How Childhood Shapes Your Emotions with Dr. Brendan Doherty

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1:44 Welcome to our podcast. OK, welcome back to the Going Pro Yoga podcast, Michael here. And today we have Brendan Daugherty back in the house. Doctor Brendan, how are you? Hello everyone, lovely to be here. Yeah, so Brendan's been on the podcast before a few episodes previously to this one. So if you're curious to hear from Doctor Brendan, first episode was actually 113 where we talk about, or at least it's titled, How to Change Your Mind.

2:13 So talking more about the mind. So in case you are tuning into this episode and you're unfamiliar with Doctor Brendan, Doctor Brendan is a clinical psychiatrist who is actually from New Zealand, but is lived in Australia for quite a long time and now living in Bali and also a neighbor and close friend. Absolutely.

2:33 And then addition to that episode, we actually did a series with Brendan probably a few months ago, episodes 132 to 135, where we actually connect the dots between mental health from, let's say, a scientific, clinical perspective and then relating it back to yoga, the yoga philosophy and yoga lifestyle. So kind of bridging that gap a little bit. So wonderful episodes there.

2:55 You can check them out. Otherwise, for today, we're going to actually, we're probably going to talk into the development of, let's just say the mind more or less because of the context of, you know, in teacher trainings and a lot of lectures that I've taught over the years.

3:15 And I noticed the interest for a lot of people is about trying to be better, trying to learn how to regulate their emotions, how to, you know, rid themselves of traumas and tensions and stresses that exist in their body to some effect anyhow.

3:34 And, you know, often times it comes into the context of like, you know, we we accumulate a lot of this, what we call Dukha or samskaras in the body patterns, conditions, responses or reactions rather from certain experiences throughout our life because we experience emotions. And usually when we're younger, we don't have a quite have the development, possibly the resources or maybe the support, you know, combination of those, all those things that might result in some of those

4:04 emotional energy patterns kind of getting stuck within our system. So I think it's important a little bit to know or learn a little bit about like the development of us as humans and kind of possibly where we might actually, yeah, be able to just kind of learn a bit more about ourselves and then understanding as adults, like, oh, OK, so that's, you know, that makes sense why, you know, that stuff kind of happens when we're younger.

4:31 Because I think a lot of people feel like, I don't know if this is true, but like maybe shame sometimes if they have certain traumas or things that kind of make them irritable in situations when others aren't. And they're like, oh, you know, they feel maybe some shame or some, I don't know what the word is, but so yeah, I think this might be helpful to just inform people a little bit more of like, yeah, this is super normal. Like everyone kind of goes

4:53 through this process. So basically, yeah, we have Doctor Brendan here to kind of help kind of go through a little bit of that understanding. And I know a little bit about the the stages of development ultimately, but we're just kind of kind of go through it and go back and forth and see how it goes. What?

5:07 Do you think good? Yeah. And I know that your audience has is actually quite a literate audience. You know, these are people that are interested in development, the mind, trauma, emotions, because that comes with the territory of yoga.

5:23 So I think people would have heard a lot of these concepts potentially. Hopefully I can add something. A lot of the stuff, you know, I'm, I'm a generalist, a psychiatrist, knows a lot about the mind, knows a lot about mental illness, But also we don't tend to go down specific areas and huge amounts of neurological detail, but we understand the bigger picture. I mean, some people do this clinical research, psychiatrists that do that are more like neuroscientists, but we see the bigger picture.

5:53 And that's that's where I think I can, I can add something to this conversation. Amazing. Cool. So where do you think would be a good place to start? I mean, I think about, you know, when we're younger, basically, I don't know what age we start to, you know, understand emotions, but we definitely feel them from even before birth, I'm sure. But when we might actually have some sort of intellectual or cognitive changes happen where we might actually have the capacity to understand, oh, you

6:22 know, you are feeling anger right now. Maybe the parent or the guide maybe be able to actually like relay that information back. Do you have any insight on that? It's a. Staged process, OK. And, and there's debate about this.

6:35 And even within as animals, there's been a lot of debate on what type of animals can feel emotions or what type of, you know, some people would say even plants feel emotions and, you know, or insects. So it kind of depends on what your definition of emotion is, but it's an internal feeling that we respond to, right? Obviously child has emotions because a crime is a shows an emotion of despair.

7:03 So we're born with the ability to to feel emotion, no doubt about it. But then are we conscious of that? Do we understand that that that comes in a staged process? We were just talking briefly about the idea of empathy before this.

7:21 And again, there's no concrete answer to that, but it's generally thought that empathy is available in young people, say from about two years onwards. But there's also evidence that empathy occurred before that. And if you think about a child who starts to smile, that happens in the first year of life or probably in the first six months of life in order to smile, you're responding typically is something that your parents do to you, right.

7:54 So that that involves the use of what we call mirror neurons. And mirror neurons are these types of neurons that allow us to understand what's going on in someone else's mind and feel that empathy. So if you get angry at me, then that makes me angry because my or, or I feel your anger because my mirror neurons are firing. I'm looking at your face, I'm feeling your energy and that that that activates my mirror neurons. Whereas if you're happy and smiling and that affects me and I can, I can feel your emotion

8:26 through those mirror neurons. And those are there from very early on. But you know, they developed and people to the certain or, you know, more or lesser extent, but that that's the core concept. Is that kind of related to like Co regulation when it comes to younger people?

8:45 Absolutely related to it, yeah. I mean, Co regulations perhaps more about being able to hold someone else's emotion. So that's going to come into you, you're going to feel it and then you're going to help someone process it because a child is not really born with the ability to to regulate themselves essentially. So that happens through usually the parent being with that person and showing them how to regulate involves, you know, breathing, eye gazing, different

9:14 physiological processes like that. Interestingly, some people don't learn that as well because you have a parent that wasn't so good at it themselves, then you're not so good at regulating yourself. And it's something that a lot of us have to to learn later in life. One of the reasons why yoga is so useful because it's a type of regulation.

9:34 So thinking about like younger people, children ourselves at one point experiencing emotions, we have people around us that care and, and hopefully are supporting us during those times to kind of go through the processing of that.

9:50 I imagine some sort of intellectual component of like, hey, you know, like you are feeling sadness right now and this is a normal thing, you know, mommy feels sadness, daddy feels sadness, you know, and it will pass. Like almost like bringing this like theoretical like facts to a younger person would probably contribute to their ability to learn how to process or at least in that moment.

10:11 What do we think? Absolutely, that's probably. Naming an emotion is a very important part of growing up because if someone doesn't tell you, like if someone, if someone doesn't ever tell you what the color red is, you never know what the color red is. You just see it and you're kind of it's a non existent experience to you.

10:31 It's just a thing. But until someone says, oh, that's red, then you're like, Oh yeah, it's red. Yeah. And red maybe makes you feel a certain way. So we say name it detainment, right. So in particularly in younger people, but it applies to adults as well.

10:49 If you're with someone in like in a caregiver role, it's really powerful to say, seems like you're really frustrated right now. And, you know, we go from the sort of more basic emotions like anger and happiness or joy to more complex emotions like jealousy, frustration, you know, different types of complex emotions.

11:11 And, and there's kind of layers to those that you can, you can on Earth, I guess, by using, by putting language to them. I work with young people in the, the custodial system and I do notice that a lot of them haven't been able to put words to how they're feeling. And unfortunately, that's when they're more likely to act out, you know, through violence if they aren't able to understand, say, if they're angry.

11:37 So it can be very powerful for someone to. And it takes repetition, right, to to help someone understand what being angry feels like because then you can talk about it, say, oh, I feel angry. You don't need to enact it. Yeah, probably easier to learn that when we're younger, if possible. Yeah, because I'm imagining as an adult. Well, I mean, I am an adult, but like someone who might be, I don't want to say called out, but they're like it. There's an acknowledgement like,

12:05 hey, you look like you're angry. And that might actually make them feel more like I'm not angry. And then it's like, you know what I mean? Like it might actually, there might be some like shame behind acknowledging an emotion or shame behind like revealing this emotion. Maybe it's not shame, but there's something there. I just know that sometimes it's being called out is not a thing that that's really like, but I can imagine. I mean.

12:30 Yeah, we have protective mechanisms against it and as we don't understand what it is, then we develop some sort of other understanding of what it is. And most of us don't want to be caught out on our on our shit. Right. Yeah.

12:41 So like 100% your point. The best place to do that probably isn't therapy. Some people would say you're your partner is your, you know, most important teacher or your spiritual teacher. So when they call you out, of course in a nice way, then help you can you know if you have enough humility and and growth mindedness, you can reflect on it perhaps like a day later. Or you break up, you know.

13:04 Yeah, many avenues there. Yeah. Cool. Interesting. Yeah. I was thinking with regards to when we're younger because I had. I don't have any children myself, but a lot of niece and nephews, 12 to be exact. And I see my siblings raising them in, in different styles, right?

13:25 Many parents, many kids, so different styles in which they're being raised. And I noticed that from being an adult and seeing this like emotional, like learning of emotions, especially like a lot in teacher trainings and acknowledging certain emotions. There's that protective mechanism like that seems to be like almost like established.

13:46 And it's like there's a certain system here that knows how to handle this situation, whether it be, let's say, an appropriate way to handle the situation versus when you're younger, you still haven't quite fully developed how to kind of manage that situation. So you're there's a little bit more receptivity to learning. Oh, you know, this seems like you're experiencing anger right now or it seems like you're experiencing sadness. So there's less of the pushback

14:08 what I noticed with the younger people and more of like a, oh, is that what that is? OK, cool. Great. Yeah, the really important concept here is attachment. In my opinion, the basic premise of avoidant attachment is that your negative emotions aren't welcome, They're pushed away, and you learn that it's not safe to express your negative emotions, so you push them away.

14:38 So if you have a caregiver that, you know, let's say, and actually the stuff forms a lot earlier than we might, you might think, so your attachment style, it forms within the first two to three years of your life. It is changeable, it's possible, but the basis of it and your inherent patterns are in the first few years, like before you can even properly talk.

15:02 But if you have a caregiver that when, let's say I'm a kid, like a baby and I come to you and I'm crying and that's not a, you know, for whatever reason, it's difficult for you to deal with that and then you shut it down or like you can't deal with it.

15:17 And we say, you know, please be quiet. Don't, don't, don't allow that to, to be expressed. Then as a child, attachment takes precedence over everything. So, and we call that sort of proximity and safety. So it's like a, you know, as a baby, you're kind of helpless. So we take priority of that physical safety over our emotional development.

15:41 And so if you shut that down, a parent or whoever attachment figure shuts that down, then I learn that the best thing for me to do is to not express those negative emotions. And I don't even know what they are really. And that's how that's how you develop avoidant attachment.

15:59 And so as a broad, as a broad term or a broad idea, you can have all these negative emotions that you're not willing to accept in yourself and it feels unsafe to accept them. So when you're trying to express them later in life, it feels horrible. And if someone asks you to challenge us on that or, or get you to try and express it, then that can be a very powerful thing.

16:22 And, and you can, you can reject it as a person until you're ready to, to feeling, feeling safe enough to express those negative emotions. And that takes a really good partnership with therapy. Yeah, in partnership or in relationships, having a mirror put up to highlight some of those things. I don't know, You said sometimes it's good therapy and it works. I mean, it worked pretty well in in, in my relationship in moments.

16:49 But I also know that there was a lot of like, you know, not really accepting the mirror being put up and kind of like pushing the ego. And maybe in a lot of relationships when that happens, it's it results in a separation probably because then I don't want to be called out.

17:06 I actually don't want to be highlighted my, my, my shortcomings or these types of things, my insecurities or so you mentioned attachment patterns. So basically if we are not able to understand the emotions that we're experiencing, we're not giving it an opportunity to even like go through that process, regardless of, so basically shutting it down or what I would call this is like according to social norms or societal norms, like, you know, crying on a, on

17:41 a train or on a, on a plane or a bus or something like that, where there's other people around the, the, the parents or the, the guardians might feel embarrassment because their child is crying or something like that. So they'll try to like, shut the kid down by saying like, stop crying or like, they'll try to shut it up basically instead of trying to figure out why maybe. And then that child is basically develops the understanding that I shouldn't be, or at least to

18:08 some degree not, I shouldn't be feeling these things and I need to hide it what I do. Yeah. And then as an adult, that basically solidifies even more so. And it becomes harder to kind of unravel later on. Yeah, that's right.

18:18 I mean, kudos to parents out there. And I don't have kids either, so I don't want to be shaming parents that do this. And actually sometimes you just got to help the child be quiet because everyone's getting it's a bit much. But I think the point is that at least some of the time or the majority of the time, it's more helpful to understand and allow the child to express emotions up to a limit because there is that limit where it's, you know, you just need to sort of train someone to to self soothe.

18:46 But yeah. Yeah, I would imagine at home, like in a, in a, you know, this, I'm not turning this into a parent podcast. We are definitely not suitable, not the expert to do that. But I can imagine in a home setting or in a safe container, you know, that's a great time for the child to learn from, you know, that experience, whatever they might be upset about. And then for them to like be like, oh, you know, it seems like you're upset about something or or, you know, loud out and just trying to like

19:12 become curious about why they're experiencing what they're experiencing. And then for the child themselves in a public place or in a busier place, there's a lot going on probably especially with the public place, right. So the receptivity, the distraction, the energy, there's a lot. It would be harder to, for that to be like a teachable moment, let's just say.

19:30 So I would say like what you're saying is like, you know, it might be appropriate to just try to get them to be quiet in those moments. Yeah, that makes sense to me. But setting it up beforehand when possible, if possible, you know, so obviously a little bit of developmental support at home before going into these settings would probably allow the child to have a bit of a reference point to be like, you know, you know, we've talked about this before, you know, So, you know,

19:57 I think my dad used to do this actually. That's with the older child I think. Yeah. Is it with an older child? Yeah. OK. I. Mean like you can't really reason or talk with a 1 1/2 year old that's screaming their lungs out. When can you reason with a?

20:10 When do they when do they start to develop those reasoning skills? But like you have primary school years, elementary school years. Yeah, OK, cool. All right, so that helps to get a bit of a context of, you know, why we might have some avoidance patterns of experience or not.

20:27 I don't wanna say avoidance, but maybe like pushing away certain emotions or not allowing yourself to feel certain emotions as adults. But I do know that the that the, I think it's the frontal lobe that only starts to fully develop at like 25 or something like this, which is allows us to actually fully really to understand the full spectrum of emotion. Is that something to that effect? Yeah, I think that that actual figure is debated. OK.

20:57 I actually, I actually talked about this in the last podcast actually, that I don't think the frontal lobe ever stops developing. It's like a lifetime where we we used to have this dichotomous thing where brain cells like this, the brain was plastic or, or it was actually fully developed at one stage, but it actually can develop at any time in life provided the right circumstances.

21:19 You don't tend to make new neurons after after you're being an adult. There are a few exceptions to that, but the more sort of accurate times when our frontal lobes is fully developed, I've heard actually well into your 30s. It used to be mid 20s, but you know, it's certainly, and it works with my own experience too. I feel like my my frontal lobes are at hell. They're still developing.

21:45 I'm 39, but like early 30s I think was the the one I've heard the frontal lobes is so complex too, but also they're not necessarily the seat of emotion. Like the limbic system, which is sort of more deeper, deeper part of the brain is where your emotions really arise from. But probably the more complex the concepts is where we we would understand how where the frontal lobes would help us understand.

22:10 And that's developing straight from birth, right? Probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, So what is it like age wise you said like empathy and stuff like that starts, you know, based off of research like as as early as two but possibly even earlier.

22:26 But I'm thinking like, you know, if I was a parent, I was raising a child and I'm like working with this child over the years and thinking to myself, like, when is this kid going to be ready to be able to understand some of this stuff?

22:37 You know what I mean? Like is that kind of like on a case by case basis or is there actual like neurological developmental stage ish approximate guidelines for us to know like, OK, the kids probably ready for a little bit more type of thing. Do you have any insight on that?

22:53 It completely depends on on what it is. Yeah. Like there are basic sort of milestone guidelines in terms of, you know, how people, you know, when people, when children use words, you know, how many words they use at a certain age, when they walk, that kind of thing. The world of psychosocial development is a little bit more, it's complex and more nuanced, but there are stages that you go through as you as you sort of normal stages. And the probably the most

23:26 useful, the concept for that is Ericsson's stages of development. And these are this is a bunch of stages all the way from birth all the way to when you die that people will go through in terms of their psychosocial development. They're not really correlated to different brain stages because as you said before, we've got all those brain structures. It's just how they're pruned.

23:48 So just speaking first, neurologically, the amount most of your brain cells are actually being formed when you're in utero and just after, you know, the first couple of years and after. So after that, if you ever look at a brain or slices of brain tissue from that time, the amount of you're kind of your, your brain is like an overgrown Bush of neurons. There's just so much development going on. And what happens after that is it turned, it's called pruning literally, where you reduce the

24:23 amount of neuronal connections, not the amount of neurons necessarily, but not amount of connections. And you kind of solidify the pathways that are more likely. And, and you're doing that with every single moment of the day or every single interaction. You're really kind of propagating which, you know, part of your brain is going to be the most prominent in years to come in terms of psychosocial development. These kind of words that they get put through a different types of, we'll say like life

24:57 tasks that you go through. The very first one is really about trust. You know, are you able to trust the world and what's out there? And that's really from, you know, 0 to one. Then we go through a few others leading to, you know, developing initiative, developing competence, developing sense of self or identity, developing connection and love, then we call generativity.

25:25 So that's, you know, creating something like your your working years, so to speak. And then it's sort of, you know, the possibility to develop wisdom later in life. And each of those have a has a negative correlate as well.

25:37 But the thing about these these levels is that that's the general progression. But if you don't get one of those, then that's going to kind of that can hold you back a little bit or you're going to have to face some other challenges later in life, right? So, and what we often see is some of the ones really early in life, those aren't even kind of a known thing. But sometimes people just don't feel safe. They're always on edge.

26:04 They can't trust the world. And that might have been, that's the kind of that's really damaging. So if you don't have a basic sense of safety and trust in the first year of life, then that's going to stick with you. Like that's something that's going to take a lot of therapy and a lot of, you know, being in safe situations to really rewire yourself to have that basic understanding that the world is a safe place to be. Some of the more common ones,

26:32 like I certainly recognize it myself as a sense of competency, which is actually a task in, you know, merely your elementary school years, like your, your ability to feel like you're, you're worthy and you've got something and you, you know, you're confident you're, you can bring something to the world.

26:50 And it's funny, but that's actually quite an early developmental things. And if you, if you don't develop that, then you might just find that you're sort of trying to prove yourself and that, you know, when you don't really need to because you're already already whole.

27:03 So that's the common thing for people to to sort of grasp. And then also this idea of identity. Identity is a fun one because the world's completely changed. And particularly if you've got, you know, somewhat itinerant or you don't really understand what your role is in life and you haven't been given that chance or that freedom to be who you really are going to be, then it can take many years to develop a sense of identity. And then of course, the idea of,

27:33 you know, love, like can you, can you love someone? Can you be loved? And, and that's a, that's a role for for several decades. And of course, some people will manage to, to find that in their, in their late teens and early 20s and other people, it's a lifetime job or it never happens. But all these things kind of like if people are, well, no, it's actually, but, but all of these things kind of have a trajectory, but there's no set time when they actually must happen.

28:03 So that last piece about like identity is that kind of relating to people just not really knowing who or say people, but like younger people tend to be like, I don't really know who I am yet. I'm trying to like discover myself and trying to figure out what I want and all that stuff.

28:16 Is that kind of like unfolding or trying to identify themselves? 100% in the world, yeah. It's really the job of your teenage years. And that's why, you know, kids are rebellion at that stage because they, they want an identity, they want to try something different. They they want to differentiate from their parents. They want to be them, be, be someone that's not, you know, they know they want to be identified by being with their parents.

28:42 They want to individuate. So that's really the, the job of the teenage years. Yeah. So then my next question is thinking about kind of going in different directions here, but I don't, you know, whatever my podcast identity and let's say it's formed or we, you know, we figured out some sort of idea of who we are as an adolescent or a teenager. And then we get to an adult and all of a sudden we see the world differently.

29:10 Certain experiences happen. I don't know, maybe doing a yoga teacher training or, you know, you're exposed to something outside of your, your usual living environment. And then all of a sudden, boom, you know, the the terms like my world flipped upside down or, you know, I had this experience that kind of just, I forgot what the word is, but basically it just it changes things for them to a grandiose kind of perspective. And all of a sudden who they

29:36 thought they were is not, you know, they things are changing now. Like I actually don't want to work at this job. I actually don't want to be with this partner anymore. This is actually not where I want to live. And all of a sudden this sense of identity is being like challenged and possibly growing or changing into a different path, which may also result in them still not really sure of who they are.

29:57 But knowing that at least I'm not who I thought I was or something to that effect at least. I would say there's certain elements of that within my experience of teacher trainings as people kind of not really sure always, you know, what they're doing.

30:09 So they'll come do a teacher training and then they start to either get clarity or possibly be more confused afterwards on who they are, what they might want to do. So I think that's interesting, no? It is interesting in that case you're talking about either the person didn't know who they were in the 1st place when they weren't in touch with their true self, or they were but their true self is changing and they're both very different situations. So someone who's had the ability

30:37 to understand who they are, just because you have your identity doesn't mean you can't change it. It's more relating to the to the sense of who you are and sort of tuning into your true self as opposed to someone who has learned to be someone that they aren't actually.

30:57 And they've had sort of more of what we call like a false self. And then they get the opportunity in the teacher training to actually express who they really are. That tend like the thing about yoga teacher trainings is that provided they're set up well and they have a safe enough experience, they do tend to give people that that experience for some strange reason. I'm not quite sure why, but probably it depends a lot on the facilitators.

31:27 I would say strongly yes, as well as the other peers and how it's all being honestly managed or controlled to maintain that container. So I wrote down a question. So how does a false sense of identity develop, you think?

31:42 Well, it's like trying to, is this like because of like the the being raised in a particular way and like, it's almost like you're being pushed into an identity. Yeah, I think. So it's like I see it as a multifaceted thing that allows people to to tune in to who they really are. And when there's other agendas in the family, like there's another, there's another need, say for instance, the families in a a dangerous situation and they, the kid needs to say be more of a protector or, or the

32:19 child is not allowed to express themselves, perhaps because the parent is afraid of shame or they feel the shame themselves or something that they're doing is not acceptable. Then a child can get pushed away from what it is that they really feel inside. And the more the less freedom they have and the more that false parts of their personality are rewarded, the more likely it is that they're going to develop a false self. And that's actually really

32:48 common, right? Because our parents were brought up in a time different times to us. So they had different priorities. And sometimes that priority is, say, safety or, you know, financial abundance or being seen by the world as XY or Z.

33:09 And then if they aren't able to let go of that sense of the world and allow the child to be free to express themselves how they want to be expressed, and. They get inundated into it. Then they learn to be someone that they're not, and they spend the rest of their life sometimes uncovering those layers of the onion to find what's really deep.

33:29 OK. I've got a lot of that. I've seen a lot of that. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I've been that. Yes, I am that. Yeah. OK, cool. This is insightful and helpful. I mean, I'll give you an give you an example like I, you know, I've spoken about this before. I'm a doctor and I sort of my parents certainly didn't, they didn't make me be a doctor, but there was some sort of environment in where I felt like I needed to to be science based. And I probably can't get gave a

34:08 lot of care more than I needed to give. And somehow that pushed me into being a doctor. Like I'm not blaming anyone. That's just how I was. But I do think partly that's not like where my my destiny is. Like that's not my calling in life for some people get into a caring position saying no, I've always wanted to be a neuroscientist. That's what I'm going to do, you know, And they're just fully into it where I don't feel like that it's a part of my personality.

34:34 I, I really enjoy what I do. It's interesting, it's a good job, but other parts of me needed to just sort of uncover themselves as life's going on. And that's part of the reason why I'm, you know, I'm doing what I'm doing.

34:47 That's you're not spending all of my time in clinical psychiatry because I enjoy exploring these parts, these parts of myself and understanding my true nature and getting closer to that. Yeah, I can relate to that strongly. Yeah.

35:01 Yeah, mostly just because I don't know. And especially nowadays, I find people are kind of like changing jobs, changing careers, trying one thing for a few years and they're like, now I'm going to go over here. It might be part of that discovery process.

35:13 But similar to your story, like I thought I and I love being a physiotherapist. Like I'd love learning about the body. And now it's kind of gotten to a stage where this might not come across humility with humility, but like I'm kind of bored about learning or like teaching about the body because it's just like, you know, there's still to be learned. But I just feel like a lot of it's just the same stuff for me. So I'm kind of like, well, what else can I learn into? What else can I dive into?

35:39 So yoga is another Ave. that explores even deeper for me. So that's definitely my current Ave. of identity seeking. But yeah, I can, I can imagine a lot of people relate to thinking they want one thing and then doing that for a while and then realizing like, oh, that's actually not what I wanted.

35:57 But it took me that amount of time to figure that out. And that's actually OK. But I can imagine some people might feel, and I know some people close to me that might actually feel shame from changing things from one thing to the next thing 'cause they're, they're indecisive or they think they're the story that they might be telling themselves is that they're indecisive, they're flaky, or, you know, they can't hold a commitment to a job or they can't whatever it is, which is very counterintuitive to let's

36:22 just say the generation before me or my parents, not before me, but like my parents generation, which would be more so like you get a job and you hold it through and you stick to it. You don't quit and you commit. And like, that's just, that's what it is, right? But with that mindset, not mentality, you're basically saying like, OK, whatever identity I am presented with or pushed into is that's it for me until the end, basically, right. But now this ability to, or at

36:50 least there's more space to, you know, try different things and possibly even, you know, try different careers or whatever it is. It's more accepted I would say, but also still probably scary for a lot of people because of the it's different from what you know was previously taught or previously guided I would say. Yeah, and it's, it's probably people have heard about it. It's very common to be able to switch a job now like it's it's almost encouraged or expected a

37:20 very different, I guess way of thinking than our parents had in general. I a clue to this type of thinking, and it's a linguistic clue, is using a lot of shoulds. If you're talking to yourself and saying I should do this, I should do that, or you're hearing people say you should do this, should do that, then that's a clue that you're not tuning into what it is that you actually want or need.

37:44 And I would suggest to use those words. I want, it's OK to want. I want this or I want that, or even more so I need to be doing this to fulfill whatever it is that I want to fulfill. Those are the words that you should be using. Should be using.

38:04 Damn, you really caught me up with that one. Those are the words. Hang on, just delete that last bit. We're going to say those are the words that you need to be using. OK, be more supportive to use maybe. No, it's true though.

38:20 I mean, the should thing it always, it's always a, I wouldn't say it's a trigger, but it definitely triggers something in my brain when I hear someone say should, I'm like that. Like tells me something about you. It tells me that you you feel like like this is the only option. This is what it has to be.

38:34 Because the should is it's kind of almost an absolute. It's like a soft absolute. Yeah, so. It kind of reduces your options or like it doesn't tune into what it is that you want. Yeah, OK. But now you've gone that way. You know what?

38:49 If someone really wants to use, should, and that's what they need to use. At least you should. Yeah, yeah. Just don't shit yourself to death. That's it what it is. OK, cool. So let's see, What else do I have here? Oh. So I think moving into the aspect of, OK, we're kind of getting a little bit more sense of, you know, how we develop as humans and, and, you know, young people and teenagers and adults and, you know, all the things that we're kind of like playing

39:16 with now. At least the people listening to this podcast, I imagine a lot of them are adults, right? Maybe playing with their identity, playing with different changes and things like that. And then also some of them might be, you know, challenged with like, let's say, barriers, whether it be from, you know, could be related to mental health or things or beliefs or patterns that are kind of stopping them from possibly unlocking certain or, or under

39:46 things, certain things about who they are or who their true self might be, which is kind of what I alluded to at the beginning. Like a lot of people want to be better. They want to like trying to release themselves of certain traumas. They want to release themselves of these conditions and these patterns.

39:58 And, you know, yoga is obviously a great way to do that. And you know, the practice itself is, when we're consistent with it, will slowly help to reduce those some scars that we have developed over the years. But as a clinical psychiatrist, there is appropriate times, absolutely where people should actually probably seek a little bit more help in therapy, right?

40:18 Yeah. So you had mentioned before the podcast that would be a good thing to kind of like speak to a bit. Yeah. So let's kind of transition there. I know probably more so now in the last, let's say decade or possibly 2, therapy is becoming more accepted and more needed for the reasons of mental health being becoming more on a, an epidemic scale. Whether it be related to, I don't know, us being so connected to the world and so much information that it's just overwhelming in itself.

40:48 You know, got COVID. There's lots of reasons why our mental health can be affected and, you know, trying to handle it all ourselves and trying to just rely on yoga itself and trying to, you know, meditate our way into to to fixing it all is not necessarily always the easiest and best way to do it.

41:06 So when it comes to therapy, like what are some identifiers for someone to be like? I've never done it before. How do I know if I should or I'm afraid to do it? Like what? What do you have to say about that kind of concept for someone you know?

41:21 Yeah, we'll look at the outset. Provided it's a good therapy and a good match therapy is going to probably benefit most people. So if you're considering it and you're thinking I would like to give therapy a go, provided you do it the right way, it's probably going to be a good thing to do.

41:38 Speaking more technically. And the other the other thing, there's just a big wide world of therapies out there. So there's really something for everyone. There are so many different types of talking therapies. There's plenty of non talking therapies that or hands on therapies that there really is something for everyone specifically. Like there's a lot of mental health conditions that just respond to therapy.

42:02 So depression, anxiety, even things where it's not directly related to cure like schizophrenia, it reduces symptoms. I can't really think of a mental health condition with therapy is not going to have benefit provided it's the right type of therapy.

42:19 Some people would say that psychopathy or any social personality disorder doesn't really respond to it, but even then I challenge if it's the right therapy at the right place at the right time. It's it can be useful. But then like thinking outside of the mental health disorder, if someone's into personal development, then therapy is probably going to be useful. The more you like to talk and express yourself, or if you're not very good at expressing

42:49 yourself or you're afraid to express yourself, therapy is a great place to do that. I think a lot of people just benefit from expressing things that they feel like they can't express in other places. It's very, very, very freeing.

43:03 So if you trust the therapist to do that, then that's absolutely beneficial. Some people use therapy to even like do all sorts of things like practice talks. There's organizational or corporate therapists that can help with job performance. Of course, that's going more a little bit more into the coaching world.

43:26 There is that sort of difference between therapy and coaching, but that's pretty blurred as well. The basic difference is that therapy typically is an evidence based method and it's controlled by some sort of board or something like that, whereas coaching tends to be more experience based. But even there, you know people coaches can have degrees as well.

43:47 So both are useful depending on on what you're looking for. But I'd say there's very few times in therapy it's not good. The problem is, is that not all therapies are great. Not all therapists are great that. Was where my questions were going to go so.

44:03 So speaking to that, and this is kind of cutting through, there are some people that say, I know there's a movement now I can't think of it, the name, but there's a someone that just wrote a book in the US that therapy is actually harming children. And over therapy, zation and the excessive focus on feelings is not useful because we're kind of just so self absorbed and we're not able to just get on with life because sometimes you just got to get on and do it.

44:35 But my antidote to that would be that they probably just not using the right type of therapist and you don't. If someone doesn't want therapy, we shouldn't be forcing therapy on them. But the really best therapists will find an individual therapy that is right for what that person needs. And going back to those stages of development, the best therapists are able to identify those psychological hang ups where someone is unable to progress through, there's an unconscious block or they just

45:08 don't have the right thinking patterns. They identify that and they help that person get back on the developmental trajectory to grow themselves more in life. And that's actually a very idiosyncratic, very individualized. And the best thing is to like, find someone that's willing to really do a good assessment and understand who you are and then find out, you know, help you become the person that you want to be.

45:33 How do you find one of those people? That was my question. Thank you. You're welcome. That can be tricky and some people will say I tried therapy, I don't like it. Well, you know, I can try to put one or two people or even three people, but you just haven't found your right therapist.

45:50 If you, you know, if it's, if it's a mental health condition, I try and find someone that specializes in that type of condition or whatever the issue is. Often it's really good to go off referrals so you know what works with other people is more likely to work for you, but it might not necessarily work for you. But generally good therapists are liked by many people, and this is something I've talked about a lot of. The most evidence based sort of

46:15 factor in therapy is the quality of the client therapist relationship, what we call like the therapeutic relationship or rapport. And so that really attests to the power of believing that something's going to work for you. So when you really like the person, like just think of like a friend.

46:33 If you, if you start talking to someone and you respect them and you think they're a great person and they're knowledgeable and they can help you, are you more likely to listen to them and do what they say as opposed to someone who you don't like, but they call themselves an expert in XY or Z?

46:48 Like it's an obvious answer, but the evidence shows that if you've got that good relationship and you respect the person that you're seeing, you're more likely to do to, to improve and whatever it is that you're wanting to improve on.

46:59 So that's the main thing, but it can be hard to find that person. So referrals, if you're in a country that goes off, I think it probably most countries would be like this, but most doctors or have a base of therapists that they were referred to.

47:15 So they can sometimes recommend it. There's also online hubs where you can find, you know, you can look through people's profiles, but at the end of the day it's always good to do one or two sessions and see if you're if it's the right fit and most therapists will offer that.

47:29 Yeah, cool. Yeah, that's what I was thinking is if they're not the right person for you, then you gotta move on kind of thing. Yeah, but hard feelings. Yeah, no, it coming. I've, I've experienced different therapists and I've been like, OK, like they're good.

47:44 Like I like, you know, their drive, but I didn't feel like we were driving like as a, as a, as a relationship And then having like tried different people, eventually I was just like, OK, cool. Like this person seems to get me a bit more. There seems to be some sort of like energetic connection, if you want to call it that, where I felt like a little bit more comfortable to be able to, let's say, explore, unearth certain things.

48:09 So yeah, what I'm hearing you say is basically like, you kind of have to try and just, and it's very similar to like probably a lot of other professions, to be honest, like even physiotherapists, right? People, people come to me and they'll say, oh, you don't have these issues.

48:25 I need to go see someone and I'm like, oh, OK, well, you know, sounds like something that I could probably help you with with physio and like, oh, I've seen so many physios about this and they couldn't help me. And I'm like, OK, well, you haven't seen me. Yeah, I'm different.

48:37 And, you know, I might be able to sort you out. So there is that. There's a bit of scarring that can happen from experiencing some sort of therapist or some sort of other person that didn't quite give the result that was, let's say, expected or desired. And therefore it's kind of like, well, this, this thing doesn't work, this profession doesn't work, this skill doesn't work. But I'm sure in the same space of, of psychiatry or just like same mental health support,

49:05 there's different, there's different people delivering different modalities in different ways, right? So there's a whole, there's a probably a spectrum of combinations of ways in which things can be delivered. In a healthy way. So I think the most primary thing, which is what you mentioned, is making sure that the individual that's delivering whatever it is they're delivering is the right individual for you.

49:25 The actual theory and the professionalism, all that stuff all. But while it's still important, it's actually probably secondary. What would you think? Yeah, that stuff is important, probably to get to the first stuff. So people that are really getting meld with you are probably going to take their profession seriously.

49:40 They're probably going to be committed to their job and they're going to want to help you and abide by ethical standards when you see. But yeah, until you see someone in person and really bond with them or understand like, you know, respect what they do and really feel like it's a good match, you're not going to know. And they could be the most trained person in the world and might just not be the right the right match. Yeah, bedside manners.

50:04 Yeah, I had, I had my, I had a couple of knee surgeries, but one of them was like 12 years ago, 13 years ago. And I was going through the doctors and, you know, this is like the first major, it's not even major surgery that I had years ago. So I was like very like diligent, like who do I want to pick?

50:21 Like who's going to be the right doctor for me? And, you know, meeting all these doctors and stuff like that. And a lot of them were the, the ones that were like really liked were so fully booked that it was going to take me forever to actually go through the surgery. Because in Canada it's, you know, quote UN quote free healthcare.

50:36 So it's like you got to get in line. And then I talked to one of the nurses or she might have been a doctor, but not the surgeon itself. And she said she's like, so there's this other doctor. He doesn't have the best bedside manners, so he's not exactly liked, but I can assure you he's a very good surgeon.

50:55 So in my experience, if you would be willing to meet with him, you know, you'll be able to get in a lot sooner. But just be aware that, you know, his, let's say, social scares are not exactly up to par. So she kind of prepped me and I was like, OK, like, you know, I can wait eight months, 12 months, or I could wait three months, depending on how this goes.

51:14 And when I met with him, I kind of had that lens, like, OK, like, this guy's might be a little awkward, but let's let me see. Let me check his professionalism. And his professionalism was on point, right? He was like, he knew his stuff.

51:25 He kind of did all the things. But yeah, it was like his bedside manners were, he might have been a little autistic. I don't know. His eye contact wasn't really great there. And so I was like, OK, well, I feel safe enough that, like, they can do the job, even though the bedside manners wasn't exactly there.

51:40 Now, I know the story is not exactly related to what we're talking about, but it makes me kind of think of that a little bit. No, it does your, I mean, the thing there, you were realizing that in surgery the technical aspects do really matter a lot. And yeah, it would be nice to have a good chat with him, feel like he understands you.

51:56 But as long as he understands what's wrong with your knee, then that's. That's all I care about. Yeah, just fix my knee. I don't need to be my best friend. There was an interesting study and I apologize to surgeons if you're listening and I'm I'm misquoting it, but the female surgeons actually as a group, or at least in the study sample had better outcomes than male surgeons. I was like, why is that?

52:18 But I think I think it's just because, well, first of all, at least traditionally, if you want to be a female surgeon, you needed to work probably a lot harder than a man. I don't know if the same as these days And this the standard is, is expected to be really high.

52:34 So there's that. And like particularly for women, I guess, who are wanting to have children, like it's a big thing to to go through surgical training and that disruption can be difficult. But but I was also wondering if in general, women doctors I feel like probably come across as being more caring than male doctors on average.

52:56 That's a big generalization of course. And then when patients felt cared for by the surgeon, you can actually realize that that would potentially affect their outcome because they're feeling understood and that's going to affect the, the body Physiology and how the, the, the surgery is, is going and, and also the comfortableness and contacting them and talking to them about problems, etcetera.

53:16 Yeah, I strongly agree with that. Not having any backup, but I just, I feel that even with like colleagues and people that I've worked with, I just noticed the the rapport or the the trust building factor seems to be more quickly gained. Yeah, usually with female therapists. Yeah, great.

53:37 Yeah, which is interesting. OK, cool. So let's see what else do I have notes wise here? Right person we talked about that. How do I choose? So this seems to be kind of changing a little bit. We're going to come to an end here where I just have one more question before we wrap it up.

53:55 And it's this, this statement that I'm about to say has seemed to have changed a little bit over time. But like the negative association with needing to have therapy or I have a therapist seems to be more accepted of like, oh, yeah. Like a lot of people not say should, but could benefit from having a therapist or someone to talk to, to kind of just go through that process.

54:17 And I believe that, like, everybody would probably benefit at some point in time. But I do know that there is still some of that like, oh, I don't need a therapist. Everything's fine with me. Like, you know, which might be part of that, that pushing away pattern that maybe we talked about, you know, 20-30 minutes ago of I know a therapist is going to talk about my feelings and I don't need to talk about my feelings because everything's fine kind of thing.

54:43 In fact, I have some people that I know very well and they're very close to me who basically pride themselves on not feeling emotions and pride themselves on I don't have any emotions and I'm totally fine with that. And that's what makes me be.

54:59 And like, it's almost like that's their identity is I don't have emotions, I don't feel emotions. Meanwhile, their physical manifestation is a very unhealthy one, right. But probably because those emotions are just boiling on the inside.

55:13 But yeah, I think the, the, the negative association with having a therapist or, or being in therapy seems to be changing. Yes, a little bit. Yeah, it seems to be. On the whole, I think if you're looking, I don't, I don't actually have evidence to provide this, but to prove this.

55:29 But yeah, I think there's much less stigma, particularly in the Western world. I feel like we're accepted it as and to the point where some people think that therapy has been overused and, you know, gone the other way. But yeah, it's definitely accepted.

55:44 We're also in like a relatively conscious community. So we're probably there's more acceptance where, where we live, at least the next parts. The The funny thing though, about if someone doesn't believe they need therapy or they're not going to respond to it is related to what we were talking about before. They're right.

56:05 Like it's the you can't actually whatever you believe in this situation is going to come true. So it's very difficult. I find it a very difficult situation when someone has that kind of resistance because in a way they're right because if they don't believe they're going to change, they're not going to change. And if they don't believe that therapy works, then it's not going to work for them.

56:31 So it's like it's a bit of a catch 22. So I try, I try to let people have their own own journey. Perhaps, you know, ongoing discussion about it or hearing people with positive experiences can sometimes is useful in that kind of a case. And also, they are probably right sometimes too, that some people, you know, they don't therapy can be hard and they don't want to do it and maybe there's something else that's going to give them what they want. So, you know, people are

57:01 entitled to their own journey. And I'm certainly not here to convince everyone that they need therapy. I just think if they are thinking about it and are interested about it then definitely give it a go. Yeah, yeah. If you're open to it, the receptivity is there. Exactly.

57:15 Yeah, and if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work, then go talk to your partner about it and see how that goes. Yeah, but it's good to talk to someone. Doesn't have to be a therapist, but I would say definitely, it's very important to talk to somebody, friend, family members, so someone that you make you feel safe with.

57:33 I'm sure there's someone in your life that you can think of that would be an appropriate person to talk to about almost anything that you want, or at least whatever you think you're ready to talk to you about. So doesn't always have to be a therapist necessarily, but obviously they are there as well. Yeah, that's their job.

57:52 Cool. Awesome. Well, this is, yeah. We kind of went different ways, but ultimately talking about the little bit of the development, understanding kind of the early stages of us as humans. And then kind of what we're a lot of us are dealing with now, which is this identity stuff. And like therapy and talking through and feeling out some of these emotions that we may not have felt comfortable to feel when we're definitely younger.

58:15 Yeah. Yeah, I don't feel like people know that probably most people are dealing with some sort of version of this in some sense. You don't think so? We should tell them. I feel like, yeah, we should tell them, like, this is just so common that's interested in it because it's something that doesn't necessarily get that much, you know, get much exposure.

58:39 You know, people are particularly, obviously in Bali, people are going on all these journeys like they're doing yoga or they're getting some sort of healing or they're traveling or they're like in between jobs. These are all just issues that people are dealing with. And we're all kind of finding out who we really want to be and what trajectory we want to leave. Live in this very short life.

59:01 And it's a very common experience. Everyone's suffering, everyone's having some difficulties and it's just normal. So, you know, we've got these tools to sort of help you along the way. It's a good thing to use, but don't have any shame in it.

59:14 Like it's just a normal experience. Yeah, that's good. It's true. So many people experiencing different variations of what we're talking about. So yeah, cool. Right. Well, if you have any questions and you guys want to reach out about anything that we talked about, Yeah, you can do that at podcasts that going pro yoga, or you can find us on Instagram. I'll put your Instagram on there as well, Brendan. And it's good.

59:39 People might knock you up or hit you up, I should say, not hit you up. And then, just in case you aren't a listener to Brendan's podcast, why don't you do a little plug in for yourself you seek? Sure. It's all about this stuff.

59:54 It's called the self you seek. And yeah, we look at just, you know how to unpeel, uncover those layers of the onion and lead your best self and life. Yeah. Yeah, so tune into that. We'll put a link for for that podcast as well. Otherwise, thanks so much Brendan for coming in today and sharing your knowledge and having a great discussion. Always a pleasure to chat, Michael. We'll have you on my podcast soon. Absolutely, yeah.

1:00:20 And thank you everyone for tuning in this week and we'll speak to you next week. Take care for now. All right, before you go, let me just tell you about the going proyoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for free for seven days where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment, queuing, sequencing, yoga anatomy.

1:00:43 So that if you've done a 200 hour teacher training and you want to continue to learn, practice and grow, this platform is definitely for you. So I definitely suggest checking it out. Going proyoga.com right now. You can try it out for free for seven days.