Speaker 1: Tonight, it's my pleasure to introduce our friend Alan Berger.
Speaker 1: We're continuing our series of workshops on the theme of
Speaker 1: emotional sobriety. Doctor Burger will speak to our group on
Speaker 1: the first Monday of each month throughout this year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. Tonight is the third part of his discussion
Speaker 1: of how we can apply the twelve Essential Insights for
Speaker 1: Emotional Sobriety to our recovery and growth in our programs.
Speaker 1: Doctor Burger will be talking about discerning our emotional dependency.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you a little about Alan. Alan
Speaker 1: recently celebrated fifty years of sobriety using the Twelve Steps
Speaker 1: and over forty years as a practicing psychotherapist specializing in
Speaker 1: addiction to recovery with an emphasis on emotional sobriety. Doctor
Speaker 1: Berger will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to.
Speaker 2: Us each month.
Speaker 1: Like I said in Hiss and So, he's going to
Speaker 1: be talking again about the insight number three and you
Speaker 1: can find that referenced in his new book, which is
Speaker 1: those the twelve Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety, and it's
Speaker 1: actually chapter five of the book if you want to
Speaker 1: if you haven't had the book, handy and you want
Speaker 1: to look at it for further information.
Speaker 2: So now it wasn't that genius. I don't have to
Speaker 2: intro you now, I mean you got me intro.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been made, You've been made.
Speaker 2: She promoted the book.
Speaker 3: She did it all, She did it.
Speaker 2: All for me.
Speaker 4: No, that's Susie.
Speaker 2: That's Susie right.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome
Speaker 2: back to the scene of the conversation. You already know
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 3: It's the VR is Thursday night.
Speaker 2: We've been on fire all week long and I had
Speaker 2: to bring in the final boss of psychotherapy of emotional sobriety.
Speaker 3: Come on, let's have a real conversation.
Speaker 2: The number of dollars one eight hundred nine twenty fifteen
Speaker 2: point eighty before I introduced my brother. This is my brother.
Speaker 2: I don't think you all understand. This is my bro
Speaker 2: has always been a catalyst and a supporter of my work.
Speaker 2: Was able to see it, see where it's coming from,
Speaker 2: understand it. Man, Doctor Berger is one of him one's.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't bring him in here if he wasn't one
Speaker 2: of them ones. Ladies in Joe, he's one of them.
Speaker 2: One'sy tonight's topic. We're going to cover some of the
Speaker 2: concepts and ideas not only in his book, but in
Speaker 2: the body of work that he has established. I mean,
Speaker 2: how long have you been a therapist? Christ I know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, susioad. The announcement was made five years ago because
Speaker 4: just August first, I celebrated fifty five years clean and sover.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Fifty five years and I've been as a psychotherapist actually
Speaker 4: about fifty three of those fifty five years.
Speaker 2: Yikes.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's a life.
Speaker 3: That's a lifetime.
Speaker 4: Brother. Yeah, and look, yeah, you're my brother too, man,
Speaker 4: and I do get what you do. And I think
Speaker 4: everybody that listens to you understands that when you show up,
Speaker 4: you show up for them, that when you share, you're
Speaker 4: sharing something that you feel is of value and can
Speaker 4: make a difference in people's lives. And that's why I've
Speaker 4: loved your work up to this point in time, because
Speaker 4: you've made an incredible contribution to the well being of
Speaker 4: anyone that comes in contact to you. Man, You're that
Speaker 4: you're like the pied Piper of mental health. Oh wow, wow,
Speaker 4: you just carry such a wonderful message. And not only that, Man, listen,
Speaker 4: I don't trust anybody that doesn't walk the way they talk.
Speaker 4: And you walk the talk. You walk the talk. You
Speaker 4: are the Zoe. You guys, here, here is the Zoe
Speaker 4: out there that's living his life, that's trying to show up,
Speaker 4: that's trying to figure things out, that hurts like you
Speaker 4: and I hurt that. It feels the pain that you
Speaker 4: and I feel. That struggles with the same issues. But
Speaker 4: what you bring to that struggle is the amazing degree
Speaker 4: of consciousness you had. I was talking about that earlier.
Speaker 4: The consciousness you bring to your work, to your body
Speaker 4: of work has been phenomenal and inspires me as well.
Speaker 4: Come on, all right, good night everyone.
Speaker 2: Now, before I get this conversation going, I would be
Speaker 2: remiss if I did not acknowledge that today for me
Speaker 2: was a tough day. I appeared on many shows on
Speaker 2: this station over the last eighteen months after the fires
Speaker 2: happened in Altadena in Pasadena, and I you know, I
Speaker 2: talked about how a couple of my older brothers were missing. Well,
Speaker 2: today my second oldest brother, Maurice big Mo, passed away.
Speaker 2: And when I tell you that was a protector, a mentor,
Speaker 2: a father figure, an example, he was everything for me
Speaker 2: and just to see him over the past years just
Speaker 2: deteriorate because of codependency on alcohol. Yeah, it leads us
Speaker 2: right into our topic, you know, being in a toxic
Speaker 2: relationship and enabler drinking all. It leads us into our
Speaker 2: topic tonight, rest in peace, big brother, Mo, I love
Speaker 2: you forever. And now let's get to it. Emotional sobriety
Speaker 2: a step by step guide on how to break insecure
Speaker 2: attachment code dependence.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, let's dedicate this show to your brother to let's
Speaker 4: do that. This is for you, Mo, This is for
Speaker 4: what didn't happen in your life that can happen in
Speaker 4: other people's. Yeah, and hopefully you're suffering and your pain
Speaker 4: will inspire some people to say, hey, time to wake up.
Speaker 4: This is the real deal. This is not a dress rehearsal. No,
Speaker 4: this is it, man, this is it.
Speaker 2: I love it. Let's get to the questions. Doc, you
Speaker 2: got to walk us through this. Yeah, number one, give
Speaker 2: us your definition of emotional sobriety. What is it? Why
Speaker 2: do we need it? Why is it important right for
Speaker 2: us to cultivate and kind of develop it? What is
Speaker 2: an emotional operating system?
Speaker 3: Hey, talk to me bro.
Speaker 4: Listen, what a juicy question. Very juicy. Let me take
Speaker 4: the first bite of that. Yes, and the first bite
Speaker 4: would be, in one word, emotional. Sobriety has to do
Speaker 4: with freedom, emotional freedom. And see what we don't realize,
Speaker 4: all of us think. We walk around thinking, oh, I'm
Speaker 4: in control of my life. I've been in control of
Speaker 4: what I'm doing. But the truth is is Freud had
Speaker 4: it right that we are being lived by the forces
Speaker 4: within us, and those forces, most of them, are outside
Speaker 4: of our awareness. We don't realize it. And so when
Speaker 4: I talk about freedom, you know, if I go back
Speaker 4: into my history when I was my first drink was
Speaker 4: when I was twelve years old, I can remember it
Speaker 4: like it was happening yesterday. And I'm seventy four, so
Speaker 4: that was a few years ago, right, sixty two years ago.
Speaker 4: What happened that day as I was twelve years old,
Speaker 4: my father just died from cancer. I had all these
Speaker 4: feelings as a twelve year old boy. My father's my
Speaker 4: heritage on his side is Jewish, but I was in
Speaker 4: a German Italian neighborhood and Jews were not popular in
Speaker 4: that neighborhood, and so I had all these feelings, but
Speaker 4: I didn't want to be who I was. I thought
Speaker 4: if I was somebody else other than myself, I could
Speaker 4: be okay. And dealing with the pain of my dad's loss.
Speaker 4: I didn't even know how to wrap my head around
Speaker 4: that because he was important to me, very important, and
Speaker 4: so I had all these feelings inside that I was
Speaker 4: trapped with. I had no idea how to address, a
Speaker 4: deal with and cope with the reality of my life.
Speaker 4: There was no one around me doing very good job
Speaker 4: of it. You know, my dad was dying for over
Speaker 4: a year and we never talked about it. It was
Speaker 4: that kind of deal though. So when I took that
Speaker 4: first drink, something really amazing happened. I felt free. It
Speaker 4: created freedom, man. I was okay being Alan Berger. The drink,
Speaker 4: the drink, the alcohol changed my consciousness. That made me okay.
Speaker 4: And I'll tell you, man, I don't know if I
Speaker 4: was born an alcoholic, but the minute I took that drink,
Speaker 4: and alcoholic was born. And that idea, man, that if
Speaker 4: one is good, more is gonna be what better better?
Speaker 4: I got it, man, And I was off. I was running.
Speaker 4: I was sprinting as fast as I could. In alcoholism,
Speaker 4: I was a teenage alcoholic. I was blacking out several
Speaker 4: times a week. I mean, my life was going nowhere,
Speaker 4: nowhere at all. So I didn't even realize that I'm
Speaker 4: being controlled by all these feelings, these all these ideas
Speaker 4: that I've got to be somebody other than I am
Speaker 4: to be okay. Well, it's not easy to be somebody
Speaker 4: you're not. It's like building a house on somebody else's property. Man,
Speaker 4: it's just not a good idea.
Speaker 2: It's not easy to be somebody you're not.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 4: And yet I thought if I was, that I could
Speaker 4: be okay. I hope our listeners can hear the level
Speaker 4: of self rejection, of abandonment that occurred within me.
Speaker 2: You went right to the point I was thinking when
Speaker 2: you started to speak, And what came into mine is
Speaker 2: a term we use on this particular platform all the time,
Speaker 2: and that self avoidance. Yes, so alcoholism assists, Oh yes, right,
Speaker 2: so it's it's a conduit for self escapism. Talk to
Speaker 2: me about that.
Speaker 4: Well, that's it. See, So that's where I got freedom.
Speaker 4: That's the only time I was free. But of course
Speaker 4: when I sobered up or when I used I used
Speaker 4: drugs other than alcohol, when I got straight, I was
Speaker 4: still left with being Alan Berger. You know, it's just
Speaker 4: like Charlie Brown. And no matter where Charlie Brown goes,
Speaker 4: still Charlie Brown. I was still Allen. And when I
Speaker 4: was fortunate, man, I'm so grateful to this day to
Speaker 4: be helped by the United States Marine Corps. I got
Speaker 4: my Marine Corps hat on.
Speaker 2: You see that, Yes, I see it.
Speaker 4: I'm sporting my Marine Corps hat today. When I was
Speaker 4: helped into recovery by them, that I saw that there
Speaker 4: was a possibility of living this life and to be
Speaker 4: free without having to drink or get high. That's emotional sobriety. Now,
Speaker 4: how you get there, how you start to deal with
Speaker 4: that is a big question. And how do we do that?
Speaker 4: How do we get there? By first scene? How determined
Speaker 4: we are, that we are the determined ones, that I
Speaker 4: am not the determining force in my life. All these
Speaker 4: other ideas are running a show, and I'm thinking, I've
Speaker 4: got to live up to these things to be okay.
Speaker 4: So when I abandoned myself, I could not do what
Speaker 4: a healthy person does. You see, a healthy person lives
Speaker 4: their life and they try to actualize who they really are.
Speaker 4: I dedicated myself to actualize in a concept of who
Speaker 4: I thought I should be. Mmm mmmm, that's where the
Speaker 4: problems started.
Speaker 2: Man, are there other types of sobriety that we need
Speaker 2: to develop. There's emotional sobriety. You've already done a great job.
Speaker 4: Spiritual sobriety, I think is important and it goes hand
Speaker 4: in hand I think with emotional sobriety. But obviously if
Speaker 4: you're in, if you're addicted to alcohol and other drugs,
Speaker 4: you need physical sobriety first. We see that if you
Speaker 4: don't break the bonds at that addiction, no matter how
Speaker 4: much help you get, you're gonna get caught. You're caught.
Speaker 4: The addiction is holding you hostage. We are taking hostage.
Speaker 4: There's been so many studies of how the brain changes
Speaker 4: and when it changes. Man, all that you can think
Speaker 4: about you become obsessed with getting high and getting drunk.
Speaker 4: So the person has an obsession. They have a physical
Speaker 4: compulsion that's got to be broken. Once that's broken, then
Speaker 4: you can get on and start doing this other great
Speaker 4: work on your emotional sobriety, which I see is related
Speaker 4: to spiritual sobriety.
Speaker 2: I love that you mentioned spiritual sobriety. Because the first
Speaker 2: thing that came to mind was spiritual bypassing. Oh yeah, right.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes we will use the verbiage the terminology of spirituality
Speaker 2: as a means to escape. It's almost like a spiritual drink,
Speaker 2: just to get us through the difficult moment. And I
Speaker 2: think we're living in a time right now where internal
Speaker 2: resilience is at an all time low. Yes, so how
Speaker 2: do we cultivate that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's a good point, man, It's it is
Speaker 4: at an all time low. Because see, nobody, nobody helps
Speaker 4: us learn how to deal with our feelings. It's an
Speaker 4: job training thing. And look, we do the best we can,
Speaker 4: but it's never enough. I mean, that's why my work,
Speaker 4: the book I wrote on twelve Essential Insights, the book
Speaker 4: you've got coming out soon, right, I'm telling you, man,
Speaker 4: that's that's the kind of that's the information that we
Speaker 4: need to start raising our consciousness. And so I'm excited
Speaker 4: about this work man. You know, I've been doing it
Speaker 4: for a long time and I'm as excited, if not
Speaker 4: more excited about it today because I see people getting free.
Speaker 4: When you see somebody get free, man, they're standing on
Speaker 4: the top of the mountain and they're shouting, I'm free,
Speaker 4: free at last, Free at last, Lord Almighty, I am.
Speaker 2: Free at last.
Speaker 4: I understood why he said that, and I see people
Speaker 4: in recovery experiencing that same thing.
Speaker 2: So I was talking all week long to the point
Speaker 2: that you're making right now. And I've had so many
Speaker 2: conversations at my local cigar lounge people listening to the show. Hey,
Speaker 2: hold on, Zoe, I don't know. I don't know about this,
Speaker 2: but when we come forward, I'm going to bring this
Speaker 2: concept to you because you're talking about freedom. I gotta
Speaker 2: share this with you when we come forward. More from
Speaker 2: the v O R.
Speaker 4: Good song.
Speaker 6: That's right, man, right, you did it.
Speaker 4: That's the emotional sobriety theme song.
Speaker 6: Right there.
Speaker 7: Hey guys, I'm Heidi Preeb. Welcome back to my channel,
Speaker 7: or welcome if this is your first time here today
Speaker 7: on this channel, we are talking about what I kind
Speaker 7: of think of as the cardinal error of those who
Speaker 7: you're anxious on the attachment spectrum. And when I say
Speaker 7: the cardinal error, I don't mean that this is something
Speaker 7: you are in intentionally doing to sabotage your relationships. What
Speaker 7: I mean is that there is this kind of blind
Speaker 7: spot this area where your attachment system does one thing
Speaker 7: that tends to get you the direct opposite of what
Speaker 7: you want out of your relationships. So today we're going
Speaker 7: to talk about what that is as well as how
Speaker 7: to work with it when it comes up, so that
Speaker 7: you end up getting more of what you do want
Speaker 7: and less of what you don't instead of the opposite
Speaker 7: in your relationships. So, with no further ado, the cardinal
Speaker 7: error of those who fear anxious on the attachment spectrum
Speaker 7: tends to be not leaving any room for the possibility
Speaker 7: of separation or loss in the relationship. So when you
Speaker 7: have an anxious attachment system, what your system is hardwired
Speaker 7: to do. From the time you are at a very
Speaker 7: young age, you have learned to seek consistent proximity to
Speaker 7: your attachment figure, and when you were young, this was
Speaker 7: very adaptive for you. Right when we are young children,
Speaker 7: it's good to keep our caregivers close, especially if they
Speaker 7: are a little bit incistent and the attention that they're
Speaker 7: able to give us. It is very adaptive for us
Speaker 7: to want to make sure that we are always on
Speaker 7: their minds, that we always have their attention, that if
Speaker 7: we need them for something, they will definitely be there
Speaker 7: within a reasonable time frame to respond to us. However,
Speaker 7: what often happens when you grow up with an anxious
Speaker 7: attachment style is that you don't learn to change those
Speaker 7: rules when you get into a romantic relationship as an
Speaker 7: adult adult romantically, let's.
Speaker 2: Get her out of here. I love her, Heidi preb
Speaker 2: She cooks with the rarest grease.
Speaker 3: She cooks with the rarest grease.
Speaker 2: But she just described everything we talked about, right. She
Speaker 2: talked about the attachment system that you develop when you
Speaker 2: have an inconsistent caregiver. Right, and we don't turn that off.
Speaker 2: Do we become attachment aholics?
Speaker 4: You know, it's great that she's sharing us, but the
Speaker 4: problems much bigger though.
Speaker 2: Talk to me.
Speaker 4: See, the attachment is to the idea that I'd be
Speaker 4: okay if it doesn't just relate to people. Man, I'm okay.
Speaker 4: If I get that job, I'm okay. If Suzie Velensky
Speaker 4: would have liked me in the third grade, I would
Speaker 4: have been okay. I'd be okay. If I got that
Speaker 4: grade on the paper I was hoping i'd get, I'd
Speaker 4: be okay. If I had that car I want it,
Speaker 4: I'd be okay. If I had people respect me the
Speaker 4: way I want to be respected.
Speaker 6: See.
Speaker 4: So what people have done is they focus this attachment
Speaker 4: styles on a person. But it's not on a person,
Speaker 4: it's on a consciousness. It's a consciousness that attaches itself
Speaker 4: to things, and these things have to be a certain
Speaker 4: way for us to be okay.
Speaker 2: I'd be okay if.
Speaker 4: You got it. Man, that's the problem. And you see,
Speaker 4: that's where we lose our freedom. If I'm okay, if
Speaker 4: if that means I am so dependent, we call it
Speaker 4: I'm looking for the environment to support me.
Speaker 2: External.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's an external focus. If things go my way,
Speaker 4: I'm okay. If things don't go my way, I don't
Speaker 4: know what to do. I don't know how to cope
Speaker 4: with this. I don't know how to deal with it
Speaker 4: because I have the idea, if they don't go my way,
Speaker 4: there's something wrong. It's supposed to go my way. Life
Speaker 4: is supposed to be what I want it to be,
Speaker 4: if it's going to be okay. So that when you
Speaker 4: have that consciousness, you cannot be free. Gosh, you cannot
Speaker 4: be free. You are attached to everything. And then here's
Speaker 4: the other thing. See, there's two forces in our culture
Speaker 4: and you could wrap on these. I know for a
Speaker 4: lot and often need to talk maybe about what that
Speaker 4: shows up in different communities. Right, But one is it's
Speaker 4: all about me. In our culture, we promote a narcissism.
Speaker 4: There's no question we believe in personal importance. There's a
Speaker 4: great side to that, and there's a very very destructive
Speaker 4: side to that because it means that when I'm looking
Speaker 4: at things, I am looking at what we call a
Speaker 4: reflection of me.
Speaker 2: Come on, come on, you got twenty seconds, bring it home.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at a reflection of me. So I take
Speaker 4: it all personally. If you don't do what I want
Speaker 4: you to do, it means you don't care about me.
Speaker 4: Or if you talk to me a certain way, I
Speaker 4: get offended. How dare you don't you know who I am?
Speaker 4: Rite that kind of thing? How could you talk to
Speaker 4: me that? If you love me, you wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2: Listen, the stove is getting hot, ladies and gentlemen, the
Speaker 2: grease is bubbling.
Speaker 3: We about to drop this fish in Listen when we
Speaker 3: come forward more from the VEO R. The fire's just
Speaker 3: getting lit.
Speaker 8: I'm Ross Rosenberg. Welcome to my latest YouTube video and podcast.
Speaker 8: Today I'm going to step backward just a little bit.
Speaker 8: We're going to talk about the term self love deficit disorder.
Speaker 8: Why eight years ago did I make that term so
Speaker 8: important to the world, to my life, to me? Why
Speaker 8: was I so convinced that the word codependency, the term,
Speaker 8: the understanding of it, the treatment of it. Why was
Speaker 8: I so convinced that we had to replace it with
Speaker 8: another term? Well, this is what this video or podcast
Speaker 8: is going to be about. I want to go all
Speaker 8: the way back my psychotherapy origin. I started in the
Speaker 8: psychotherapy field nineteen eighty eight, almost thirty seven years ago.
Speaker 8: My first job required me to do a little bit
Speaker 8: of anything and everything without quite knowing what I was doing. Unfortunately,
Speaker 8: that's the plight of many new psychotherapists we learn on
Speaker 8: the job. Little did I know I was going to
Speaker 8: be working with codependents. I didn't really know what codependency was.
Speaker 8: But I started to notice a pattern with some of
Speaker 8: my clients. They were beaten down, they were weakened, they
Speaker 8: were sad, they were lonely and complained about a partner
Speaker 8: who completely controlled Riddy, killed them, manipulated them. Over time,
Speaker 8: it was clear to me a certain type of person
Speaker 8: was in a relationship with another certain type of person
Speaker 8: if they were codependent as I understood back then, which
Speaker 8: was a term that was popularized by Melody Beattie's book
Speaker 8: Codependent No More, published in nineteen eighty six. That book
Speaker 8: was a blockbuster. It was the first book to talk
Speaker 8: about codependency or what some people call codependence. Before it,
Speaker 8: there wasn't anything out there that quite said exactly what
Speaker 8: this codependence or codependency thing is. And she borrowed all
Speaker 8: of her knowledge from all the people that preceded her,
Speaker 8: mainly people in the twelve step treatment industry, the mental
Speaker 8: health industry. There wasn't really a lot of information out
Speaker 8: there on this codependency thing, but it was all I
Speaker 8: had to work with. I started going to workshops. I
Speaker 8: remember being profoundly impacted by the work of Terry Kellogg,
Speaker 8: John Frile, among others. So it became clear that codependents
Speaker 8: were people that were passive, compliant. They took care of
Speaker 8: other people. They always fell victim to a certain type
Speaker 8: of person that could manipulate them, get into their head,
Speaker 8: keep them from leaving, convince them that they are loved,
Speaker 8: convince them that they love them. So began my career
Speaker 8: working with codependence, and I worked with them off and
Speaker 8: on for the next fifteen years. But over time I
Speaker 8: became more and more frustrated with the term codependency, co dependent,
Speaker 8: co dependence. I didn't like the word at all. I
Speaker 8: hated it. I know that's a strong term, but I did.
Speaker 8: In twenty eleven, I was hired by a company, the
Speaker 8: biggest company in the United States that specifically trains counselors
Speaker 8: and psychotherapists. They contacted me and asked me to do
Speaker 8: a training on codependence and what they called emotional manipulators.
Speaker 8: I was ecstatic. I had been trying to get a
Speaker 8: good job in the professional training field for quite a
Speaker 8: while and they were the best. But I had to
Speaker 8: do it on a title that they absolutely required me
Speaker 8: to do. It was codependence and emotional manipulators. So I
Speaker 8: don't want to get off track, but eventually I would
Speaker 8: change the term emotional manipulator into pathological narcissists so that
Speaker 8: I could use my own new ideas what was coming
Speaker 8: to be that eventually would be my first Human Magnet
Speaker 8: Center book. I could use these ideas about codependence, falling
Speaker 8: in love with and becoming attracted the narcissists, the idea
Speaker 8: that led me to what would become the human magnet syndrome,
Speaker 8: the idea that codependence and narcissists are almost magnetically attracted
Speaker 8: to each other. Their opposite personalities fit hand in glove
Speaker 8: like a dancing couple. The fixer and the pleaser naturally
Speaker 8: fits in with the needer and the taker. Their opposite
Speaker 8: personalities fit and it becomes a coordinated, yet dysfunctional relationship.
Speaker 2: The show is just running so perfectly because he's talking
Speaker 2: about everything that we've just discussed. Yes, that was Ross
Speaker 2: rossenb author of the book The Human Magnet Syndrome, and
Speaker 2: he's talking about this magnetic connection between the codependent, which
Speaker 2: he has retermed as self love deficient SLD. You and
Speaker 2: I were just talking about self avoidance, self escape, and
Speaker 2: they orbit around each other to the narcissists, and that
Speaker 2: ties right back into the point you were making about
Speaker 2: this narcissistic society and this individualism. Talk more about it
Speaker 2: and see if you can integrate some of the pieces
Speaker 2: that Ross Rossenberg just laid out.
Speaker 4: Well, it's you know, look, when we took the break,
Speaker 4: I was talking about how our culture promotes this idea
Speaker 4: it's all about me. But that's only half of the
Speaker 4: stories though, the other half of the story is our
Speaker 4: culture also says you are more the more you have,
Speaker 4: I am more. So it's all focused on materialism. So
Speaker 4: you take that and it's about me. And now my
Speaker 4: sense of self depends on what I have. So if
Speaker 4: I have you instead of being in a relationship with you,
Speaker 4: I have a relationship with you means that I possess that.
Speaker 4: And see, so that's where the veer goes off. We
Speaker 4: think I'd be okay. If he's talking about a very
Speaker 4: similar phenomena. I see it different than he does. I'll
Speaker 4: tell you how I see it. Everybody is born with
Speaker 4: two forces inside of them. They're both instinctual, they're powerful.
Speaker 4: It's a week the part of me that wants to
Speaker 4: be in a relationship wants to join. I'm also born
Speaker 4: with a part of me that's an I that wants
Speaker 4: to be my own person. Now, how do we put
Speaker 4: these together? How do I respect my desire to be
Speaker 4: a part of and yet keep my individuality. See, we
Speaker 4: define mature love as love that has union but with
Speaker 4: the preservation of your individuality or integrity. That's what Eric
Speaker 4: from described it as union with the preservation of integrity.
Speaker 4: So I join you. I'm a part of this, but
Speaker 4: I don't I'm just a part of it. I'm also
Speaker 4: myself at the same time I'm with you. That turns
Speaker 4: out to be a very important thing, and I'm going
Speaker 4: to tie it to what he said. So what he
Speaker 4: talks about is self love deficiency, right, I believe I
Speaker 4: don't believe in these diagnoses we have, not that people
Speaker 4: don't suffer from mental illness. There's clearly a mental illness.
Speaker 4: But I think our biggest problem is we're stuck. We're
Speaker 4: not sick, we are stuck developmentally at the stage of
Speaker 4: development I'm talking about. We don't know how to have
Speaker 4: a relationship and still have ourselves. The codependent, what side
Speaker 4: of the bed does she fall out of? The WII side?
Speaker 4: The narcissist falls out of what side? The eye side?
Speaker 3: The eye side? They don't know.
Speaker 4: Nobody ever taught them how to be a we and
Speaker 4: an I. At the same time, nobody ever showed the
Speaker 4: narcissist how to be an eye and a we and
Speaker 4: why they came together other than because it's a human
Speaker 4: magnet attracting his pathology. They're attracting each other. Because relationships
Speaker 4: are people growers. It's gonna cause them trouble, and that
Speaker 4: trouble is exactly what's supposed to happen, so they can
Speaker 4: start growing up.
Speaker 2: I don't know who he's talking to tonight, Andy's time
Speaker 2: for a price break.
Speaker 3: Let's go.
Speaker 2: Come on, ladies and gentlemen. You're listening to the vo R.
Speaker 2: Listen when we come forward.
Speaker 3: We don't cap cooking. Let's go.
Speaker 9: This is the one thing that no one talks about
Speaker 9: when we talk about relationships.
Speaker 6: Right now.
Speaker 9: Everyone loves discussing attachment styles. And if you follow Jaybirdfit,
Speaker 9: then you know I have you covered in that area.
Speaker 9: One thing we don't talk about is differentiation. And while
Speaker 9: that might sound complex at first, I can assure you
Speaker 9: that it's not. In the book Secrets of a Passionate
Speaker 9: Marriage by David Snarch, differentiation is described as your ability
Speaker 9: to maintain your sense of self while being emotionally and
Speaker 9: physically close to others. So then the question is what
Speaker 9: does that even look like? Number one is maintaining a
Speaker 9: strong sense of self, being able to hold on to
Speaker 9: your values, beliefs, and identity.
Speaker 2: Even that is exactly what you just said.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's right on. I mean doctor Snarch was brilliant.
Speaker 4: I mean he took all of these ideas from doctor
Speaker 4: Murray Boonen, who was the first person to introduce this
Speaker 4: idea of differentiation into psychology. You see, he was a psychiatrist,
Speaker 4: a medical doctor, and he didn't go along with what
Speaker 4: Freud was saying. He thought Freud was off that it's
Speaker 4: not all about sex. He thought that what happens is
Speaker 4: is that there's a that's in nature that grows us
Speaker 4: a certain way, and it grows us in the direction
Speaker 4: of becoming what we can be. And that force was
Speaker 4: a force so called differentiation. So that each cell, excuse me,
Speaker 4: each cell has the ability to obviously become what it
Speaker 4: can be. If it if it's genetic DNA and genetic
Speaker 4: programming unfolds itself, it'll grow into let's say it was
Speaker 4: going to be an eye. It'll grow into your eye
Speaker 4: in a most beautiful way. Right. But if that cell,
Speaker 4: it goes through stages, so when it hits the final stages,
Speaker 4: it's differentiated. It's an eye. But if you take that
Speaker 4: cell earlier on and you move it, let's say, from
Speaker 4: a fetus's eye socket to the cheek. What happens is
Speaker 4: something incredible. Instead of a third eye growing here, that
Speaker 4: cell will pick up all of the DNA programming from
Speaker 4: the other cells and change who it is. It's a
Speaker 4: codependent cell. Oh my god, we found it. It's a
Speaker 4: codependent cell. It now lost who its true nature is
Speaker 4: because it hadn't formed the self that what's I don't
Speaker 4: know who that was was talking about. So Bowen saw that,
Speaker 4: and he says that applies to families. If families are healthy,
Speaker 4: they grow each individual to become who you can be
Speaker 4: and encourage you to be your own person. But now
Speaker 4: listen to this example, though, in terms of what goes wrong.
Speaker 4: You know, I got a little girl eight years old,
Speaker 4: she's CC, right, and she comes home second grade. Daddy, Daddy,
Speaker 4: look at what I did in school today. Right now,
Speaker 4: I'm taught to be a good father. So what's my
Speaker 4: first response. I'm looking at her artwork and I say,
Speaker 4: oh my god, yeah, that's what's out of my mouth,
Speaker 4: right god, CC. And then the music comes on. If
Speaker 4: the DJ was there, he'd be doing, Hellujah, CEC, that's incredible.
Speaker 4: What are may piece of art work? Let's put it
Speaker 4: up here on the fridgial. Let everybody see how wonderful
Speaker 4: you are. She goes back to school tomorrow, and what
Speaker 4: is she thinking? I'm gonna do something else. I wonder
Speaker 4: how Daddy's gonna think about this? Now, what if she
Speaker 4: came home and instead of me doing that, I said
Speaker 4: to her, Wow, Ceci, I can hear how excited you are?
Speaker 4: You know, honey, it's good to feel that excited about
Speaker 4: things you do. What did you like about doing that?
Speaker 4: What was fun about that? How come you use that color?
Speaker 4: How come you like that color? What did this mean
Speaker 4: to you? So now she goes to school, what is
Speaker 4: she thinking about?
Speaker 2: So now she's thinking about herself.
Speaker 4: You gotta process she I have reflected I had and
Speaker 4: what we call right. I am mirroring her response and
Speaker 4: her excitement, and I'm helping her become aware of who
Speaker 4: she is instead of imposing on her a standard you
Speaker 4: got to live up to great to be okay? Right,
Speaker 4: So we talk about this codependency being, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: an epidemic in our culture because none of us are
Speaker 4: encouraged to be who we are. We fall out of
Speaker 4: the eye side of the bed, We fall out of
Speaker 4: the w side of the bed. Now you and I
Speaker 4: were talking about when I said that we are stuck.
Speaker 4: We're not sick, we're stuck. Our diagnosis is a gross disorder.
Speaker 4: We need to grow up. We need to grow up.
Speaker 4: And he was talking about growing up means learning to
Speaker 4: stand on your own two feet, having a clear sense
Speaker 4: of who you are, but not a rigid sense that
Speaker 4: you're able to roll with the punches, because if you're rigid,
Speaker 4: that's not healthy either. So you have to have a
Speaker 4: clear sense of who you are, but also humble where
Speaker 4: you don't know you know, I might not have it
Speaker 4: all figured out here, Maybe I got this wrong, so
Speaker 4: that there's room for me to keep growing. See if
Speaker 4: I can clean that kind of an energy as well
Speaker 4: as what we call there's five points of balance that
Speaker 4: really help a person develop a sense of self. This
Speaker 4: is one really having a clear sense of who we are,
Speaker 4: but a flexible sense, which to me means that there's
Speaker 4: humility in the recipe for that self. Nobody talks about
Speaker 4: humility and psychology. I don't know why, but it's such
Speaker 4: an important thing recovery. People talk about it all the time,
Speaker 4: but you don't hear much. Ado you hear a book
Speaker 4: on any psychologist to coming out and saying, Hey, let's
Speaker 4: talk about the value of humility. It's incredibly important because
Speaker 4: it gets rid of what it's all about me. Piece
Speaker 4: that's the antidote to narcissism, is some humility that it's
Speaker 4: not all about me and I don't need things to
Speaker 4: be better. I need to learn how to get better
Speaker 4: and cope with what's going on instead of demanding everything
Speaker 4: by the way I think it should be.
Speaker 2: Come on, So we have a growth disorder.
Speaker 4: That's it, man.
Speaker 2: Growth disorder is basically rooted in the construct of I
Speaker 2: need to stay the same, I need to refine what
Speaker 2: I already know. I can't step outside of them.
Speaker 4: It's all about me, and I need to have things
Speaker 4: to be okay. I need to have my way to
Speaker 4: be okay. I need to have life is supposed to
Speaker 4: be what it is, and when life does what I
Speaker 4: want it to do, I'll be okay. That's where we're stuck.
Speaker 4: And you see kids do that. They want it their way,
Speaker 4: they can't deal with when it doesn't go away, they
Speaker 4: throw a fit.
Speaker 2: But and you're right on point, because I'm saying the
Speaker 2: adult that we're dealing with in adult relationships are still.
Speaker 3: The kids they are they have we all grown up.
Speaker 4: We're stuck. We got a growth disorder, man, we growth disorder.
Speaker 4: King baby, queen baby, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Baby queen baby, Ladies and gentlemen, Oh, the voice of reason.
Speaker 3: It's all complete fire tonight.
Speaker 10: Y'all.
Speaker 2: Didn't think I was gonna bring another heavy hitter in
Speaker 2: the building right after precious. Oh God, this whole week
Speaker 2: has been on complete fire. Listen, there's a whole nother hour.
Speaker 2: We got doctor Alan Berger, author of Emotional Sobriety. If
Speaker 2: you don't go out and get that book right now, everybody,
Speaker 2: go get that book. Ladies and gentlemen, the Voice of
Speaker 2: Reason will see you on the other side.
Speaker 10: Hello everyone, sobonner Hello. In South Africa, where I come from,
Speaker 10: soul Borna is the Zulu word for hello. There's a
Speaker 10: beautiful and powerful intention behind the word because salbona, literally
Speaker 10: translated means I see you, and by seeing you, I
Speaker 10: bring you into being so beautiful. Imagine being greeted like that.
Speaker 10: But what does it take in the way we see ourselves,
Speaker 10: our thoughts, our emotions, and our stories that help us
Speaker 10: to thrive in an increasingly complex and fraught world. This
Speaker 10: crucial question has been at the center of my life's
Speaker 10: work because how we deal with our inner world drives
Speaker 10: everything every aspect of how we love, how we live,
Speaker 10: how we parent, and how we lead. The conventional view
Speaker 10: of emotions as good or bad, positive or negative is rigid,
Speaker 10: and rigidity in the face of complexity is toxic. We
Speaker 10: need greater levels of emotional agility for true resilience and thriving.
Speaker 10: My journey with this calling began not in the hallowed
Speaker 10: halls of a university, but in the messy, tender business
Speaker 10: of life. I grew up in the white suburbs of
Speaker 10: apartheid South Africa, a country and community committed to notazieing
Speaker 10: to denial. It's denial that makes fifty years of racist
Speaker 10: legislation possible, while people convince themselves that they are doing
Speaker 10: nothing wrong. And yet I first learned of the destructive
Speaker 10: power of denial at a personal level before I understood
Speaker 10: what it was doing to the country of my birth.
Speaker 10: My father died on a Friday. He was forty two
Speaker 10: years old and I was fifteen. My mother whispered to
Speaker 10: me to go and say goodbye to my father before
Speaker 10: I went to school, So I put my backpack down
Speaker 10: and walked the passage that ran through to where the
Speaker 10: heart of our home my father lay, dying of cancer.
Speaker 10: His eyes were closed, but he knew I was there
Speaker 10: in his presence. I had always felt seen. I told
Speaker 10: him I loved him, said goodbye, and headed off for
Speaker 10: my day.
Speaker 11: At school.
Speaker 10: I drifted from science to mathematics, to history to biology
Speaker 10: as my father slipped from the world. From May to July,
Speaker 10: September November. I went about with my usual smile. I
Speaker 10: didn't drop a single grade. When asked how I was doing,
Speaker 10: I would shrug and say okay. I was praised for
Speaker 10: being strong. I was the master of being okay. But
Speaker 10: back home we struggled. My father hadn't been able to
Speaker 10: keep his small business going during his illness, and my
Speaker 10: mother alone was grieving the love of her life, trying
Speaker 10: to raise three children, and the creditors were knocking. We
Speaker 10: felt as a family financially and emotionally ravaged, and I
Speaker 10: began to spiral down, isolated fast. I started to use
Speaker 10: food to numb my pain, binging and purging, refusing to
Speaker 10: accept the full weight of my grief. No one knew,
Speaker 10: and in a culture that values relentless positivity. I thought
Speaker 10: that no one wanted to know, but one person did
Speaker 10: not buy into my story of triumph over grief. My
Speaker 10: eighth grade English teacher fixed me with burning blue eyes
Speaker 10: as she handed out blank notebooks. She said, write what
Speaker 10: you're feeling, tell the truth right like nobody's reading. And
Speaker 10: just like that, I was invited to show up authentically
Speaker 10: to my grief and pain. It was a simple act,
Speaker 10: but nothing short of.
Speaker 11: A revolution for me.
Speaker 10: It was this revolution that started in this blank notebook
Speaker 10: thirty years ago that shaped my life's work, the secret,
Speaker 10: silent correspondence with myself. Like a gymnast, I started to
Speaker 10: move beyond the rigidity of denial into what I've now
Speaker 10: come to call emotional agility.
Speaker 6: Life's beauty is Andy.
Speaker 3: Who is that? Come on?
Speaker 2: Wow, Susan David? Yes, cooking with the rarest truffle oils.
Speaker 2: This is good stuff. Tonight, the voice of reason is
Speaker 2: on complete fire. We have an amazing guest, an outstanding topic.
Speaker 2: He's written books, he has decades of experience emotional sobriety
Speaker 2: is Tonight's conversation. And doctor Alan Berger not only just
Speaker 2: a guest, but a literal for real deal friend of
Speaker 2: mine is in the building. If you guys are brave enough,
Speaker 2: you should call in the number of dollars one eight
Speaker 2: hundred nine twenty fifteen point eighty. And Susan David was
Speaker 2: just speaking to this elasticity. You know this, you know
Speaker 2: the opposite side of the coin of rigidity, and we
Speaker 2: need that in our emotional states. Now, I've heard people
Speaker 2: say emotions aren't real, they're fleeting, they come and go.
Speaker 2: You should not be moved by the ephemeral nature of emotions.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on that kind of framing of emotions?
Speaker 4: What I loved about what she just shared with us.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think every one of us could feel
Speaker 4: what happened when she started to accept herself rather than
Speaker 4: reject herself. See, that's the more important part of it,
Speaker 4: is that she changed her relationship to herself instead of
Speaker 4: retreating herself as though she shouldn't be feeling what she's feeling.
Speaker 4: She doesn't that she shouldn't have these feelings or she
Speaker 4: doesn't know how to deal with them. What she did,
Speaker 4: she was given an invitation to be herself. Now, on
Speaker 4: one hand, we can all sit here and say, isn't
Speaker 4: it sad that somebody has to tell us that that's.
Speaker 2: Okay, isn't it sad? But you just opened up a
Speaker 2: can of whoop ass.
Speaker 4: But see, that's what she gave her. She gave her
Speaker 4: permission to befriend herself. You see the first level of
Speaker 4: self acceptance. And we can spend a little time talking
Speaker 4: about self acceptance because it's so relevant to this whole
Speaker 4: discussion of emotional sobriety. You know, if I'm not accepting myself,
Speaker 4: how can I hold on to myself? If I don't
Speaker 4: like myself, how can I stand for myself? I can't
Speaker 4: do that. Level one in terms of self acceptance is
Speaker 4: to be on your own side. That's what she did.
Speaker 4: She was on her own side. Finally. Now the negative
Speaker 4: side of way of saying that is self acceptance has
Speaker 4: to do with an utter refusal. And everybody listened to
Speaker 4: this because I don't think any of us have this,
Speaker 4: an utter refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with ourselves,
Speaker 4: right I listen. Yes, no calling yourself names anymore, No
Speaker 4: saying you're stupid, no saying how you know you're a dummy?
Speaker 4: How could you do that? You're an idiot? Nobody's going
Speaker 4: to love you. All of this stuff is you're in
Speaker 4: an adversarial relationship. Most of us wouldn't talk to a
Speaker 4: friend like that, right, most of us wouldn't do that.
Speaker 4: You don't treat a friend the way you do that.
Speaker 4: So the first level of self acceptance is to befriends yourself. Say,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like I am who I am, right,
Speaker 4: And that's what she said. All feelings are just feelings,
Speaker 4: you know, we will talk about. They're not an infallible
Speaker 4: guide to the truth. There's no question about that. They
Speaker 4: can can be distorted. But at the same time, they
Speaker 4: are also signaling devices. They're telling me something about what's
Speaker 4: important to me. I like this, I don't like this,
Speaker 4: I want this, I don't want this. You see, when
Speaker 4: we're healthy and we're operating from a center. I don't
Speaker 4: operate from shoulds. I operate from what I like and
Speaker 4: what I don't, what I want, what I don't want,
Speaker 4: what I will, or what I want to do. That's it, brother,
Speaker 4: that's all it is. When you're an adult, those are
Speaker 4: the only reasons to do something. I will say that again.
Speaker 4: When you're in an adult the only reason to do
Speaker 4: something is because you want to or you don't.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 4: There's no better reason than yourself. And so that's level one.
Speaker 4: Level two is to say, all of these are parts
Speaker 4: of me, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I've
Speaker 4: got all of those inside of me. You know, I realized,
Speaker 4: I tell people all the time, I'm a lot smarter
Speaker 4: now that I realize how stupid I am. I can
Speaker 4: be stupid, but I can also I'm also smart. I
Speaker 4: have both sides. I can be a wonderful guy. I
Speaker 4: can be a total asshole that your book has written
Speaker 4: about how to intercept the wandering asshole, but I can
Speaker 4: be that most of the time. I'm not, but I
Speaker 4: have that part of me. If I don't accept that
Speaker 4: what we resist persists, we know that. That's level two.
Speaker 4: This is all of me. I am what I am.
Speaker 4: I like the way they Popeye said it. I am
Speaker 4: what I am. I'm Popeye, the sailor man.
Speaker 2: What's interesting about what you're saying is really a lot
Speaker 2: of people, and we talked about it in that first hour.
Speaker 2: You call it the emotional operating system. In my book,
Speaker 2: I metaphorically call it the kada, a psychological kada that yes,
Speaker 2: sequence of right, just like martial arts. You're just conditioned
Speaker 2: to react. You don't respond, you react, and sometimes beneath
Speaker 2: your consciousness you're not even aware of it. Right. What's
Speaker 2: beautiful about what we're talking about here. Many people think
Speaker 2: that instant sequence of reactions is who they are. And
Speaker 2: what the young lady just exposed to us in that
Speaker 2: reading was there was a moment where she was outside
Speaker 2: of that programming and she was able to see the
Speaker 2: real hurt.
Speaker 4: Right, well said so? Well said Jeef said it? Jeef
Speaker 4: said it. Listen, we're all asleep dreaming. We're awake. Yes,
Speaker 4: we are all asleep. You cannot wake up with the
Speaker 4: same information I put you to sleep. You have to
Speaker 4: get some new information. That's what this show is about.
Speaker 4: That's why you spent your whole life trying to raise consciousness.
Speaker 4: And that's what I'm trying to do too. Wow, what
Speaker 4: I say is only the best, and you can see
Speaker 4: the worst in you. We'll get to the third level
Speaker 4: of acceptance. When are we gonna go away for a
Speaker 4: break or you can say it now? So the third level?
Speaker 4: So first level befriends yourself, utter refusal to be in
Speaker 4: an adversarial relationship.
Speaker 2: No adversarial.
Speaker 4: Number two, I am I am all of these parts.
Speaker 4: I'm not any one of these things. That's the good,
Speaker 4: the bad, and the ugly, right, the good bad. Now
Speaker 4: I am the sum total of that. That's what I
Speaker 4: don't identify myself as just being selfish. I can be selfish,
Speaker 4: but I'm more than that. That's why I say I'm
Speaker 4: a recovering alcoholic and atic. But I'm much more than
Speaker 4: a recovering alcoholic andatic.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 4: Right? That kind of thing. The third level is being
Speaker 4: able to own what we've done wrong and deal with
Speaker 4: it and face it with compassion, so that our focus
Speaker 4: is on not judging ourselves for what we've done, but
Speaker 4: understanding what is going on here that that that may
Speaker 4: that contributed to my behaving the way I behaved. Wow.
Speaker 4: So that third level is developing a deeper understanding of
Speaker 4: ourselves and our operating system, as you'd like to call it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you call it the operating system. I've called it.
Speaker 4: The kada, the kada and listen, and it's well, you know,
Speaker 4: we learn free form kada is what we're doing here
Speaker 4: is in your book, it would be that we don't.
Speaker 4: We want it. We have to learn basic things. You
Speaker 4: have to do that I was I was when I
Speaker 4: was in Vietnam. So I'm a Vietnam combat veteran. Yes,
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy I was over there. We had two
Speaker 4: Korean Marines assigned to our unit to teach us. Taekwonda
Speaker 4: look at that, and we were learning kadas there you go,
Speaker 4: And the first quada was the basic kada. Right is
Speaker 4: learning the stances going down block, middle, punch down, block,
Speaker 4: middle punch three middle punches down block, middle punch down block.
Speaker 4: Basic kada right, basic. You had to learn the basic
Speaker 4: kotta to get to the next one. And it kept
Speaker 4: building on each other, right, But it was all moving
Speaker 4: towards what freestyle fighting there you go, which has no
Speaker 4: program no programming.
Speaker 2: That's why I chose Bruce Lee.
Speaker 4: Bruce Lee, what did he say? Said, I don't fight
Speaker 4: an opponent.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. He says, I don't
Speaker 2: hit it hits all by itself, right, no style as style,
Speaker 2: no limitation as limitations. And this man, this is so great.
Speaker 3: We got callers on the line out, Oh good, I
Speaker 3: want to.
Speaker 2: Bring some folk in here to talk to my brother.
Speaker 2: Let's talk to brother who we got online right now?
Speaker 2: Tony from Inglewood California. Inglewood is in the building, Tony,
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on tonight's topic.
Speaker 6: I'm enjoying it. I think the only thing is that
Speaker 6: I would love to hear. I mean, I heard you
Speaker 6: guys quote Freud. I like to hear some perspective as
Speaker 6: a relations to fanones some.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: I'm hearing everything with all due respect everybody. I'm hearing
Speaker 6: everything feels to be with exact in the use zones
Speaker 6: from a European perspective, because when I listen to all this,
Speaker 6: I can think, I think of I am because we are,
Speaker 6: because we are, therefore I am. It's through relationship that
Speaker 6: I feel good that I actually affirm who I am
Speaker 6: and recognize when I'm all based. I don't see that
Speaker 6: as like being like a ball and chain around me
Speaker 6: or either losing myself. I would love for you guys
Speaker 6: to talk about the importance of being in relationship as
Speaker 6: we less. You know, stand up on your own two
Speaker 6: feet if that makes it, you say. And another thing
Speaker 6: I've thought when the brothers said about his daughter, I mean,
Speaker 6: the first thing I would do with mine would be
Speaker 6: to congratulate and say, you know what, that's good, baby.
Speaker 6: I thought you did good and really share with me
Speaker 6: such as say, then I would then I would go
Speaker 6: into why did you do ABC and D, because my
Speaker 6: first thought would be to congratulate and embrace her on
Speaker 6: being celebrating the fact that she learned something that day
Speaker 6: in school. Yeah, I'm just looking you know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. You are making sense. And I don't
Speaker 2: see that as a wrong answer. If you're doing both right,
Speaker 2: congratulating and then having her look inward and reflect and
Speaker 2: see herself in the way that doctor Berger explained, I
Speaker 2: think both are good. I think that's an example of
Speaker 2: good parenting. Tony, your thoughts.
Speaker 6: And I think, and let me just add this one thing.
Speaker 6: I think shouldn't we have a little more balance at
Speaker 6: the conversation because this just just me. I appreciate you,
Speaker 6: doctor Burger. I really celebrate your years of sobriety. I
Speaker 6: think that's wonderful. I even appreciate that other woman that
Speaker 6: just spoke, But a black hearing a black voys other
Speaker 6: than yours. Though, in terms of a scholar and researcher,
Speaker 6: scientists and or a philosopher or psychologist psychiatrists, I need
Speaker 6: to hear some of that from that perspective. As well,
Speaker 6: because all I mean is white people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 6: I know it right, It's over that white woman you
Speaker 6: played on the radio just a minute ago.
Speaker 2: Tony, if you don't sit down and have a cigar
Speaker 2: this evening, listen, you know good and well. We play
Speaker 2: black authors, we talk with we're talking.
Speaker 3: It can't be right now.
Speaker 2: This is right now, Tony. Listen, look at Tony. It
Speaker 2: can't be right now, Tony, because this is right now,
Speaker 2: and we need perspectivity. How about that. You don't like perspective?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3: I love Tony.
Speaker 2: I know, I know Tony.
Speaker 3: This is my Tony.
Speaker 2: Tony is Tony belonged to me? He in my circle?
Speaker 2: I know Tony. This is the type of conversations I
Speaker 2: have with Tony in person.
Speaker 3: Listen here, Zoe, put a tie on.
Speaker 2: You're too smart to not wear a tie. You understand.
Speaker 3: I need a tie on you.
Speaker 7: Tho.
Speaker 2: You're a handsome man, You're tall. I need you to
Speaker 2: put on a suit and tie. People need to see
Speaker 2: you in the streets. Though.
Speaker 3: I talked to Tony every day.
Speaker 2: I love Tony.
Speaker 3: He gets to say this. It's all right, Tony.
Speaker 4: Can I respond to Tony? Listen and listen, you're right
Speaker 4: on man. This is this is a perspective I've developed from,
Speaker 4: you know, my perspective growing up. But I'll tell you
Speaker 4: what what this whole thing is about in terms of
Speaker 4: the joining, because I agree with you, community is incredibly important.
Speaker 4: And we saw that even in the studies he did
Speaker 4: with the rats. You're probably familiar with this, this researcher
Speaker 4: up in Canada. He was trying to understand addiction, right
Speaker 4: and when he put all these rats together and they
Speaker 4: were living together and they had no ways of really
Speaker 4: having fun and entertaining, and then put drugs in the scene,
Speaker 4: all these rats became addicts right way. They never per
Speaker 4: formed any Stay.
Speaker 2: Right there, Stay right there. We're gonna go back. We're
Speaker 2: gonna We're gonna get this, Okay, the rat experiment. I
Speaker 2: just saw this. When we come forward, doctor Burger's going
Speaker 2: to break it down for the curmudgeon Tony.
Speaker 11: I guess you could say that I am a self
Speaker 11: compassion evangelist. I love spreading the good word about self compassion.
Speaker 11: I've devoted the last ten years of my research career
Speaker 11: to studying the mental health benefits of self compassion, and
Speaker 11: more recently I've been working on developing Andy.
Speaker 2: I want to give this clip a little time to breathe.
Speaker 2: But we have a caller on the line. We haven't
Speaker 2: heard from him in a minute. I definitely want to
Speaker 2: get the caller on. I don't want him waiting on
Speaker 2: the line too much longer than he's already been waiting.
Speaker 2: We got Leroy from Inglewood back in the building. Inglewood
Speaker 2: is showing up big time. Hey, Lee Roy, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: give you three minutes. I'm gonna get out your way.
Speaker 3: Let's go. It's me, yeah, Leroy. What are your thoughts
Speaker 3: on tonight's topic?
Speaker 6: First of all, I was waiting to hear from Tony again.
Speaker 5: He left trying to trying to come out here and
Speaker 5: tell you how to run your show. I can't imagine
Speaker 5: anyone doing back.
Speaker 6: Well, I don't imagine any of your callers doing anything
Speaker 6: like that, trying to tell you how to run your show.
Speaker 5: I don't know what type of caller would ever do that, well.
Speaker 3: I know one, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't know any callers do whatever do that, especially
Speaker 5: when you got an esteemed guest all who've been supporting
Speaker 5: your work for all this time, And I.
Speaker 6: Can't imagine anybody calling to do that.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless that's your uncle Lee Roy apparently.
Speaker 5: So okay, So I didn't know it. I missed a
Speaker 5: Feller reunion in two when he was there.
Speaker 6: Who knew.
Speaker 3: It wasn't It wasn't.
Speaker 6: In the DNA, right.
Speaker 2: I love it, brother, I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 5: But I did want to congratulate you on a show
Speaker 5: you did with about Carlos Miller on one of your
Speaker 5: other outlets, and you were dealing with adjustments h and
Speaker 5: uh you and the lady that was on the show
Speaker 5: and uh. And also I was about to ask Tony
Speaker 5: had he seen any of your shows.
Speaker 6: With Jehudi my Hot Ride if he's if he's willing
Speaker 6: to go backwards, it will help him to move forward.
Speaker 5: But you know, I can't tell Tony what to do
Speaker 5: because he don't want to hear it from me. I
Speaker 5: don't know what I'm talking about. But congratulations on a
Speaker 5: wonderful uh month. Thank you, Condolencist.
Speaker 6: Condolences.
Speaker 5: Condolences is actually what I called in for. Condoleus is
Speaker 5: on behalf of your brother I know you were looking
Speaker 5: for one of your brothers. Was that the one you
Speaker 5: had been looking for?
Speaker 2: We was looking for both of them and we found
Speaker 2: both of them and then you know, eighteen months later,
Speaker 2: you know, my second oldest brother, Maurice, passed away today today.
Speaker 5: I'm not happy to hear that, but I must say
Speaker 5: that with the release comes relief and praise God that
Speaker 5: the suffering is over. Yeah, and I pray that the
Speaker 5: family funeral is not the only family reunion and that
Speaker 5: you guys can grow stronger as a result of this.
Speaker 6: As opposed to.
Speaker 5: The struggle that comes with not knowing. So now that
Speaker 5: you do know, y'all can stay in touch to a
Speaker 5: greater degree.
Speaker 2: Maniate.
Speaker 6: That's actually what I called.
Speaker 5: In because you and your guests are killing it and
Speaker 5: you don't need any help with the.
Speaker 2: Thank you brother, I appreciate you. Lee Roy from Inglewood.
Speaker 2: If you want to bring your city in the building,
Speaker 2: all you got to do is call us one eight
Speaker 2: nine twenty fifteen eighty will see you on the other side.
Speaker 12: When the child is born and the child is two needs,
Speaker 12: the first need is for attachment. An attachment is contact, connection, love.
Speaker 12: Without that, the human child does not survived. Any mammalian
Speaker 12: child or even an avian child doesn't survive. So that
Speaker 12: as soon as you get past the level of reptiles,
Speaker 12: the reptile is hatched, the mother's long gone by then,
Speaker 12: and the reptile infant either lives or dies, but there's
Speaker 12: no attachment to a parenting figure. As soon as you
Speaker 12: get to the level of birds, now the baby bird
Speaker 12: has to have an attachment with the pants. The pants
Speaker 12: have to be attached to the baby, otherwise the infant
Speaker 12: simply does not survive. Mammalians even more so, and most
Speaker 12: of the human because we're the least developed, the least mature,
Speaker 12: with the least developed brains, and the most dependent for
Speaker 12: the longest period of time with any creature in the universe.
Speaker 12: So our attachment needs are enormous and they remain important
Speaker 12: throughout lifetime because we have to have attachments to from societies,
Speaker 12: social groups, without which we don't survive. So attachment is
Speaker 12: a huge need. Be able to connect, belong, beloved by,
Speaker 12: and love. That's just the basic human need. But we
Speaker 12: have another need as well, which is for authenticity. Authenticity
Speaker 12: is the capacity, as I said earlier, to know what
Speaker 12: we feel, to be in touch with our bodies, and
Speaker 12: to be able to express who we are and manifest
Speaker 12: who we are in our activities and in our relationships. Now,
Speaker 12: why is that? Well, think of a human being in
Speaker 12: evolutionary period.
Speaker 2: How was goobor man Gooboor cooks. Yes, yes, he cooks
Speaker 2: with the rarest grease. I love what we're talking about
Speaker 2: tonight because it's leading me to what I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to you about this whole discussion. Need has a
Speaker 2: purpose when we're young. But if we look at the
Speaker 2: ancient traditions, the far Eastern traditions, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, all
Speaker 2: of these spiritual belief systems believe in this self realization,
Speaker 2: self actualization. I believe Young took a great piece of
Speaker 2: that with his concepts on individuation, right, the full self,
Speaker 2: the shadow and the mass, the persona, all of that right.
Speaker 2: But I believe the reason why unconditional love is out
Speaker 2: of people's reach is because they're still in this pattern
Speaker 2: of need, which keeps them looking outward. You talked about
Speaker 2: earlier in the First Hour, being able to go inside.
Speaker 2: You gave the example of the little girl and the
Speaker 2: pain being able to go inward. I think need helps
Speaker 2: you survive the original environment, but you can't carry need
Speaker 2: into an intimate environment because need will always make that
Speaker 2: environment conditional. I call need the first sin HM, talk
Speaker 2: to me about your thoughts on that.
Speaker 4: You know, it's interesting when Gabora was sharing this thing
Speaker 4: about we all have attachment, I had the vision of
Speaker 4: what attachment looks like without dependency. See is attachment possible
Speaker 4: without being dependent on another person? And I think the
Speaker 4: answer is yes. See, that's emotional autonomy, that's growing up.
Speaker 4: But we don't get there because we're stuck. We're stuck.
Speaker 4: We're attachment equal dependency. Where we refused when we were
Speaker 4: inside our mother's womb, were one with her. When we
Speaker 4: were born, we started the ever last journey, everlasting journey
Speaker 4: towards what separation, becoming your own person. And I believe
Speaker 4: the life force inside of us is that force that
Speaker 4: wants to move us in the direction of becoming whole,
Speaker 4: becoming holy, becoming a whole person, of being an integrated person.
Speaker 4: And so when that life force is moving forward, I'm growing,
Speaker 4: I'm thriving, I'm becoming. When we get stuck, that life
Speaker 4: force now creates and is wanting to move forward, but
Speaker 4: it doesn't have anywhere to go. And that's that thing,
Speaker 4: is that when I believe I need you to be
Speaker 4: a certain way for me to be okay. I'm dependent
Speaker 4: on you instead of being I need to be a
Speaker 4: certain way to be okay. There's an interesting thing that
Speaker 4: I'm working on a little book now. It's going to
Speaker 4: be a small book where I take what's been wrongly
Speaker 4: called the Saint Francis prayer, which you've probably heard of.
Speaker 4: It is better to understand than to be understood. That's
Speaker 4: one of the lines. There's all kinds of things like that,
Speaker 4: and we've all thought of the Saint Francis prayers. Better
Speaker 4: for me to understand you than for you to understand me.
Speaker 4: And if I give you understanding, I will get understanding.
Speaker 4: We all understand that. That's a powerful way. But I've
Speaker 4: flipped it around. It's better to understand me than to
Speaker 4: expect you to understand me.
Speaker 2: It's better that I understand myself.
Speaker 4: And if I do, then if you understand me, great.
Speaker 4: I can appreciate that. If you don't, I still don't
Speaker 4: lose myself. It's better to love than to be loved.
Speaker 4: Screen emer It's better to love me, yeah, than to
Speaker 4: look to you to love me. It's better to come
Speaker 4: comfort them to be comforted. Learn how to comfort yourself
Speaker 4: rather than look to everybody else to comfort you. I'm not.
Speaker 4: I think attachment's great. And when we can be in
Speaker 4: a relationship where we learn how to attach and keep
Speaker 4: our integrity, I call it connection with integrity cooperation with integrity,
Speaker 4: then you create What Tony was talking about is the
Speaker 4: value of community is to be in a community that
Speaker 4: is a life affirming community that encourages people to operate
Speaker 4: with cooperation and integrity at the same time. But we
Speaker 4: don't do that. Our culture focuses on cooperation without integrity, right,
Speaker 4: And that's a problem, man, It's a serious problem. So
Speaker 4: in relationships, we get in there and we sacrifice ourselves. Man,
Speaker 4: didn't you learn love is sacrifice?
Speaker 2: So to self interests, right, that serve themselves and because
Speaker 2: they match, we can work together.
Speaker 4: Because part of my self interest is I want you
Speaker 4: to be happy. If I love you, I am selfishly
Speaker 4: interested in your happiness. I want you to do what
Speaker 4: you want to do. I want you to enjoy your life.
Speaker 4: But if I got to possess you, if I'm fused
Speaker 4: to you, then if you do something where you separate
Speaker 4: yourself from me, all of a sudden I start to
Speaker 4: get threatened.
Speaker 2: You're leaving me.
Speaker 4: That's right, man, and that costs of that anxiety. I'll
Speaker 4: tell you if our listeners are hearing. One thing I
Speaker 4: want to say tonight is the way you manage your
Speaker 4: anxiety in a relationship is going to pay great dividends.
Speaker 4: When you look to control someone else to deal with
Speaker 4: your anxiety, you're gonna cause a lot of trouble in
Speaker 4: your relationship.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to the voice of reason.
Speaker 2: That is the voice of my friend, doctor Alan Berger.
Speaker 3: He's been on complete fired the entire two hours and
Speaker 3: it's almost over.
Speaker 2: When we come forward, Eh, we're about to land this plane.
Speaker 13: Everyone is in the middle of a life story, and
Speaker 13: your story is being shaped by what you were saying
Speaker 13: yes too, and what you were saying no to your
Speaker 13: yeses and nos, or what boundaries are made of? So
Speaker 13: what are boundaries? How do we build them? How do
Speaker 13: we heal when our boundaries are violated? And how do
Speaker 13: we push through boundaries? These questions have been the center
Speaker 13: of my life and my work. When I was a
Speaker 13: little kid and my world was just my family, I
Speaker 13: was pretty sure we were the only one struggling with
Speaker 13: those questions. And then I grew up and I became
Speaker 13: a family therapist, and I saw lots of people struggling
Speaker 13: with these questions. And when I took a detour and
Speaker 13: ran nonprofits, I saw communities and leaders struggling with these questions.
Speaker 13: So now I teach workshops and wrote a book to
Speaker 13: help people answer these questions. And as people answer these
Speaker 13: questions and learn more about their boundaries, I've watched hundreds
Speaker 13: of people make the journey from being overwhelmed and exhausted
Speaker 13: and stressed out to people who trust themselves and are
Speaker 13: decisive and are committed to healthy relationships.
Speaker 2: Andy, who is that? Gil Sary Gilman? Love it? I
Speaker 2: love it, I love it, I love it. She was
Speaker 2: cooking with the rarest grease. Ladies and gentlemen. You're listening
Speaker 2: to the Voice of Reason on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty,
Speaker 2: the most radical relationship show in the world where you
Speaker 2: will get perspectivity. Ah, we have to get differentsus perspectives
Speaker 2: in here, and I love it. I brought my good
Speaker 2: friend doctor Alan Berger, author of Emotional Sobriety, among many
Speaker 2: other titles, over forty years of experience.
Speaker 4: What you said fifty fifty fifty years, fifty three years, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that That was SUSI on the Berlin group. I volunteered
Speaker 4: to go into that group and help. It's a European
Speaker 4: group and they get almost three hundred people when I'm
Speaker 4: there once a month, and we talk about emotional sobriety.
Speaker 4: But you know, let me respond to what she was saying,
Speaker 4: because there's so much wisdom. I would zoom out a
Speaker 4: little further and say, your yes is and no to
Speaker 4: find who you are, not your boundaries. They define yourself similar. Well, see,
Speaker 4: that's the important thing we're talking about. How do you
Speaker 4: what is our self? Well, yourself is what you say
Speaker 4: yes to and what you say no to. And if
Speaker 4: you can I can't say a real no. You can't
Speaker 4: say a real yes. It just doesn't happen if you
Speaker 4: can't say a true yes. And that's why I say
Speaker 4: when I cooperate with someone, it's because I want to.
Speaker 4: That's a real yes. And if I don't want to,
Speaker 4: I own that. But now let's integrate what I said
Speaker 4: earlier about respecting the we and me and the eye.
Speaker 4: So let's say you say, hey, Allan, would you mind
Speaker 4: meeting me down at the corner. I got some stuff
Speaker 4: I got to move out of my place and stuff
Speaker 4: like that. My other buddy couldn't show up. Can you
Speaker 4: make it over? And let's say. My first response is
Speaker 4: I'd love to help you because I love you. I
Speaker 4: want to do something for you. I want to cooperate
Speaker 4: with you, but I'm jammed up. I got something else
Speaker 4: going now. I could say yes and go and do it,
Speaker 4: and then at the same time feel the no because
Speaker 4: I don't trust. If I said no to you, you'd
Speaker 4: still be.
Speaker 2: My friend A performative.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right, and then it's not a real deal.
Speaker 4: I am doing what I'm supposed to do, not what
Speaker 4: I want to do. So if I said to you so,
Speaker 4: I really I love you, man, I would help you
Speaker 4: in a minute. And this is also going on. Check
Speaker 4: it out, see if you can find anybody else. If not,
Speaker 4: call me, then I'll see what I can do to change.
Speaker 4: So I try to respect you and me at the
Speaker 4: same time. Yes, that is cooperating with integrity, Yes, and
Speaker 4: I want to do that because I love you. But
Speaker 4: I also want to do what I need to do
Speaker 4: and what I want to do. So I'm trying to
Speaker 4: find a way to make those both possible.
Speaker 2: And what you just did was illustrate what a healthy
Speaker 2: boundary looks like.
Speaker 4: And I'm being myself. See, I am showing you this
Speaker 4: is Alan, this is who I am. I'm the I
Speaker 4: and I'm the Wei, and I'm bringing both of them
Speaker 4: to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you protected both the friend and yourself. You got
Speaker 2: it in that response.
Speaker 4: The biggest thing that we learn in emotional sobriety. And
Speaker 4: I'll say this and then we can think about it.
Speaker 4: From this book, there's twodelines here for emotional sobriety. They're
Speaker 4: not shoulds, they're guidelines. They're suggestions to learn to act
Speaker 4: for yourself without being selfish. I'll say that again. Learn
Speaker 4: to act for yourself without being selfish, and learn to
Speaker 4: act for others without losing yourself. Act for yourself without
Speaker 4: being selfish, act for others without losing yourself. If you
Speaker 4: can pull that off, you're going to be growing up.
Speaker 4: Come on, that's what a grown up that.
Speaker 2: Hey. Hey, okay, so Alan, I want all my people
Speaker 2: to support your work. Go get your books. I know
Speaker 2: you have a website, I know you have lectures and
Speaker 2: your big time. You're like fortune five hundred, not yet,
Speaker 2: but teaching countries how to come together and be emotionally sober.
Speaker 2: Talk to me, man, what do you have going in?
Speaker 2: How can people support you?
Speaker 4: My recent book that I feel really good about it.
Speaker 4: It's called Twelve Insights for Emotional Sobriety, and that is
Speaker 4: a deep dive into emotional sobriety. That book is being
Speaker 4: used all over the United States and treatment programs in
Speaker 4: Europe and Canada, in South America. I mean, it's really
Speaker 4: taken off and it's given people a new vision of
Speaker 4: what's possible, not only for those that are in recovery,
Speaker 4: but those people that are just trying to live a
Speaker 4: better life. So check the book out. It's on Amazon.
Speaker 4: But look, I'm not here just to promote my book.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of things I do that I'm
Speaker 4: sorry that are open source that I don't get any
Speaker 4: money from. I have a YouTube channel called Optimal Sobriety.
Speaker 4: Optimal Recovery and Emotional Sobriety is what the name of
Speaker 4: the channel is. There's over two hundred videos from Thursday Night,
Speaker 4: which is a free workshop I've been doing for five
Speaker 4: years right now. I've been in there before, you've been
Speaker 4: in there. If you go to Emotional Sobriety Info, if
Speaker 4: you look up that. You go to that website, you
Speaker 4: will get the link for that Thursday night meeting. Come
Speaker 4: and join us, become a part of that. It's nine
Speaker 4: pm Eastern time every Thursday night. I'm not there tonight
Speaker 4: because I'm with you, but they're posted, they're watching, they
Speaker 4: heard about us. So check that stuff out on that website.
Speaker 4: You'll see all the different speaking engagements. I'm gonna be
Speaker 4: up at the Wilson House doing a retreat on relationships.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be doing a bunch of different stuff that's
Speaker 4: coming up. So you know, if you got excited by
Speaker 4: anything I'm saying tonight, come and learn more about it.
Speaker 2: Now watch this. Doctor Berger is loved and revered and
Speaker 2: respected and has an international following. Zoe Williams does not.
Speaker 2: So if you come in here and say bring some
Speaker 2: black voices on, I'm gonna say, did you buy my book?
Speaker 2: Did you support me? Doctor Berger is supported by his folk.
Speaker 2: But if you got criticism for Zoe and you haven't
Speaker 2: supported Zoe and doctor Berger is here in support of
Speaker 2: Zoe because Zoe is doing real work.
Speaker 3: Then what are you talking about. You're part of the problem.
Speaker 3: Come on, Tony, Tony, get in here. Where are you
Speaker 3: at Tony. I'm gonna see you at the cigar Land.
Speaker 3: I got words, are you Tony?
Speaker 6: He's gonna.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 2: We start the conversation, it's up to you to finish it.
Speaker 2: Zoe Williams the voice of reason.
Speaker 3: We always on fire. I'll be back next week with
Speaker 3: four slappers.
Speaker 4: That's right,