My name is Emily and I'm a psychologist and regular guest on The Imperfects.
Together with The Imperfects.
I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was recorded.
I acknowledge this land always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
Summer.
We love summer.
Yeah.
Don't we?
I feel tempted to sing some summer songs, but we don't have the rights for any of them.
No, that's true.
But you know what?
It's summer.
We recorded this in November, but we imagine we're having a ball in January.
We've got our board shorts on.
We've got inflatable rings around our waist.
Yep.
Flamingos, sitting on flamingos.
Australia's three and zip in the cricket.
Well.
Touch wood.
Touch wood.
What a comeback from Pat Cummins and hasn't Jack Weatherall been defined?
Oh, no.
And good to see the bush horse back.
Josh Hazelwood, that is.
I know.
People said Josh Hazel wouldn't, but he did.
He sure did.
We're saying all this in November, so hopefully that'll come straight.
These are our bonus summer episodes.
That's so good.
These are our summer episodes.
We're having a little bit of a break.
But what we've decided to do throughout January to fill in the summer gap is to pick out some of our favourite moments from A Little More Imperfects, which is our subscriber-only show.
Many of you know about this.
You can subscribe through Patreon or on Apple Podcasts.
It's two bonus new episodes every month for less than $10, right?
Yeah.
So, you know, I mean, that's incredible.
Yeah, it really is.
That's incredible.
That's less than five bucks an episode.
But these episodes are free, obviously.
You're hearing these for free.
This is free.
So we're giving a little taste of the subscriber-only content, A Little More Imperfects.
And for this first one we're going to play like this was Dr Emily, who came onto A Little More Imperfects last year and was incredible.
And there's going to be a lot more of Dr. M on A Little More Imperfects this year.
If you subscribe, you'll hear that.
And if you don't like me and the sound of my voice, this is good news for you.
I was having a little mental health nap when M came in.
So this is your lucky day.
Yeah, when we recorded this episode Hugh, you were as many of you know, Hugh you were going through a bit of burnout last year, and so we very graciously gave you some time off.
Haven't quite received the thanks I think we deserve, but you're welcome.
But luckily we were graced with the presence of Bridget North East, our producer in this Little More Imperfects episode, so you'll hear her throughout this as well.
But before we get to that And before we play that bonus episode for you Hugh, because this episode that Dr M talks about it's a lot about adult ADHD and diagnosis and everything around that.
We've talked about that a lot. on the podcast.
But Hugh, you have been diagnosed with ADHD.
As you said before, I have a case of the ADHDs.
Yeah, you have a case.
I caught the ADHDs.
You've caught it.
And sometimes because of that, you get yourself into precarious situations.
When you say sometimes, A few times a day.
Daily.
Yeah.
Double daily.
It's incredible.
The amount of the stuff that happens to you, sometimes probably just because of you, sometimes because of your ADHD.
There was one story you told on stage when we were in Hobart.
And you told it to us and the audience.
And if you wouldn't mind, can you please recount this?
Oh, this is ridiculous.
I'm very happy to share this one.
Before I do, I just thought of something that did quite funny happen this morning to me.
We just had a tradie come over today and I let him through the garage to go out to the back, just so he'd have access to the back of the house.
And I locked him in our garage.
I closed the garage door behind him, forgot to unlock the door out to the back.
Yep.
And my phone was calling.
It was him.
I was like, why is he calling?
I've just spoken to him two minutes ago.
Yeah, he'll find his way out.
And I just ignored him for a bit because I was trying to get the kids ready for I was in there for a good five minutes.
Just locked in.
Yeah.
I was like, man, why are you calling me?
You just spoke to me.
Just come around and see me for a minute.
Yeah.
He has no right to be surprised if he listens to the podcast.
Anyway, so the story you're referring to is happening in Hobart.
Now for anyone with ADHD, this is absolutely.
I hope this makes you go.
Yep, that is something I'll do.
If you don't have ADHD, this is what ADHD is like.
One of my favorite things about our tour is that I get to grace different athletics tracks around Australia.
And every morning of a live show, I'll go to the local ice track and do a session.
And we're in Hobart and it was... early November and it was quite cold.
So I decided, even before leaving to go to Hobart, I will pack my running tights or my running leggings.
I have this wonderful pair of Nike, wonderful, they're just great.
And I packed them and got up in the morning to go and do my run.
This is in Hobart.
And got all my gear on and tracksuit pants on and went, right, time to go.
I went, oh, hang on a minute.
Where are my tights?
I could have sworn I packed my tights.
I emptied my bag.
I was looking everywhere.
Couldn't find them.
Very frustrated at myself, because I just thought I'd brought them, but I couldn't find them anywhere.
I went, that's okay.
I've got plenty of time.
Don't get frustrated.
Managed to find a place in Hobart called the Runner's Edge, I think it's called.
And went in there, they had running tights and I'm a medium in every single thing I've ever bought.
So grabbed myself a pair of M's.
Yeah.
And how much are the M's?
How much are they?
They're $180.
Wow.
$180 tights.
Yeah, they are running tights.
Really good ones are really expensive.
And what is the purpose of running tights?
Just to keep you warm?
Well, keep you warm.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I went, right, okay, good.
I'll get an Uber next.
I got an Uber to the running.
It got another Uber out to the truck and I sat down there and I went, okay.
I had my M's with me and went, hang on a minute.
Let's do this.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
My bag.
Where's my bag?
And I'd left my bag back at the runner's edge.
At the shop.
That's okay.
That's fine.
That is fine.
I will go back to the runner's edge and I'll get my bag.
That's fine.
Radically accept this situation.
Yeah.
And you say you get an Uber back?
Got an Uber back to... Yeah, because you didn't have a car.
You were Ubering everywhere.
This bit is like heartbreaking.
How much is the Uber out of interest?
I reckon high 20s.
Okay.
I don't know exactly how high 20s.
Black.
No, not black.
It was comfort.
It was comfort.
Yeah, Josh would know about that.
Josh takes comfort.
Why not?
Yeah, sometimes when we get to the airport and we come back from a tour sometimes, like me and the other crew will line up in the long line for an X and Josh will just jump in the short one for a comfort.
Yeah, sort of a tradition.
Man up my heart.
I get it.
Yeah, I'm halfway home and they're still there.
It's great.
Yeah, the Van Comfortbergs.
Anyway, I get back to the track and go, right, time to unpack my bag and get going.
And I looked around and I did not have my tights with me.
I had put them back down again at the runner's edge.
So you'd taken the tights back to the shop to pick up your bag.
Yeah.
When you've grabbed your bag, you've left your tights at the shop.
Yeah yes, i.
Then i was like i know this story that's still showing and a year ago i would have gone you're an idiot.
What is wrong with you?
How can you how?
What is wrong with you?
Now i go okay, this is my brain, this is part of it yeah, this is part of it.
Call uber comfort.
Again went back.
Imagine everyone at the uber offices.
They're like He's calling another one.
Look at this.
He's going back to the same place he was just at.
It would be confusing for someone monitoring.
Went back.
Got my M's had to explain to the people I wasn't stealing them, that I just, and for some reason the guy didn't recognise me and didn't remember me.
I don't know how I'd been there twice.
No, because you were nominated for Australian of the Year.
Surely.
No, I didn't mean that.
Because I'd been there twice already.
That's just to be very clear.
Excuse me, mate.
I'm nominated for Australian of the Year.
Yeah, for Victoria.
I'm just going to take these.
Yeah, I was one of the nominees for the Victorian leg of the Australian of the Year.
Yeah, which I didn't end up winning.
You didn't win.
Yeah, that's weird he didn't recognise you.
No, no, because I'd been there twice.
I was surprised.
I said, oh, I bought this before you guys.
Have you got the receipt?
No.
Please don't ask me for a receipt.
I don't.
There's no way I've got a receipt for this.
Please don't ask me that.
But I promise you I was here.
I've been here.
And he eventually went, okay, that's fine.
I don't think he remembered, but he let me take them.
It had taken an hour and a half of my day to get to the ass track.
And then I'm like, I've only got an hour now at the track.
I thought I had to.
This is just.
Are you frustrated when this happens?
Yeah, extremely.
But I was trying to just forgive myself and just be kind to my ridiculously beautiful brain.
But I sat down and I was like, just take a moment to relax and it's fine.
You're here.
You've got an hour at the track.
You can make something of this.
I went right out trying to get my tights on and I pulled my tracksuit pants off and, lo and behold, I was wearing my Nike tights the entire time.
Stunning.
Unbelievable.
Incredible.
Incredible.
I mean, you must – because you wear the tights so often probably because you're always like running.
You just – like if I was wearing running tights, I would know.
Yeah, I wear them a lot.
I wear them on flights and yeah.
Yeah.
And the update to that story, the incredible update, which will not surprise anyone, is that –
Sorry, two days ago, I was quite brisk in Melbourne and I thought- That's strange for Melbourne.
Yeah.
And I thought, oh, well, I'm going to make the most of those $180 ties I bought.
I haven't worn them since Hobart.
I've lost them.
So you've lost the ones you bought?
Yeah.
There's a good chance.
I left them in Hobart, very good chance.
So you didn't wear.
Have you ever worn them?
Uh, they have not been worn yet.
No wow, 180 big ones, 180 medium ones down the gurgler.
Oh that's, that's a frustrating story, that's tough wow well anyway, things that happen to me every single day.
They do for everyone who came to the live show.
You have been, you've heard the stories that they are.
Oh, it's amazing.
Every single live show, it always starts with one of these stories, and they're all true and they happen to you every day.
We could be doing a live show every single day and you could have some new content which is actually, I mean, to us, it's content, to you, it's life.
Yeah, here's a part of my life for you all to enjoy.
Okay, well, let's get to the meat in the sandwich of the episode.
So, as all of you know, Dr M comes on the podcast monthly, but last year she graced us with her presence on A Little More Imperfects, and it all started with a reflection from one of our subscribers on A Little More Imperfects.
So for people who are here just to hear Em and just to sort of sample the new Dr Em on Little More Imperfect, this is our subscription-only show.
Yeah.
We do them every fortnight.
Yeah.
We have a little bit of fun.
Yeah.
We let our hair down sometimes.
Yeah.
We have fun.
And then sometimes it gets a little bit serious.
Put the hair back up.
Put the hair up.
Yeah.
We'll probably be a bit of hair up today, I think.
Yeah.
My feeling is.
Really?
Tight bun?
Yeah.
Yeah, not a super tight, loose bum.
French braid.
What's a French braid?
Oh, Josh.
So, Em, so usually on these episodes we have lots of different segments and do different things.
But we thought let's make this all about you.
Hopefully not.
Because we have you here, so we don't want to do some weird game.
I mean, we're definitely not doing one of Hugh's weird segments.
So, Em, we said what would you want to do on this show?
Yeah.
What are you thinking?
Well, I actually, you know, I've been listening to the reflections and I thought yeah, from the pond.
That's true.
So just to fill everyone in, we have a reflection pond.
It's a physical pond that usually sits in the middle of the table here.
And when people send in their reflections, Bridge, you will often read them or Bella will read them.
Yeah, we go through them all.
And I should add that the pond is beautiful.
It's filled with real water, but it's very costly.
So we're trying to get a lot of use out of it.
That's definitely some input that we wouldn't get from Hugh, the economics of the podcast.
Big line item in the budget.
We go through, we put all the reflections in the pond and then we pull one out.
Every now and then, on a Patreon episode, pull one out randomly.
And they're just the most beautiful pieces of writing.
And how, and Bridge, for people, if they want to contribute a reflection, how do they do that?
Well, we send out a reflective question every week in my Imperfect email, which is our newsletter.
And you can sign up at theimperfects.com.au.
That's free.
It's free.
It's free.
And every week there's a question inspired by that week's episode on the main feed.
And we also share a writer's reflection or like a listener's reflection from the previous week.
They're brilliant.
It's wonderful.
And you can also submit questions from My Imperfect Life, our journal.
Oh, yes.
So, Em, sorry, a little divergence there.
Yeah no, I think that really.
I just thought it was a really nice opportunity just to have like a deeper reflection on the reflection.
This is great.
Yeah.
Do we want to pull up the reflection that we're going to reflect on?
We will flashback to an episode of A Little More Imperfects which was contextually titled Tirama Susan.
Is there a button for a flashback?
Yeah, I've got one here.
Question.
What parts of your brain or behavior have you judged harshly in the past?
How might you view them now with more compassion?
Great question.
This question was in the team mail and it was inspired by a huge ADHD brief episode.
And this is from Mel.
And I didn't know why.
Academically, after peaking in Year 11 with an academic award, my grades began to steadily decline.
This continued throughout Year 12 and university, to the point where I had to repeat the fourth year of my VET course and did worse the second time around, resulting in being excluded from the course altogether.
I knew I hadn't studied hard enough, but managed to convince myself that I hadn't been a bad student.
I just didn't want to be a vet anyway, because I found it hard dealing with the owners.
Hey, becoming an outdoor educator teacher looks like it might be fun.
Or maybe joining the army, or hey, maybe I could just pick anything now.
Socially I started to feel like an outsider or imposter and really buggered up some friendships over the decades because I didn't know how to deal with people.
I clung to people who looked like they knew what they were doing and tried to model my behavior on them.
Deep down.
I was trying to hide from the world what I already knew that I was a shit person and not worthy of fulfilling a childhood dream or keeping good friends without doing something crappy to them.
Last year, my adult daughter started the process of an ADHD autism diagnosis.
I was present for her initial appointment when the doctor asked if anyone in the family had previously been diagnosed.
No one.
No idea where this has come from.
It's a mystery.
I had a two-hour drive after that appointment and discovered the Imperfects episode with Janelle Booker.
Hey, that's relevant to my family at the moment.
I'll listen to that.
I had to pull off the highway in tears.
I identified with so much of what she explained.
In the six months since then, I've borrowed nine library books on ADHD.
I've listened to Janelle's episode multiple times.
I've found countless quizzes online.
I tried to find semi-diagnostic ones, not something that tells me I'm a squirrel.
And who knew that intelligent girls could be neurodivergent too?
Not me.
And I'm a qualified primary school teacher.
I'm now age 50 and learning to view some life choices more compassionately.
I'm trying to let go of being perfect.
I'm trying to stand up for myself and others when people are dismissive or judgmental.
I'm starting to uncurl my inner guilt to let it fly free.
I'm ready to work with this brain in this wonderful life.
Younger self, I forgive you.
I mean, I remember obviously I was there when we first read that and it's I sort of forgot a lot of it.
And it's it's, I feel like a lot of people.
You know, since we talked about ADHD for the first time, this podcast had more and more people I meet.
Met someone on the weekend.
She said, I heard that episode and I now have been diagnosed with ADHD.
What did you want to sort of talk about it?
What, what jumped to you with that?
I mean, I guess, first of all I just wanted to acknowledge gosh, what a beautiful reflection it was for a start.
But also just to reflect back to all of you and to the listeners about how commonly I see this, that this experience is, I think, very familiar to a lot of people.
That, whether there is a diagnosis, for example, of neurodivergence, or whether actually it's just kind of like a meeting of your adult self, is to recognise the pain and the criticism that has in some ways characterised or defined how you've got to this point in your life.
Particularly with a new diagnosis.
One of the most common responses is that it changes the lens through which you look at your life.
So it's like for your entire life you have looked through a yellow-coloured lens and that lens has told you that you're not good enough, that you're lazy, that you're too loud, that you're too much, that you can't do these things.
If only you were better.
That's the lens.
And then, all of a sudden, you get this diagnosis and it's like this lens is now a different colour and all of a sudden it's like oh, my goodness.
Mm-hmm.
All this time, this is the way I've talked to myself.
Or all this time, this is also how other people have characterised me.
And I just wanted to start just by really acknowledging how both disorienting, freeing and distressing those recognitions can be.
Yeah.
Do you also find that it can be and I'm only saying this from the person I spoke to on the weekend.
She found it.
She also found it very kind of like exciting or liberating, because it is an explanation for all the inner critic stuff she had her whole life.
Yeah, I think it can be immensely liberating.
Um, and, and absolutely exciting.
You know, what is it that I can do differently now, when I don't have this harsh inner critic constantly on my back?
Um, and if you know, if we look at the function of the inner critic um, You know, really it's there in a lot of ways to protect us or to propel us into some kind of action, or to keep us away from something painful.
But the internal experience of the inner critic is a stress response.
So when the critic is like on the march, we get activation of the fight or flight response in the body, sometimes a freeze response, sometimes a shutdown response.
And so inherently, when this critic is really loud and very present, we're also experiencing immense amount of stress.
And so when we change the lens on that and recognise wow, like my brain has just been operating differently and there's nothing wrong or broken about it.
It changes our relationship to the critic as well.
I feel that there could be a lot of grief though, in recognising how harsh you've been to yourself for a really long time.
Yeah, I see that all the time.
And I think there's grief in a number of different ways.
So You know, when we get this kind of life-changing and for some people it isn't as life-changing as it might be for others, but for some people you get this diagnosis, for example, and it opens the door to all the hardship and the acknowledgement that that little part of you was working so hard and was really trying to do the best it could.
And so yes, that opens you up to a huge amount of sadness and um and pain for that little, that little girl or that little boy, that little child that was there.
I also think it opens up to a grief about how you may have been treated.
Yeah.
And that can open you up to anger as well.
So it's a really complex thing, actually, like our response to a new understanding of the self.
Yeah, absolutely.
I feel nervous saying what I'm about to say because I've thought it and I feel like it's very taboo to say out loud.
So we might end up cutting this out.
I think men are smarter than women.
Yeah, came to me.
Sorry to steal your thunder john, that's good.
Um, i have been.
I have had a reaction that i really need to talk to you about um, so it's pity he's not here but um, And it sort of is this natural corollary, for I think that comes out of something that you said there.
In that when in the case of Hugh and I think I've thought this with a few people, but mostly with Hugh, because we're very similar in a lot of ways
When...
For someone who gets a diagnosis that explains a lot of why their brain and why they've struggled with a lot of things throughout their life.
Because she has ADHD.
Because she has ADHD.
I then reflected on my life a little bit and thought well, you're pretty useless at a lot of these things as well.
And there's no excuse.
There's no reason.
It's just that, and it reaffirmed my endocrinic.
Yeah of me going well.
You're pretty terrible at logistics.
You're pretty bad at a lot of the things that Hugh struggles with.
You got no excuse, you're just shit at it, and for me it was a bit of a difficult experience to go well.
You've got no excuse.
Yeah um, and I just wonder if that's a And it's really true.
What I feel is taboo about it is that we're living in a world at the moment which is so wonderful in that people with different brains and different ways of thinking are being recognised and understood, and it feels very.
It just feels in bad taste or something for someone with a neurotypical brain to say it's hard.
But I therefore think, well, I guess I'm just shit at that stuff.
Yeah.
And I just suck a bit.
Yeah.
And it's so hard.
It's a really painful, really painful reflection.
But I also want to acknowledge, Josh, that I have heard that many times before.
Yeah.
In fact, for a lot of people that are going through the process, There can be a clinging on to this being true.
This better be the reason.
Yes, because if it's not, I will be deeply devastated that it will somehow reveal that actually there is a flaw in me, that I am defective in some way.
Yeah.
And I think it's so important to acknowledge just how painful that is and that there can be a yearning for there to be a definitive reason as to why I've struggled in life.
Yeah.
And the thing that I would, that I'd kind of like really want to open up to or encourage the work around, is that, whether there is a diagnosis, something clinically that you're meeting criteria for, for example, it does not make that other person suffering any less.
So.
Maybe there's been a struggle in life and this inner critic has been really, really loud, and maybe there's neurotypical brain here.
Yeah.
And so the obvious response is, well, clearly it's something about me.
I'm inherently defective.
But then I want you to think about or invite you to think about the little part of you.
And that there was something extremely adaptive about what you were doing and extremely adaptive about that critic that was actually very, very important for your survival.
And that if you bring a lens here of compassion to that critic, does that change the way in which you relate to it now?
And so what that might look like for me, like in my work, would be doing – there's a number of incarnations of this.
But one of the things that I might do is like interview the critic.
So what I would do is like Josh, if you were here, I would talk to you normally and then I would get you to change positions and to come over here and to imagine that Josh is still in the seat here.
And I want you to embody the critic.
Have you done this?
I've actually done this, yeah.
Tell me about that.
It was pretty –
It felt so weird to be doing it.
So I've been doing, that is schema therapy, isn't it?
Yeah.
So I've been doing a little bit of this with my psychologist recently.
I'm allowed to share what happens in my.
Absolutely.
That's on you.
I was like, am I doing the wrong thing here?
This is a privileged circle.
Yeah, and at first I was like this feels ridiculous, like moving to another chair, role-playing the thing.
But there was something so empowering about it to be To just go with it and start to be the critic and then sit back and say how that felt and sort of play the different roles.
It's kind of made them.
It's akin to.
It's very different, but it's kind of akin to journaling, in that it takes it out of my head and it becomes something real that someone else has witnessed and that I've sort of seen as different roles.
And therefore it's easier to think about them as different identities that can have compassion or can have different judgments, rather than the rather than the I guess, shame and self-criticism that is attached to it by default.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I did an exercise once.
It might've been through Ben Crow's course.
I'm not a hundred percent sure when we had him on the podcast and it asked you to write part of your life story from this place of your like biggest supporter, and then also from your inner critic.
And it was so brutal writing the same story and seeing them side by side.
It brought me to tears pretty quickly reading how harsh I was to myself.
And I think I'm a pretty positive person most of the time, but it was really awful.
Yeah.
So you can see, like in writing then, how the change of lens brings about a different experience, a different view of your life.
So you know yes, like if you were coming into therapy and we had this really harsh critic, for example, I'd be really wanting to really understand its function and purpose um, and also to do you know, for me what feels really important and I think this kind of brings with it, like the um, how can I view my brain differently?
Um, is that we don't just do the cognitive stuff so um, in therapy.
We've got so many different modes of therapy.
There are so many different approaches to working in a therapeutic space um, but there are kind of maybe two different ways in which we can do the work, and one is called top-down.
And so top-down.
If you imagine the brain as an inverted triangle, so like that, and at the top of the brain it's a really good triangle.
Yeah.
At the top of the brain.
It's like our higher order functions, our cognitive skills, and then it comes down into the brainstem.
This is the most primitive part, right?
This is a very simplified version of this, right?
And so talk therapy is what's called a top-down approach.
So we talk through our experiences and our problems.
And that can, for a lot of people, be very healing.
So it's almost like a broad capture, like a funnel, and it kind of like drops down and gets more concentrated into like Yes.
So it's, yeah, so it's a little bit like, exactly.
So it's like the talking at the top part helps to heal all the rest of the system.
That can be really effective.
That's a lot of CBT.
So cognitive behavioral therapy we do a lot of challenging of thoughts, identifying our negative automatic thoughts, for example.
Yeah.
Sometimes and I must say that this is only my experience in therapy is that combining that with what's called a bottom-up approach is really powerful.
And so what I mean by a bottom-up approach is the bottom of the triangle.
So we go to the bottom of the triangle to help heal the rest to go upwards.
So what I mean by that is that we work with the felt experience, right?
So, for example, the somatic experience to help us heal and come to a cognitive understanding that.
So it's literally like you mean the felt experience, like feeling in your body.
Yes.
Yeah.
Could that be like exposing yourself to the thing that you were being really harsh about yourself on?
Yeah, it could be that.
For me, it's a lot of work.
This has particular relevance again for the critic and reviewing your life kind of in retrospect.
It's a lot of work with memories.
So early childhood memories are kind of those milestone moments where you can picture a lack of feeling of shame or humiliation.
Yeah.
So for me that there are a number of different ways in which we could do bottom up processing.
So a therapy like EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.
So that is based on reprocessing at a somatic and neurological level.
This sounds very technical.
Yeah. where we're actually feeling and experiencing a memory so that there's an exposure.
And then by the end we can have this cognitive belief and understanding that I am good enough, for example,
So it's like you're training your brain?
Yeah.
So it's kind of like if I said to you actually you know what always comes to mind when I think about this.
You know Good Will Hunting.
There's a scene at the end with Robin Williams and Matt Damon, and Robin Williams is the therapist and he says to Matt Damon it's not your fault.
Yeah, powerful.
Such a powerful moment, right?
And then Matt Damon like bats it away and he's like, no, no, no, don't worry about it, man.
And then he goes, it's not your fault.
And then he says it, and he says it the last time, and that's when Matt Damon kind of almost really moves into the vulnerable child mode.
Yeah.
That's how I deal when like someone, when a waiter brings over the wrong meal.
That's how I deal with them.
Grab them by the shirt.
It's like, it's not your fault.
They're trying to deny it.
It's like, it is my fault.
It's like, no, no.
It's really, it's quite powerful.
It's really similar to the scene.
So I know exactly what you mean.
Exactly.
So, I mean, that's such a powerful moment in that movie.
And I must say that early in my therapy career I probably thought that was actually going to be relevant for everybody, that kind of response like this, leaning in and me telling you that it was not your fault.
Yes, that stuff's important.
But for a lot of people, me telling you that you're good enough, me telling you, or even you telling you that I'm good enough, is actually not enough for change.
So it's like this difference between intellectually knowing that I'm good enough and feeling that I'm good enough.
Does that make sense?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I find this all the time.
Doing this podcast, doing therapy, you hear so many theories, things that are like indisputably true, and but trying to apply them and you go okay, I'm gonna do that from now on or I'm gonna think that from now on.
But it's so different like reading a book and being like yes, I'm gonna live my life exactly like that, let them.
But it's one thing to kind of like think yeah, I'm gonna let them, but then to actually do that or do whatever it is, that's the tricky bit, yeah.
And so this is really simply kind of understood by saying, if you had a really harsh inner critic and that critic is always telling you you're too loud if you were to use a top-down approach yes, we'd look at that thought and try and find other ways of having a more balanced belief about it.
But if I just simply told you, you know, Bridge, you're not too loud, and you'd be like, yeah, I am.
Yeah, I wouldn't believe you.
Yeah.
What if I told you?
I'm starting to almost have the idea.
And Josh?
No, if Josh told you.
Oh, yeah.
What if I told you?
Sorry, I was just playing for a minute there.
Josh has heard his name, hasn't been listening.
What?
Oh, look, I don't know.
I'd have to think about that.
Yeah, yeah.
Good question.
I'd like to know what Em thinks.
I feel like I've had a version of this, but it hasn't come quite from that type of therapy.
I talked about this example in a previous episode.
It was the What's Your ATAR episode.
I spoke about my experience of year 12 drama, but I've had like a lot of very harsh inner critic feelings around, like being in performative spaces, like doing what I'm doing right now.
And I was looking, I think, through my sessions with my psychologist, I realised I sort of told her a bunch of stories.
She gave me this wonderful metaphor of a necklace and each of the stories being like a bead on the necklace, that I'd been kind of going oh yeah, there's another bead of evidence that I'm not good enough here.
There's another one.
There's another one.
And there were these pivotal moments through my life where I'd constructed a story of like you're not good in performative spaces.
Yeah. but you still really like being around performers and stuff like that.
And then I've really built a whole career around that.
So I realized I was looking for evidence.
And then the one thing she sort of said to me was, like try find situations where you can put yourself in performative spaces and just keep the door open a little bit to the possibility that you might be wrong.
Like you might be right, but you might be wrong.
And if you open that door a little bit, then you're more likely to put yourself forward.
And if you sort of, you know, jump into that space and you speak at a few things or you perform at this thing, or even if you just tell a funny joke in front of friends and you start feeling like oh, maybe I can do this.
You get exposed to that feeling of like, you get exposed to the actual feeling, rather than someone telling you yeah, you'll be great.
Yes, exactly.
You get.
You basically gather the feeling through the exposure.
And this is the same thing that we would do, even with like inner child work, is that we might go back to some early memories where you felt ashamed or scared or like you had no voice, and we would work with those memories and to give you the felt experience of having some kind of need better met for you.
And I suspect I know the answer to this, but I don't.
So with what Bridge is talking about, with the string of negative experiences and creating this necklace of beads of negative experiences and that convinces you that you're not good enough.
Does a positive experience have the same impact as a negative experience?
No, it doesn't, but we can.
So typically, and I've made this, I've had this, I can't speak today.
I've used this reflection before.
It's the first time people are paying for you and you can't speak.
I know.
Oh, God.
No pressure.
Exactly.
Rick Hansen has this beautiful saying that the mind is like Velcro for negative and Teflon for positive.
And so basically that we are primed to notice and pay attention and stick to negative content.
And it makes sense from an evolutionary point of view.
Right is that we need to pay attention to threat in order to stay alive.
So don't do that again because that could risk your life.
Remember that time that you stepped out of the bushes and there was that tiger?
Like definitely don't do that.
That was really silly, right?
So it has a greater valence.
But we can absolutely make the positive experiences last longer if we're willing to pay attention to them.
How do we do that?
Yes.
I should say as well that the psychologist that I saw through the therapy I told a lot of other stories that I hadn't really counted as being positive experiences or really evidence of anything.
And she put them all on post-it notes on the floor and we kind of created this other necklace.
And when she was like oh, you can just choose which one to wear, That was a big light bulb moment of like oh, I've been carrying around all of this evidence that I'm not good enough, when I've actually got heaps of evidence in the other direction, but I've just chosen to not ignore it.
But where are you going to wear a necklace made of post-it notes?
I don't know.
It doesn't make any sense.
There is again.
Using Rick Hansen as an example, he has an approach to therapy which is called positive neuroplasticity training.
And basically it's this idea that we're rewiring the brain for good, so that we actually take in the good.
We're not discarding the negative, but we're actually able to actually resource our minds and our bodies with a felt experience of the pleasant stuff.
And so...
For example, I would do this in conjunction with like the healing trauma parts too.
So if someone was coming into therapy that we would obviously go back and have a look at some really pivotal moments where there was like a need that went very unmet and we would do some again, some bottom up processing.
So very much using the body.
How does it feel in the body?
Um, kind of meeting the younger part of you, very experiential.
So really in the moment.
So we'd kind of go back and do that, but then also and not at the same time, but also in the therapy focusing on what is going well and how can I use these as resources.
Um, So what I might do, I don't know if maybe I could try it with you guys.
Fix me.
Okay, all right.
So I want you to think about a feeling that you'd like to have more of.
So maybe it's like a feeling of pride.
Cash.
Yep.
Cash is not a feeling.
Okay.
Well, no.
No.
Maybe it's joy.
Maybe it's confidence.
So I'm just going to invite you to think about something like that.
Okay.
And if you want to, you can close your eyes.
And just as you're sitting here, just taking a few slow grounding breaths.
And I just want you to bring to mind a moment, maybe in the last couple of months, where you might've had a glimmer, or even a bigger feeling, of the feeling you're desiring.
So maybe this is pride or joy, gratitude, peacefulness, and just taking one of those memories.
And I just want you to take yourself back there for a moment.
So as though you're there in this present moment.
Just checking in with your senses.
So in this memory, what are you seeing?
Taking a look around.
Noticing what the eyes are taking in.
Noticing sensations of touch.
So perhaps noticing the sensations of the air on the skin.
Maybe if you're sitting or standing. what your body is touching, the feeling of your clothes.
Is there a lightness or a warmth, a coolness?
Noticing how it feels inside the body.
Bringing attention now to what you can hear in this memory.
Opening the ears to sound.
Whether this is like sounds of nature or sounds of other people or sounds of quiet.
Taking a breath and noticing what you're smelling in this memory.
And noticing if there is a taste.
And taking this feeling now and imagining that it is spreading throughout your whole body, almost like a golden dust, spreading from the top of your head all the way down to your toes expanding, making this feeling bigger, savoring this pleasant feeling, almost as though you're marinating in this feel good feeling.
So you might like to use the breath here to make it bigger.
So breathing into and around this feeling and breathing out, letting it spread through the body.
So here is this moment of expanding and savouring this pleasant feeling, allowing the mind and the body to really take it in.
And that this moment here is acting like a resource for the times when you don't have this feeling.
Maybe the times when there is a struggle or a challenge.
But here is this felt memory and a felt experience of this feel-good feeling.
And then whenever you're ready, coming back into the room.
Should have told people that if you're driving, please don't close your eyes.
Silly.
Thanks, Sam.
That was nice.
That was fun.
It took me a while to land on the emotion, to be honest.
So I was sort of going back and forth throughout it.
But yeah.
This is just like a really mini example of like this notion of taking in the good.
So it's not just a cognitive experience.
So it's not just like when we do gratitude journals.
We might just name what I feel grateful for or something that went well today.
This is kind of really making it a bottom up and a top down approach.
So the bottom up is you bringing in the body, It's using the breath.
It's reimagining the actual memory.
So is that something that?
Is that an exercise that would be good to do when you want to like, if you're about to like, if Bridger's about to go and do a speech or something and those negative thoughts are coming up, she could do that before.
Yeah, absolutely.
It might be like that you're wanting to embody confidence.
And so you could practice that before you go in.
Should have done it.
Happy Gilmore is a happy place.
Oh, yeah, exactly.
I mean, it would be interesting.
It might be a cool thing for you to – have you recorded that before, like a guided version of that?
No, I can do that.
That would be amazing to have like a non-mini version of that that people could then use as a tool.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's not to in any way discard – the challenge or the suffering or the pain that's here, but it's about resourcing us with with the fact that we do have these experiences um, but we are not primed to notice them.
Yeah.
Do you think.
People – speaking for myself, I think I hadn't realised that what I've been doing a lot of with my new psychologist is bottom-up stuff.
Yeah.
Didn't know what it was.
And I found the experience to be kind of strange having never – well –
Actually, I don't know what.
It was probably a combo of everything with my old psychologist because it was a lot longer.
It was over sort of six or seven years.
But I found myself after sessions thinking, that was a bit weird.
Yeah.
I think it's working.
I'm not really sure.
But then, like in the weeks afterwards having this, it's like it wasn't obvious exactly what it was doing at first, but then the lasting effect is quite surprising to me.
Yeah, that's so interesting.
But it does linger and it's been really helpful but how hasn't been obvious.
Like we did a I think this would be bottom up but a schema thing where I for some reason brought up this event where, like when I was 16 no, it would have been 18 missed a couple of goals in the last quarter of a footy match that ended up meaning that we didn't win this whole season thing.
And I hadn't realised that I was carrying around so much blame for everyone, for this whole team, for that season.
And I just mentioned that I told a mate and who was really good at footy and he'd sort of told me exactly that top down thing of like don't be ridiculous.
Like your, it wasn't your job to kick the goals.
You're a backman.
Like it's, there was, don't be so stupid.
No one thinks that.
Yeah.
And, of course, it brushed off.
Yeah.
But then we did this like going back, reliving the memory.
I really didn't like the footy coach at the time and she absolutely she's like do you mind if I join you to help you in this moment?
Yeah.
And she gave him one of the biggest sprays of all time.
So good.
It made me laugh.
The psychologist did.
Like she's the loveliest person.
Suddenly she was swearing like a sailor to this guy.
That I never liked very much.
You fucking starved.
Starved.
It's like a sailor.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, but, and it was so, it shocked me so much firstly that she had this, this, um, this gear.
Um, and then I was like leaving kind of laughing about this memory and I kind of, every time I thought about it for the next week, I started laughing, thinking about her giving him a spray, but it really has changed permanently. how I think about that yes moment yes but I didn't think it would at the time I was like well that's not going to work but then like a few weeks later I was like actually I kind of have forgiven myself yeah and I don't really care about that anymore did she like it's like it's like she created a new moment like a new part of that story yeah so it's actually yeah it's actually called imagery re-scripting this sounds incredible yeah and it's um you know it's part of schema therapy I use it um quite a lot and it's a swearing Like stepping out of me being a therapist.
I love when I get to step in and be the assertive... Play character.
Yeah, and because really what we're doing there is...
So the way in which imagery re-scripting is working is that we're identifying the unmet need that was there for the child or the younger person there.
And so the client will go to that place in that memory and then, as though it's happening in the moment, so it's very present, moment focused and then we would have, at the start, at least, the therapist come in and B what's called the healthy adult for the vulnerable child.
And so that healthy adult is the one that is meeting the unmet need of the child.
So that's the need to be stood up for, for example, or to feel protected, to feel nurtured in that kind of sense.
And so the therapist then talks back to the people or protects the child or does whatever it needs to do to help this vulnerable child.
And it can be very, very emotional and it can feel strange like you've got your therapist here in this memory with you.
But the idea is that you might do that several times and then you actually work towards this notion that you, as a healthy adult, will then come into the memory of to care for that vulnerable child you.
So it transitions from the therapist coming in at the start because the therapist can be in healthy adult mode.
We do that.
And then with some practice and with some support, it ultimately is that you now, as this healthy adult, comes into those memories to give you what you didn't have at that time.
And that's like, that's where we want to get ultimately.
Yeah.
It's such a powerful idea because when layered on I think you've spoken about this, I think James van Kylenburg spoke about this when he was on that idea that the child never really leaves us inside.
A hundred percent.
So then you are kind of it doesn't really matter at what time these things are happening, because you're still meeting that child if it's still there.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Does it make a difference if you go in like you go in sceptical about whether it's going to work or if you really believe it?
Because I feel like so many people would go into the therapy room and I think, sort of like you said Josh, kind of get asked to stand up and sit in the other chair and sort of embody their child self and maybe a little bit of skepticism would come in of like what am I doing?
Yeah.
Is this really, but it still works?
Well, it depends what we're looking at in terms of working as well.
Like what does it mean for it to be working?
And like if it was me, I'd really validate.
Look, you know, I totally get this and I feel really strange and I think it's very understandable.
You'd have some scepticism.
I mean it's all, like for me at least, it's always around informed consent.
So if this is not something that you feel comfortable doing and it's for this particular reason, then of course, like we go with you know you need to have a sense of agency here about this.
But I'd always like bring like, okay, so can we hold a healthy skepticism?
So can we even bring some curiosity to this?
And so we validate that, yeah, like I get this sounds really wacky.
And if it's not right for you, like totally fine.
But could you be a little bit curious about.
And then there's this other section, this other thing at play that could be the part of you that is wanting to avoid feeling.
So we might get scepticism maybe on board kind of comes about as a protection to feeling and getting exposed to the vulnerable child.
So it might sound like, nah, that's just not for me.
It is, like that sounds so silly, like I don't want to do that.
That may be valid, and or it could be that that is actually a part that is trying to protect you from feeling something.
So we want to uncover that.
I'm sort of imagining, like the version of this on steroids, where you could you bring in like actors.
Yes.
And you recreate this old memory.
Yes.
Like obviously not literally, but if you have like performers who understand the process and how it works and you can reenter that scene.
It is actually a therapy.
It's called drama therapy.
And in fact, we had to do it in master's training.
We had, gosh, you do so many different things in your training experiences.
But one of them was drama therapy.
And that is when, and it's in a group.
And I remember you're reenacting a situation and you're getting all of the players in and it's almost like and this again can be a bottom-up approach is that, for example, for someone that might have been in a place of real threat or subjugation, it might be that in the drama reenacting you're actually fighting back or pushing back.
It's like rewriting history.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
And it can be extremely powerful.
Yeah.
It's kind of like there's a great show which some people might've seen called The Rehearsal, which is the concept of the show.
Is this comedian?
He helps people rehearse for significant moments in their life and goes to extreme lengths.
So we'll recreate the bar that they are going to do this show.
They're going to have a hard conversation with someone.
So he'll like recreate that exact bar where it's going to happen and hires extras and actors and they can rehearse, and rehearse, and rehearse every single possible way that conversation might go.
And so then when the person goes in for the conversation, they feel more confident and prepared.
Whereas this is sort of like the after version, where it's like the hard thing happens.
It's happened.
You can't change that, but you can kind of go back into it after the fact and change how you feel about it.
Yes, and that's really key in that, and that is that you're not changing history.
You're changing how you relate to it, changing how you feel about it.
Which is, from the little I know about EMDR, that is what EMDR does.
Absolutely, yeah.
So what's that doing, what does it do in your brain?
Is it, I thought, is it reorganising the memory a bit?
Yes.
Yeah, and look, I'm not a neurophysiologist so I can't tell you exactly what's happening on a structural level.
But
Give it a stab.
Yeah, I'll give it a go.
It is reordering.
It's reprocessing.
And I think in EMDR it's often explained as though you have a filing cabinet of memories and that for non-traumatic memories they're filed appropriately, like under the right section in the right order.
Whereas, like for a traumatic memory or an upsetting, distressing memory, it's like those memories are stored, it's like things flying out of the cabinet and they can fly out at any time and we have no kind of sense of order about it.
And so when we do this work in some ways yes, it's reprocessing and reordering and putting the memories back into the filing cabinet.
The example I used is like it's pretty – I want to acknowledge that, like in the scale of some of the memories that people would be delving into, it's pretty like flippant stuff compared to like a proper traumatic experience.
But what I think is interesting for me is that it's impossible for me to think about that now without imagining –.
My psychologist standing there giving this guy spray.
So it's kind of like it's tarnished the memory in a good way.
It's like it's kind of corrupted now in a good way.
Sort of funny.
Yeah, it's become funny and then it's lighter in me and it's sort of, yeah.
And so we actually get like.
So what I would often ask clients, for example, is like can you tell me, you know at the very beginning, can you tell me what you're seeing in this picture?
So we get like a perceptual image.
And then what so often happens is that if you do this kind of reprocessing work or the imagery work, is that I might ask you what does that image look like now?
Does it look any different?
Yes.
And it does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we get perceptual changes to the memory as a function of doing this work.
God, that's amazing.
Yeah.
So, like in a very long winded way of coming back to the very reflection question, is that I guess I want to emphasize that, regardless of whether there is like a diagnosis that changes how you look back on things or not, we can still do this work.
Yeah.
And that we don't have to hold so tightly to the defectiveness.
Because, like in this work, what we'll often find is that that critic, whilst helpful then, is not helpful now.
And that it's actually.
You know, if we don't learn how to relate to it differently, is that it is creating more suffering for us.
Yeah.
Well, would it like in like an example for, like I know, a common inner critic or inner voice for someone who has now realised they have ADHD might be.
They were told that they were dumb by a teacher at school because they couldn't get the work done as much and they couldn't keep up with everyone.
And you know there's.
You know, I know people who have been literally told by their teacher in like year two and that you're dumb.
And so they've held onto that their entire life.
And as an adult, they continue to believe that that's true.
And that's just, well, I'm not a smart person.
So, you know, I can't do that job or I can't do this.
So it's almost like if you did that re-scripting.
It's like the psychologist could explain to the teacher she's doing the best she can.
Yes, yes.
And to have like someone of authority tell the teacher, you shut up.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Yeah.
Because there's so much you don't know about this girl.
Yes.
Yeah.
In fact, I've done very similar ones to them.
Really?
Yeah.
Particularly around ADHD and particularly around going back to the memories of being in the classroom.
Yeah.
And like memories of, you know, really struggling.
Yeah, the therapist comes in and talks to the teacher or talks to the other kids, and just you know, and it doesn't have to go into bully attack mode from the therapist's point of view.
It can just be firm, assertive response to you know, to really change how that part is being experienced.
Yeah, because you just know for sure.
Assuming that the therapist is good and you respect the therapist.
It's like my therapist knows more than this fucking teacher.
Like it sort of makes it you believe it more because it's like they, of course, they didn't know.
They're like a 25-year-old teacher who...
Had a lot on their plate.
Had a lot on their plate.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
I'm conscious that there might be people listening who have had really traumatic things that they would like to explore this kind of therapy for, like I don't know if it's neglect or childhood trauma or anything like that.
How would someone who's gone through something really, really hard it's very painful to go back into what's the entry level version of it.
Yeah, that's a really good question.
Because we would never like I would never dive into doing really.
What we're talking about is exposure work.
So doing imagery work is exposure work.
So we really want to be resourcing someone with like distress tolerance skills.
So that is like skills to help you when you're getting overwhelmed.
So you know, and for anyone that is entering therapy, you know yes, you might want to seek out a therapist that might specialize in trauma for a start.
And it's this notion here that we have to have a sense of safety and stabilised safety in order to do the work.
So it would be really, in my mind, harmful and unhelpful to go to the imagery work quickly.
It takes quite a long time.
And so we really want to be making sure that you have enough skills to bring you back into your window of tolerance to be able to do the work.
We don't want to flood you with these traumatic images or traumatic experiences.
It would just be too much for the body and the mind to deal with.
So am I right in assuming that, like if someone's hearing this and think like oh, I really want to do this, it's probably the approach?
Probably is not going to be contacting a psychologist and booking in like a re-scripting session?
It takes time to build up to that.
Or giving it a crack yourself.
Or giving it a crack yourself, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean this is, in terms of therapy, this is really important work but it needs to be undertaken obviously with a lot of care and attunement. and always having informed consent from the client too.
And also I really want to acknowledge that it's not a fix.
And this is what can so often get really emphasised is that there's one particular strategy or one particular technique that will give the magic cure, and it's just not that.
You know this is ongoing practice and that you know when we do this work, it can feel very distressing.
So you know I'm not wanting to sell it as the cure-all, but it's an important facet of like healing.
Yeah.
Wow.
Dr. M, so good to have you here on A Little More Impact.
I think I've gone totally off track from the original question.
I don't think you have at all.
That was great.
That was amazing.
I'm almost like I feel sorry for everyone who's not. going to hear this.
I was like, that's a real shame because that is so, so helpful.
So yeah.
So if you're listening and you think that was really helpful, then please tell everyone that this exists, because it's that is yeah.
Unlike our other episodes on A Little More Imperfects, which are like fun and, you know, sometimes really helpful and meaningful, but that is, that is, everyone needs to hear that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, it's a real treat to be here.
Thanks, Alex.
No, me too.
How fun.
Great to have the North Easterly waft through.
Hugh will be back, though, for the next Little More Imperfects, we hope.
We miss you, Hugh.
Love you, Hugh.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Yeah, well, we did miss you.
It's so good to have you back.
Now that music at the end that was playing.
For those who don't know, that is the theme music for A Little More Imperfects.
And, like I was saying, it's a lot of fun that show but, as you'll also hear in that episode, but we do also get a little bit vulnerable and we do talk about stuff that we don't talk about in the main show as well.
So, yeah.
And I think, for anyone who is already a subscriber, very exciting news for you that there will be a lot more of Dr M in A Little More Imperfects this year.
For those of you who don't subscribe, don't worry.
She'll still be in the main feed, the free feed, a lot throughout the year as well.
But she's going to be doing a lot more bonus content, maybe a few sort of QAs and things like that throughout the year.
So she'll be answering people.
So subscribers can subscribe and then ask questions to Dr. M, which she might answer.
Yeah, which is huge.
I don't know why I just mansplained Q&A to you.
There's more mansplaining to the whole audience.
So what you're saying, Josh...
Well, yeah, it's going to be such a big year on A Little More Imperfects.
A Little More, Imperfects will have a lot more Dr M, and that's always good news because, as we all know and we've all accepted, Dr Emily is becoming far more popular than anything else on the podcast.
So that's fine.
That's fine.
We're cool about it.
We're very cool about that, aren't we, Hugh?
Yeah, whatever.
Whatever.
No, she is the queen and we bow down to her as our queen.
Exactly.
That is now contractual for her now, so we do have to do that.
Yeah, and if you're wondering how you sign up, you can do it at Patreon or on Apple Podcasts.
So that's literally, you go to patreon.com.
Yes.
And you search for the imperfects or a little more imperfects.
Limited space is getting quick.
No, there is unlimited space.
I know, but I'm just like.
Oh, you're trying to up the hype.
Well, yeah.
Well, between you and us, there is unlimited space.
But if anyone asks, it's very limited.
Very exclusive.
It's a while stocks last situation.
I should also say that if you join through Patreon, that allows you to comment on Epps.
There's community forums there.
There's a lot more discussion and interaction with us and with others who listen to the show.
But if all you want is the extra content, then you can use Apple Podcasts.
Yeah, we are having a good time in there with our community.
Oh, we are.
I know it says a little more imperfect, but it's a heap more work.
Fun.
And work.
But we're cool with that.
We love that.
We're having a ball.
Yeah.
Great.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Summer's great.
We love summer.
Get back to the beach.
Or maybe you're at the beach right now.
Don't throw chips on the beach because you'll be surrounded by seagulls.
Yeah.
That's always my advice.
It is always.
Always.
All right.
We'll see you next week, everyone, for more Summer Bonus.
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The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11, 14.
