that they shape how we feel in the future even though we don't remember what happened. So, if you had a parent that was cruel to you as an infant, then you're going to feel disregulated as an adult, even if you don't remember those acts, those mean acts happening to you. But what that really means for us, right, is that if you're feeling, you know, why should I feel this jealousy? Why should I feel this envy? Why should I feel this aggression? Why should I feel this insecurity? Right? Like there is a reason. You might not remember the reason, but that doesn't mean that the reason doesn't exist. Like the amydala is really good at capturing things. Like there's even a study where people were presented with like an angry face and then a um I think it was a color noise, but angry face and then some sort of cue. And the angry face was portrayed for like milliseconds. and they didn't even know it was there. But eventually they started responding negatively to the cue because it was associated with the angry face that they didn't even perceive consciously. So this is our brain doing its work to protect us. It's going to affect our emotions. We're going to overreact and that's okay. That's part of being human. You have messy emotions. Well, let's let's talk about that because I feel like with the memory exercise we did, we definitely have those moments that, you know, we're hanging on to that are gnawing at us. But then there are other times where we will have an intense physical reaction like sitting in a car before a hard conversation and your chest gets tight and you don't have a memory of of being in conflict or a memory of a tough conversation like this, but you're having a physical response to it. And science is great, theory is fantastic, but like what do we do in those moments where we're feeling it for real? >> Yeah, that's a that's a great question. How do we remember what we don't remember [laughter] >> and then move through it in a healthy way? >> I would say that noticing that anxiety, that tightness in your chest, that tightness in your jaw, whatever it is, noticing that sensation is a kind of remembering, right? because it's those those sensations are residue of memories from the past that are being reactivated now. And so there's this theory called working memory theory which is this idea that we can only hold so much information in our memory at a given time. And so what we can do is we focus on that trigger and we split our attention and focus on something else simultaneously. Now, people that are familiar with forms of therapy like EMDR, you're focusing on your trigger in your body and you're watching maybe a ball or a finger move back and forth or tapping where you tap different parts of your body while also simultaneously focusing on the trigger. Or there's been all these headlines on like play Tetris when you're traumatized. [gasps] But it's really it's really what it's really about is taxing working memory so much that your your body literally can't as vividly pull up the triggered sensation and it starts to become more degraded. So next time you're not triggered as strongly. >> So in that moment I'm in [clears throat] my car I'm triggered. I don't have this memory to draw from. I should pull out my iPhone and and play Tetris. >> Play Tetris. One that I really love because it's just so easy to do in bed is I will start counting off like what's 1 plus 2, three, 3+ 4, 7, four, 7 plus f, you know, 5, 12. And so I'll start counting off with plus one each time while focusing on the trigger in my body. And then I'll literally start feeling it move or um or I don't know. It's like weird. You you can kind of feel it like get less intense as as you do this sort of dual focus thing. And how often should we be doing this? >> Oh, it's a great practice for I will say whenever you notice yourself having a stronger emotional reaction than most people or having a very urgent emotion where you're like, I need to text him. I need to respond to my boss. Like that's a good sign that maybe there's an implicit memory coming up and maybe tolerating and sitting with it will no longer will not only benefit you now but in the future. But here's the thing, AJ. writing this book, interviewing people that are I say secure-ish because I don't want people to be fully secure and ignore the parts of themselves that aren't. Dr. Skyler Jackson, he's a professor. He would say that he would wave his hand over his day to see where his emotional energy lied. There's this way that like these people that are secure, they're almost looking for their own pain so that they could offer themselves care. Like that's a part of themselves to cherish because it's a part of themselves even their pain. And so when I kind of learned about that that these secure people, not only are they like acknowledging their emotions, but they're also like looking for them in a way because they again they want to care for that part of them. I started to realize the moments when I'm feeling an emotion I don't feel like I should be feeling right like feeling rejected at my friend who had the injury. I try to push it away so fast that I don't even know the emotion's there. Like literally, it's been a practice of actually being present with my own process. I would say it's like a peopleleasing part of me that's like you shouldn't feel this way. You shouldn't feel like in an antisocial way that like I have started to try to be intentional about slowing down because to be truthful, I think that this part of me has been there my whole life [laughter] that pushes away my initial reaction and tries to, you know, kind of contort my emotional world into something else. And finally, in this process of acknowledging even the microsecond that that emotion comes up, I feel like it helps me make progress for this to no longer haunt me. This kind of automatic kick the negative emotion away and like plaster a smile onto your face in your relationships. >> Yeah. I mean, if you've ever gardened, it feels like tending to your garden, right? If if you let a weed grow and get its roots and down deep, the amount of effort it's going to take to remove that weed is far greater than just walking through your garden daily and just picking the little tiny seedlings that are popping up to tend to it. And it sounds like the secure person is doing that. It's just a bit more in tune to, hey, what's going on me with me emotionally, positive, neutral, negative, however you want to label it, and saying, okay, there's space for it. let me work through it instead of all right let me just focus on the positive ones or let me focus on the false bravado that provide me that positive feedback from others >> yeah it's like as Dr. Skyler Jackson said he was like what small things are actually small and what small things are big for me and it's okay if something that appears small is big for me because it's touching on it's attached to a whole history of things right it's it's not actually small for me it may not be small for you you know when someone um when someone says you hurt they hurt you hurt or their feelings right that that may trigger a whole lifetime of shame and reactivity and you know you learning that you had to be perfect in relationships to feel worthy, right? And and like it starts with acknowledging that that's happening rather than being like, "Oh, this is what the influencer told me I should feel. So, I'm going to try to plop that over my own sense of reality." >> Now, so much of this we've talked so far is the relationship we have with ourselves, but we also know that this comes up in our relationships with others. I've shared a couple stories, but when we think about our partner, spouse, our friends, and you wrote a book on how to be a secure friend, you know, what do we do in those moments where these triggers are coming up for the people that we care about? We might not know why. We don't know exactly why we're getting that reaction and what we thought would be maybe a mild disagreement is now turned into something much deeper for them and a reaction [clears throat] much stronger than what we were expecting. You know, obviously if someone's like yelling at you or screaming at you, like setting a boundary of, okay, we got to go back to this later because I need to be I need to be us to talk communicate in a grounded way. But but I think what we can do once we get to that place is really expressing curiosity and saying it seems like what happened there, it brought up a lot for you. I'd love to learn more about what that is. the more that we can encourage people to tell the truth and share and even normalizing you know this it might whatever you feel is okay and it's normal for us to have reactions to things that we don't want to have but that doesn't mean those reactions aren't real and I'm still going to be here to to hear them and understand what you might need right like we need to encourage truthtelling in our relationships and AJ that's really hard because sometimes that truthtelling might be your partner feeling like disconnected or your partner feeling like they want to withdraw or they want to pull away. But like the second that they verbalize that is the second that they no longer feel as strongly in that way. Right? This is particularly for like more avoidantly attached folks. What tends to really help is when they express that urge to withdraw. They express that fear of intimacy. They express that there's a lot of shame there for them when you try to touch on these these sort of personal things for them. And so it's just about and that's really our own work being able to sit with people telling us the truth even when the truth might kind of hurt us or make us feel a little bit rejected. But ultimately the only way to move forward is if we tell the truth. And I think so many couples I don't know if you've seen the movie The Invite. It was great. It just really displayed this so well. They're in cycles of conflict because nobody is telling the truth. That I feel like a failure. I feel less than. I feel ashamed. And then I want to withdraw. And so it manifests as all of this nitpicking currently and all of these like bickering because we're not actually telling talk able to share the root issue that is happening within us. >> Yeah. And I think often times it's easy for the other person to go back to well this is small. But if you're feeling it, if you're experiencing that and that urge to withdraw or that urge of shame and guilt around being perceived a certain way, being labeled by someone you care deeply about as something you don't want to be labeled as or want them to feel about you, it isn't small. So on the outside, yeah, it's it's bickering. It's it's small things leading to big fights. But that reaction I think takes a lot for us, especially even in myself recognizing that I'm a people pleaser to shift away from managing someone else's own perceptions of my emotional state to like really investigating their emotional state, what's going on for them, and being able to sit with their emotional state, less so worried about managing my own. >> Yeah, exactly. I think you're putting it so well. And and like it's human for small things to be big for you, right? like [laughter] and we don't have to judge anybody else by the litmus test of what we think is big or small. We need to be able to trust people in our lives to tell us what is big for them. Um because again, you can only move forward from the truth. And if you're not telling the truth, things are going to come out sideways. And I I saw this with people I interviewed for the book like parents for example this father who felt um inferior as a father and his kid would cry and his kid would cry and try to comfort a kid would cry try to comfort him and would cry try to comfort him. So much of those like sort of unprocessed feelings of inferiority came up and to push those away he started yelling at his kid to the extent that it frightens his wife to the extent that his kid doesn't call him dad again after that experience. Right? And what's going on for him is like those feelings of inferiority, sit with them, allow them, care for yourself in them, because when you don't, they particularly will come out in the people that have less power than you, where you feel like there's less repercussions. And so, it's a work in relationships that are horizontal, but also when we have more power, it's just such important work for us to be able to do this self attunement to protect the people that are under us. Well, I think another dynamic that has become popularized is, you know, cutting off family members, cutting off relationships, friends or romantic. If I if I label myself as secure, then it's like I want to push away anyone who's avoidant or the sign that they're avoidant, I I got to cut them out of my life. And instead, we actually need to be creating safety for them to process through those emotions and work through it instead of just cutting them out, saying, "Oh, I'm I'm secure, so I don't have time for someone who's avoidant, or I don't have time, >> you know, and I think that's where this this attachment theory and the labeling can really create difficulty in our relationship building efforts." >> Yeah. It really causes us to not humanize each other and to judge each other. And like I think attachment, like I said, it's a very scienceback theory. I don't have issues with the theory. I just have a lot of issues with the way it's being applied. Like I think when people name themselves as insecure, we shouldn't be like get it together and get secure. Maybe your insecurity tells you what you need in this connection. If you're more anxious, you might need more reliability. You might need more responsiveness. You might need someone who reassures you more, right? Or if you're avoidant, you might need someone who gives you more space and allows you to come back and welcomes you back. And you can also check in with yourself as to whether you can provide that or not without disregulating yourself. But but like when someone tells us the truth about their insecurities, that's our opportunity to figure out how to care for them given those insecurities. >> So let's let's talk about that and close that loop. So we have someone in our life right now who is going through that loop and feeling avoidant and just overwhelmed by the insecurity. Maybe not ready to process it in the moment, but for us it seems small. So, we want to support them. We care deeply about them. How can we revisit that? And what are some ways that we can work through that if we care deeply about the relationship? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would start by saying like like I think avoidance obviously they have a lot of shame over whatever they're feeling and that's why they decide to withdraw instead. And so offering the disclaimer that like, hey, I know you're overwhelmed and you're probably feeling a lot and totally makes sense for a lot of feelings to come up in this situation. And I want you to know that if you if you need someone to talk, I am here and I am available. But also, if you need space, take it. And when you're ready to come back, I will also be here for you. >> I love that. And I think the more we can offer that to people in our life, the more we can get to that authentic place where we don't have to feel like we're wearing a mask or pretending that we're more secure or more confident than we are. >> Yeah. To be human is to be like a little insecure. [laughter] >> It's okay. >> So, in all the the research for this book, what have you taken personally from the latest science on selfworth and attachment? How has it changed your life? I I literally have a practice every morning before I get out of bed of like uh attuning to any pain that I have. You know, I had a friendship that made me feel more anxiously attached. And when you're anxious, you just want to control the other person because it feels like your sense of self depends on how they treat you. So, it's like I need I need you to do this so that I can feel good, right? and learning that instead of exerting control in that situation, I really had to just feel that anxiety and breathe and notice that anxiety and breathe and notice my anxiety, put my hand on my chest and say, "Hey, you're okay. You're okay. I love you. I love you. I love you. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here." AJ, I literally did that for an hour and it made such a difference. I just felt so much more at ease in the connection and just like I don't know like perceiving things in a lot more grounded way, you know, less triggered and um so it's that p practice of realizing because I think often we might try to control our environments like I can't talk to this person, I can't be around them as a way to control our feelings because I don't want to feel upset or angry or anxious or jealous. But realizing that that you have an alternative which is to actually feel those feelings and and allow those feelings and confront those feelings and care for yourself through those feelings and then you don't need to control the environment as much. And it it feels so freeing to feel like I can embrace and be a container for any negative emotions that come up in me. There's just nothing that I need to avoid or run away from. Like I'm just here for myself. like whatever happens, I'm going to just be here for myself. And that's and I don't know, it's just it's my mental health is it's just gotten so much better from this whole thing. >> Yeah, it sounds wonderful as a practice, but then also recognizing the impact it has on the people in your life, too, right? Right? Cuz those other behaviors of withdrawing or having a difficult emotion and then you reacting more negatively or pulling away or not being as engaged can damage the relationship and and what's going on for them. >> Yeah. So, I literally had a conversation with another friend who did have the situation where it's something that she felt was small but she felt triggered by and I could say to that friend, if it's big for you, then it's big. Like, that's what matters. And I appreciate your bravery with like coming up and telling me about this. And to be honest, before I might have gotten more triggered by that. I might have felt like she's telling me I'm bad. Um, you know, I'm wrong and I feel upset. But like really being able to confront that shame inside of me means that it comes up less in my relationships. And again, I feel less need to control another person's emotional reaction. So I just it's it's honestly changed my life. It's made me feel more like I'm living in the present, which I ultimately think selfworth is, instead of living in the past memories imposing themselves on to now. That my emotional reactions are more calibrated to what's actually happening. Not all the time. You know, this is a this is an ongoing practice, but definitely more so. And um I feel more like myself. I feel like I have more vitality in my life. I feel like my connections are more authentic. Um and you know, I'm still a work in progress. I'm still working on it. you know, tomorrow I might be more anxious. The next day I might be more avoidant, but I'm not going to abandon myself when I am. I'm going to like look at that too and and explore those parts of me too. >> I love that. And thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all this great science and tools and and putting me through the exercise for audience too. It's really insightful. I appreciate it. >> Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and I hope you all enjoy Worth and there's exercises in it that really help you too. >> Wonderful. Where can audience find out more about the book and your work? Yeah. So, you can get Worth the new science of self-esteem and secure attachment wherever books are sold. You can get a signed copy if you order it from Lost City Books in DC. I'm on Instagram at dr marissa gfranco. That's d r m a r i s a g f r a n c o. On my website, drarissa gfranco.com. You can sign up for a list of practices to work on your worth or reach out for speaking events on selfworth at work. >> Thank you so much. >> My pleasure. >> [music]