Building Resilience and Breaking Destructive Patterns

Gillian: Nikki and Michael, thank you both so much for joining me today to talk about resilience. I'm really excited for this conversation.

Michael: Yeah, for sure.

Nikki: Thank you for having me.

Gillian: So I thought that we could do quick intros in case some of our listeners don't know who we are. Michael, do you want to start us off with a little bit about you and your show?

Michael: Yeah, sure. So I have a podcast called think unbroken podcast. We've been around like six years, 700 episodes interviewed some of the greatest minds and trauma and mental health on planet earth. and it's just been my journey had a score of 10 homeless drug addict when I was 12 come from a very abusive family. I chased money in my early twenties became a millionaire by the time I was 25 wasted at all, became morbidly obese. Smoked a bunch of cigarettes, did a bunch of drugs, destroyed my life. Thirteen years later, been able to coach thousands of people around the world. So much of it is just about helping people get out of their own damn way.

Gillian: I love that, and A scores is something I think we should definitely talk about in a bit, so I'm glad that you mentioned that. Nikki, do you want to give us a little intro on you and your show?

Nikki: Sure. Hello, hello. I'm Nikki Eisenhauer and I'm from Emotional Badass where Moxie meets Mindful. I've been a psychotherapist and a life coach for 17 years. I work with trauma, I work with addiction, I work with grief and loss and highly sensitive people, and my own story. My father abandoned me, then I was adopted, I was molested, I grew up, I put him in prison, I'm no contact with my family, it's been my passion to help have more conversations on my show to spread emotional intelligence. I think it's a tragedy that we don't get, excuse my frogginess today y'all, I think it's a tragedy that we don't get. more basic, grounded, how to take care of ourselves just emotional intelligence, conversation, language. And so that's why I do the show. I want to spread healing, I thought I would have chronic post traumatic stress symptoms all of my life, and I'm happy to say I no longer do. And so I want everyone out there to know that no matter what you've been through, healing is possible, and when you figure out how to walk your healing path, it's not just possible, it's probable. You almost can't not heal when you put one foot in front of the other and just keep going.

Gillian: I love that, and I'm a long time listener of Emotional Badass, so big fan, Nikki, and I know my listeners are also huge fans, and my editor. We all fangirl you, and I'm Gill from Sober Powered, and I used to be a biochemist in my previous career, and I talk about why addiction happens to some people and not others, and why it's so hard for us to break out of the loop and realize that we have to get sober for good. I'm also a part time chemistry professor, which is something I only achieved through sobriety, and was a lifelong dream. And I grew up always thinking that this would never happen to me, I'd never let it happen to me, I thought that I was so strong, and all these things, thing. I had really good emotional intelligence and that's why I love this topic because it wasn't until I started exploring my sobriety that I realized I needed both of your work a lot in my life and years on this healing journey has helped me understand what resilience actually is. So I'd love to hear it from your perspectives first and then discuss it. Nikki, what do you think resilience means to you?

Nikki: So very simply, resilience to me is the ability to bounce. I think so much in life. When we don't have skills, coping strategies language to use to describe how we are, who we are, what's going on with us, life throws something at us and we splat and pancake on the ground if we don't have resiliency. And so resiliency really is the quality of how we actually start to learn how to bounce instead of splat so that we can bounce through what's difficult. In this life and it's really a skill, I think it's wrong to think that resiliency falls out of the sky and we either have it or we don't, these are skills that are so…

Gillian: I love that analogy. I was someone who used to splat all the time, so I think that's a perfect analogy. Michael, what does resilience mean to you?

Michael: So I'll agree, and then I'll add a little caveat to what Nikki just said, because I think there's people who grew up like me, where, you know, at 6 years old, my mother cut off my right index finger, and my stepdad was this super abusive, monstrous human being, and I grew up in deep poverty and so resilience was necessity for survival and it's almost baked into my DNA in some kind of strange way. And so I do agree in the aspect that it's like the ability to not splatt because like life is go I teach my clients this all the time. Life is going to life, there's nothing you can do about it, no matter how much you think that you have control over this shit. You don't because inevitably the next thing is coming and being resilient is really about the ability to look at the adversity and to maneuver through it and not let it destroy you because it's fascinating to me if I go look at a lot of the people I've coached who have massive success. It's not that everyone that I've worked with and every person you guys included aren't resilient, thank you. It's just, there's some people who can leverage the skill like Nikki put into place the skill of resilience to recognize what's in front of them to then bend the world to them instead of them bending themselves to the world so they can navigate what's in front of them. And most people think resilience is I'm going to get out of bed and go run 10 miles today, which maybe it is for you. But for most people, it's not, it's like. How do you deal with the bullshit that comes along with this journey in a healthy and productive way? That isn't about these coping mechanisms where you're like, life is hard, I'm going to get drunk, hook up with some stranger off the internet, smoke cigarettes, be morbidly obese and eat fast food because of it. The pain of life and I think resiliency is the ability to forgo the instant gratification of the thing that we need that satiates the pain that we have inside and instead to face that shit, deal with it and come out the other side.

Nikki: Absolutely. I think what you're talking about really are the skills because when we can start to see those life things as. All right, this is going to teach me something. What is this going to teach me? Then we get stronger. Those life things become the emotional, mental weights that we lift to get stronger. And I think so much in our society, and this is so unfortunate, I think so many people get out of childhood with this idea that I should be able to control everything and therefore I'm failing when I can't control everything. I can't control everything internally, I can't control everything externally. And so is resiliency just faking like you know what you're doing and moving through? It's so much more than our self care, like you said, Michael yeah, okay. Waking up and running is a way to maybe be resilient for life and seize the day and maybe part of your self care, but it's going to be in the nitty gritty, like when you fail, when life just shows up and smacks me across the face real hard, like it tends to do every now and then. It's how am I going to receive that? And right there in that moment is where we make the choice to go into feeling, I think, victimized by life, which is so easy to do. Or lean into how is this going to help me grow in resiliency? And I think that's a real mindset. So I'm talking about resiliency as a mindset, as a strategy for life, as a way to look at the problems that arise, the ones that we cause because we're human and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and the ones that just happen and are entirely unfair, but just happen.

Michael: Yeah. I don't, and Gill, obviously, I want to hear your thoughts on what resilience is, too, but I don't think anything about life is fair, and I think that when you come into it with that perspective, which so many people do, then you go down that spiral victimhood, and it's instead of being resilient and working through the chaos of the thing that's in front of you, it's like life isn't Yeah, no shit. So tell me something I don't know. And instead of us being weak and coddling each other all the time, it's like resilience is also in your community, like I want my friends to be like, dude, you're letting yourself down and we see it, like I want my friends and my partners and my family to be like, hey, life is hard, we get it, and this isn't. Pull yourself up from your bootstraps because I don't know that necessarily is always the answer, but it is like address the thing in front of you, please, because if you don't, then Nikki, like you said, then you're in victim hood, and to be honest with you, and this is where I always get canceled. So let's just get this out of the way early, if you want to be the victim, nobody cares, so stop complaining.

Nikki: Yeah, I'm very anti victimhood 'cause it doesn't go anywhere. It leads to misery and to continue to give into it. It's, I think it's one of the main things that can absolutely ruin your life. It's not so much the things that happen to us, it's the victim mentality around the things that happen to us that really can take down a life. Gill, what do you think about resiliency?

Gillian: always thought that people who went through a lot of really hard and or bad stuff were resilient because They had a lot of things happen to them, so I just assumed that I was a strong person because of that, but I didn't understand it's about, I forget the wording that you used, Nikki, but I really liked that. It's about how you respond to it, and Michael, you were saying this too, if something bad happens to me and then I go get drunk. I didn't really get through it at all. I put up this force field of alcohol or food or bitching at other people to try to cope with it, but I never actually got the experience of getting through. I think for me, resilience has been about becoming confident in myself and my ability to deal with hard things, so then when the next thing happens, I'm not freaking out or wanting to go self destruct. I know that I've dealt with hard things and I've moved through them, so then I can probably deal with this one too.

Michael: Yeah. And you can, because until you're dead, you have an opportunity. And that's the thing, it's funny because growing up, I would watch my community. I grew up in the hood, I grew up deeply impoverished, and if you got a check on the 1st you were winning the game. And it's what are you talking about right now? Because there's so much opportunity if you're willing to like nakedly and honestly stare at the thing in front of you and be like, instead of getting drunk, because my life is so hard, I'm actually going to go and try something different. And you said, I love that you said confidence. Through the actions that you're taking to build the life that you want. Because if you go look, I guarantee you, Gill, if you rewind and you look at who you are today and you map it back to a decision that you made to do the opposite of the shit you were doing, that was fucking your life up. That's where you build confidence, and in that's how you get resiliency, and it's almost like a mathematical equation, A plus B equals C on that.

Gillian: And what do you guys think about certain situations like when you were saying that, Michael, I reflect back on times that have made me feel the urge to self destruct, and sometimes you just have to remove yourself from a triggering situation, like for me, that was always triggering jobs or jobs where I felt badly about myself when I was there. Do you think that sometimes it's just about changing your environment or changing your situation?

Michael: Think it's helpful, I can map back. My life becoming incredibly different based on literally like moving and I advise my clients constantly. I'm like move leave the place where you have spent your entire life in the chaos, and leave, and I think that can be a really practical element of the journey. I know, Nikki, you don't live where you grew up. Gill, I don't know if you live where you grew up, but I'm guessing probably not, right? Not in the same house, not in the same neighborhood, not in the same block, and it's even if you move 30 minutes away, like it's so when I was in my teens, I got expelled from school three different times and in high school. And the last time it was because I was selling drugs and I got busted cause it was a really bad entrepreneur when I was 15 years old, and so I ended up like recognizing if I don't change this immediately, I'm going to end up dead or in jail. And so I, I made a decision. I stopped hanging out with my friends and it was isolating and it was lonely and it really sucked, and then I realized there's a deeper level to it. So I moved to New York city at 18 years old, with no money, which is a horrible idea that I don't recommend it, but I tried, and then when I was 29, I left my home forever and I only go back to visit family, and I think that there's something about the doing something different, especially when it's scary and it like freaks you out. It's like that thing that keeps you awake at night, when you're like, man, I know if I just do this, my life will be better, but it's so painful. It's I can't do it, it's yeah, do that shit. Do that thing and your life will be different.

Nikki: I'm also a big fan of moving. So I grew up interestingly split. I grew up with the side of my family, I lived with my grandparents who were very poor. Every piece of clothing I had to go to school was from garage sales. I've sat out on field trips, didn't have 3.50 to go on the field trips in the eighties and the nineties, and then I had another side of my family where I'd go visit grandparents who were entrepreneurs, they had money. So I was very much between these two worlds of watching these very different cultures handle things. And so I feel very blessed by that because despite the abuse and some of the neglect, I got to really see, frankly, like how the poor people handle things, and sometimes there's connection there, there's creativity. If you grew up poor, you can make a meal out of nothing in your kitchen. And it impresses the hell out of people who didn't grow up like that. They're like, how did you make this? So there's some real benefit. But I also saw the side of my family that had money be able to make different decisions and different choices. So I really wanted something different and more for my life. I didn't know what the hell that looked like or what that meant, I put myself through school being a French quarter bartender, I prided myself for many years on being able to drink more than any man I knew, and it's been hard for me to talk on my show about some of my drug and alcohol history because. Not healthy, not good, not recommended, but it also grew me, it showed me some character it showed me things about my childhood, like I felt safer with drug dealers sometimes. I felt like they looked out for me more than my actual mother. So these experiences will grow us and shape us, I think for people who have this seeker spirit, for sure, all of us do, or we wouldn't have gotten all the way to here people with the seeker spirit, I think, benefit so much from a change, like a big move to a different state because change begets more change now therapeutically. I've got a clinical background, it's big in old school therapist world and language to say, there is no geographic cure. Wherever you go, you take you with you. And that's a sentiment that says, Hey, you're not going to outrun yourself, you're not going to outrun your problems, you can't just move and go. Oh, you're what a lovely clean slate I just created for myself, because your patterns will be there, they will show up. But I will tell you getting away from my abusive family and I'm no contact. And I think when I say that sometimes people go, oh my gosh, she must just be hot on fire, ready to help other people go no contact with their family when actually it's quite the opposite, I've done way more work in my life to have people stay connected to their families if they can, if you can. That is optimal, but also there is something about getting away from your family dynamics getting away from your culture I'm from New Orleans Beautiful things about that culture when I tell people I'm from New Orleans You can see a sparkliness in their eyes even beyond New York City where my husband's from I think people glorify and romanticize New Orleans live in there For me and most people that I know, absolute shit show, I just saw a list come out. It's ranks on one of the most dangerous cities in the world, it makes Chicago look, easy peasy. So getting away from dynamics showed me so much, not just about me, but how I could make choices for myself. I've lived in Texas, I've lived in Colorado and the feel of a place is different. It's different for my system and it draws a different part of you, out and it challenges you to make new connections from your growth. So I get to make connections now, even though it's hard to make friends in your forties, I get to make connections from the place of my growth from the place of my groundedness from more nervous system integration than I've ever had before. And without these changes that scared the hell out of me, sometimes that challenged me that made me feel like, I don't know anybody where I am. I have to get out there and meet people scary, hard, but it also shows you more of who you are, what you're capable of and that brings me to what Gill said. So much of healing is about seeing yourself so much about resiliency is about seeing yourself, transform and let go of what doesn't serve, maybe never did serve you. And when you do, that is what grows your confidence to be able to deal with the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. So I'm all for making some kind of. Big life move and that's gonna show you about yourself and fig and help you figure out, even when you move somewhere without any money, you know it's gonna show you well then what? What did you, what do you do? You figure it out, and that's a big part of resiliency is stepping into the personal responsibility I've known for a long time. Ain't nobody gonna show up and save me. There are no white knight, it is all gonna come down to me, and if you feel that call in your spirit to go somewhere else, get the hell out of wherever you are and go.

Michael: Yeah, and there's freedom in that, and you saying that I thought of something very important in my own journey, when I was 18 years old, before I moved to New York City, I so my mom was manic depressive, bipolar, schizophrenic, she was a drug addict, she basically melted her own brain. Right? You can go measure the data around high. Levels of drug usage, especially pharmaceuticals and see a direct correlation. And she was definitely a victim of a lot of the drugs that were being sold in the nineties, many of which we've seen movies and films made about, and she was an addict to her core. And one night she attacked me, my mom had hit me. 8, 000 times and you two have both met me in person. I'm six foot four, two 20. I'm a fucking linebacker, right? I never in my life had touched my mom one time, and this night she comes into my room and she attacks me and I push her to the ground and I stand over, I'm 18 years old. I said, if you ever touch me again, I'll kill you. And I meant it in that moment, and I told her, I'm done with you, you're out of my life, and at 18 years old, I made the hardest decision I've ever made and taking my mother out of the equation forever. And I see so many people who are victimized by their parents who are 28, 35, 48, 62 years old, still trapped in those relationships. And they don't recognize that sometimes it's literally your own mother, which is one of the causes of your stuckness, and it's so difficult because I believe too I don't think you always have to hit the eject button on family, on friends, on relationships, on community, but you have to assess it and look at it really closely and go, is the part of me that can thrive and grow and heal and love and contribute to a better society and be the person that I want to be, is that being stagnant because of my relationship with This person, because then it really comes into question. Like how resilient are you really, when you're giving your power to other people and from 18 years old until the day my mother died, I saw her maybe twice. I didn't even go to her funeral and I had family members furious at me about this, right? But I recognized that I had to make that very difficult decision, which in its own right is resilience. Now, I didn't have the words for this at 18, I could never sit across from you and be like, my mother is enmeshing me and she's grooming me and it's emotional incest and there's chaos in my life and all these big fancy words that we read and learn about, but what I knew at 18, I was like, I can't be me here. And that's what I always ask my clients. Can you be you in this circumstance? ‘Cause if you don't, then you'll never be able to tap into that confidence to build that resiliency. And when I left that relationship, I told my mom, I'm like, I'm out forever, I ended up doing the same thing with my grandmother. I ended up doing the same thing with my cousins. I ended up doing the same thing with friends and community groups and everything. And it's not that it's easy because none of it is and there aren't these times where I, it's not that I'm like not emotional about it and it doesn't suck, but I promise you, I can't be here right now in this moment with you without making decisions that were difficult that built resilience through just the nature of the decision. And when you leave and you step into what's next, people will often ask you, and I'm sure both of you have heard this question before people like, what are you running from? And I'm like, I'm not running from anything, I'm running towards me. You don't see my destination because you're trapped in your world and you're not in my brain but I know that if I step into this on the other side of it. Something will come of it, I don't know that's always necessarily going to be good because goddamn sometimes I get hit in the face with a baseball bat, but I promise you it now heading into 40 years old, if over 20 years ago, I didn't make that choice, there's no way I can lead, there's no way I could love myself. I was trapped, and I think if you really want to find out how resilient you are, remove yourself from the environment, from the people and from the circumstances that take away from your ability to shine.

Gillian: I think pattern recognition is very important to it. You guys are making me think about how some people they go home to see their families or they go to a high school reunion or something and they revert back to behavior and a way of speaking and acting that they haven't done in a very long time. And I've seen people act like that, and it's wow, that's so weird. I don't know you that way and for me a lot of it been about pattern recognition and understanding why am I acting like this? Why am I trying to fill this role? Can I push back on this role with my family? What am I afraid of there? If I am actually myself, and that has been a big part of my journey over the past few years. I am no contact with some people and I have figured out how to have contact with others, but it's tough, you have to either accept people for who they are or you don't. And that acceptance has been hard for me, too, and understanding that I can't force people to grow and change and want to be better. Some people are going to stay stuck in misery, hopefully not forever, but I can't force them down the path. So I either have to accept them, or I can't. Yeah?

Nikki: How did you I don't think pattern recognition Is valued enough in mental health, even in coaching, just in us being people and figuring out how to take care of ourselves. I think there's such an unfortunate thing, like in my job, in my work, I've helped a lot of people who have left real as cults, and I think it's interesting that we all think about cults as Ooh, the big, the big, strong, scary thing. Oh, somebody finally got out of the cult, a family is so much harder to get out of than a cult, and we have such a relationship with family. It's so worshipped, I think in all human beings all over the world, definitely in our American culture, it is crazy to me that my mother gave me to a known she had been warned and the second she was with him, she encouraged him to tuck us in at night, I have two sisters and she was hands off, she essentially handed me to a molester, and even people knowing that about me when I was young, I left her in my early twenties, which is very young to do that work. And I think those of us that do that work, it's not because we know what we're doing. It's because we are so fed up to here and can't heal our nervous systems, when you notice the pattern of every time I'm with this person, I feel like I'm going out of my mind, I am trying to squash a panic attack, and of course I was, my body for me to be around my family who had hunches that my extended family had hunches that we were being abused, but wasn't their business. So to expect my nervous system to go be around my abusers is as crazy as acting some as asking some kind of rape victim of somebody who jumps out from behind a bush and rapes them to have Christmas dinner with their rapist. But it therapists do it. People say, but that's your mom, but that's your mom as if their brain glitches and they can't think. Beyond that, but that's your mother. What do you mean? And that's the thing, like Michael said, that family and society will do, but surely you're going to go to her funeral, aren't you? That's the thing before I went no contact with my sisters, but aren't you going to go to her funeral? We have such a worshipping of family, but we also know that most abuse happens within families. So this expectation that we're just going to continue to be in this pattern because we're blood related to people is crazy, quite literally insanity that our society totally subscribes to.

Michael: And I think you also have to go. No, I this thought came to mind is you have to also ask yourself, what role are you playing in the patterning? And I think that's a really difficult thing for people to sit in because within that comes personal responsibility. And you, obviously we all agree, nobody's responsible for the crazy shit that happens to you as a kid. That's not on us, but it's okay, you're 36. You still go to your mom's house every weekend to help her do whatever the fuck she needs help with, and yet you hate being there because you have a panic attack every time you get in the fucking car. It's okay, dummy, pay attention, this is really on you. And what's so difficult about that is it's can you do that now? I'm being facetious because it's just my nature, but it's can you sit in like recognizing we live in this cultural, it's funny, even the box in front of me says, what is love? And it's we live in the society driven by this concept about self love and about giving yourself what you need, but it's really not about bubble baths and glasses of wine and walks on the pier. It's about doing the thing that you need with your personal boundaries to keep yourself safe. So you don't end up in this crazy fight or flight space every single day of your life, and when you look at it, so many people have really been indoctrinated into the family cultural and system in this way where they do go but it is your mom. And it's okay, cool, let's play a game. All right, Gill. All right, Nikki, let's play a game. Let's say that in the, in Michael's game, every time you walk into a room, I smack you in the face. Okay, cool. The first time that you walk in the room, you're gonna be like, what the fuck just happened? That was crazy, and the next time, the next day, you're gonna walk in the room, and I'm gonna smack you in the face again, and this time, you're gonna be like, Shit, that happened yesterday. You have a little bit more awareness about it. And the third time you walk in the room, you're gonna duck, but the swing is still coming. And then you ask yourself the question, how many times am I gonna walk in this room? And that's what it is that we're doing in these relationships with people who take from us. We're walking in this room and getting smacked in the face and saying, thank you, sir. May I have another and it's like, why are you doing that? It's conditioning, it's patterns, right? You go back into childhood, I learned to not be honest as a kid. It was probably the greatest trait that I got as a kid because it kept me safe. I'm a masterful liar, and I've had to learn how to be honest. It's really the most painful thing I've ever gone through. There's a lot of in the journey of healing of recognizing I lie as a pattern based on the indoctrination grooming and the understanding culturally that if I tell the truth, I'm going to get my ass kicked. Where did those bruises come from? Oh, baseball, why didn't you eat today? Oh, my mom had to go to the store early. My mom's passed out in bed with pill bottles in her hands, right? And so it's like you, you learn how to do these things systematically and at a period of time, you use the word earlier Nikki that I think is really powerful for a period of time, they actually serve you, we always are asking this question right now, what serves me, what doesn't? And it's most things actually don't. The vast majority of the things that we convince ourselves we're serving us actually don't. But some things do, like being a liar, and then what happens is you recognize that pattern disrupts your relationships, your friendships, your health, your finances, your community, everything that you want to have in life. And then it's at what point are you going to take accountability over today? And if you can recognize those patterns, if you're willing to be honest with yourself, which is incredibly difficult, because it's I look at my life and I'm going 25, I wasted a million bucks. I'm 350 pounds smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep 50, 000 in debt. My car got repoed. I'm cheating on my girlfriend. And my little brother says, never talk to me again. You're not my brother. Maybe there's some fucking patterns in there, dude, right? And then I go, I look at my life all these years removed. And it's if you can be cognizant of the things that drive you based on the foundation of understanding that we're the sum total of all of our experiences leading to this moment throughout that process, you'll find freedom, and that's what we're all seeking, I want to be free of the abuse, I want to be free of the alcohol, I want to be free of the toxic relationship, I want to be free of the chaos of my own doing, and it's if you can recognize that pattern, I love that you said that it's not talked about enough in coaching and there, because you're dead on, and I think people really have to be cognizant of that and create a frame of references that there are patterns. Are based on their beliefs and if you can get those two things in synchronicity, it's like damn life can be good for you.

Gillian: I'm really glad that you brought all of that up, because personal responsibility was where I was hoping that we could go. Because it's not all other people, sometimes it is us. And something I am really interested in is the game that you described, because we do that with alcohol, which is obviously my jam and what I think about every day. But I read studies on animals, and we do it as humans too, that we're... You have a mouse go into an area where they can get alcohol and they get shocked every single time they go get their alcohol. And most of them are like, screw that, I'm good, that's not worth it. And a small group of them keep going back every single time to get the shock over and over or you add a bitter taste to the alcohol and make it taste horrible and they just keep going back for more, and I think that's really interesting, and I think sometimes we can get, I don't know if the word addicted is right, but we can get stuck in chaos, and it becomes comfortable and familiar, and it's hard to pursue something different, because you're just so used to chaos and everything else feels boring. That was my experience when I quit drinking, the first time that I did, before I drink again. I thought that sobriety was just boring and only boring lame people don't drink and that was because I was so used to chaos and drama and my brain thought that everything that was calm must be boring. But now I'm like calm stuff is the best stuff and now you know my nervous system is healed, and I can enjoy peace, but in the beginning I only wanted chaos, and I would chase chaotic jobs, chaotic relationships, just to fill this need and make me feel comfortable, and then I would blame everybody else for my situation, because I was always the one that things were happening to. I always got the bad job, always got the bad relationship, and Always had the bad friend, and it took me a long time to recognize my role in all of that stuff coming my way.

Nikki: And that's big in resiliency, I think resiliency is a lot of connecting with your power to choose, because again that stuff doesn't fall out of the sky. You accepted those jobs. You actually pursued them and applied for them. And it's hard to sit in the mirror and go, alright, how did I get here? A giant didn't just drop me out of the sky right here in this spot. I have made so many choices to get here. My choices in how I'm thinking about it, my choices in what I'm allowing into my life, and that means I'm in charge of, what I'm allowing in my life, and if I just step into that power, that is an action of resiliency, that is a self respect. I don't think we can be resilient without self respect, it is self respecting to be resilient as is personal responsibility. It's part of why I'm so pissed at how nasty politics is and media is and because I think it's celebrating and lifting up the worst of society. Immaturity goes, it's your fault, it's not me. It's you. Shame on you, I didn't do anything wrong, I'll be better when you're better, I'm just gonna sit here and pout and be pissy and everything about modern society and the internet is encouraging that kind of way of being, you didn't say the word that I think you should have said, you just traumatized me. We are teaching people to Dispersonal responsibility and to glorify blame and all it's going to do is make people anti resilient, it's going to make them splat. That's why the suicide rate is going up, and so we've got to get really real on the individual level and societally, collectively, of what it means to actually be personally responsible. It's why if a younger person tells me they're an advocate, I take that with a real big grain of salt, because we're not going to heal the world because a bunch of angry people are screaming about issues. At each other screaming who's at fault. We're gonna heal the world when each person Frankly takes fucking responsibility for themselves their internal world and stops screaming at the world to be what they expect and want it to be.

Michael: Yeah. And the hard part about that is Gill, as you were talking, I was so glad he used the word chaos, ‘cause that's what came to mind for me. And I teach my clients immediately, I'm like, you have to stop saying you thrive in chaos, you hear people say that all the time.

Gillian: I'm like, I used to say that.

Michael: But if you think about it, it's insane because why would you not want to thrive in peace and joy and hope and harmony and kindness and compassion and power, right? Being in chaos is I have a stack of fucking bills. on my desk that I'm not taking care of and debtors are calling me and I am overweight and I'm destroying my life and my family doesn't like me and I got fired from another job and I had unprotected sex with the 12th person this month and life is good. No, dude, you're fucking high, which you probably are also. And so it's okay, if you're thriving and chaotic, are you really thriving or is it just something that you've been conditioned into? And that's where it gets really tricky about this whole conversation. Because when you take this really hard, candid look at your own life and you reverse engineer it back into the behavior patterns that started through childhood, it's okay, why do I thrive here? Why am I the mouse who keeps getting shocked? Because it's really just become indoctrinated in you in a way where it's normalized, you're like, oh, it's normal for me to be in a relationship where we scream at each other. It's normal for me to be underpaid, but then complain, it's these normalities that we have in our life. It's only going to remain normal as long as you choose to have it be normal, and then when you're measuring that against, and look I always, I say this in jest, but I've been legit attempted canceled four times on the internet because of keeping it real, because what Nikki said I said something that you don't like, and now you're traumatized by me. It's no, I'm not gaslighting you because you don't fucking agree with me. That's not how this works, I'm not a narcissist because you don't like the way I speak, that's not on me. That's your own shit you have to deal with, and I think if you can put that curtain up and remove the blinders from this reality, that's, I don't know what kind of simulation we're in right now. This program's not running very effectively, I hope we can figure it out in the near future, because it's driving everybody a little bit bonkers, but it's the reality is, if you can really sit in your truth, and you look at the times when your life is good, I promise you it's probably not chaotic, your bills are probably paid, you're taking care of your health, you're eating good food, you're not in a shitty relationship. Chances are you're probably actually alone, which is where a huge portion of this healing journey is. It's can I go out on my own and discover who I am on this quasi vision quest, while combating the reality of the world that is always knocking on your door with cupcakes and flowers and telling you it's okay that your life sucks. Okay, is it? Because for me, it's not and it wasn't and I pulled myself through that because I recognized in the silence in the piece of my chaos is where I would reflect and be like, I don't like this, but why am I like this? And that's the thing that people have to leverage.

Gillian: Yeah, I was that person. That said, I'm addicted to chaos all the time, and I still, in healthier ways, seek out chaos and drama I'm really excited for the Golden Bachelor later this month, I don't know if you guys are gonna watch that, but in my group, we're like we're preparing all month. We have a group chat in my sober group, we're ready for the golden bachelor to get some chaos, and that's also why I like teaching because it's chaotic. It's very stressful and it's very busy. So I've found ways to create that busy ness, but then also enjoy, in my real life, but that was very hard for me to let that go and to stop blaming other people. When I first quit drinking, I wrote the most dramatic resentful memoir that thankfully no one has ever read because it would be so embarrassing I tried to get it published too and no one wanted to publish it or even discuss it with me because it was so dramatic And then I read it again A few months later when I started my podcast, I'm like, maybe there's some good stuff in there that I can use on my podcast and I read it and I was like, oh my gosh, but that was really helpful for me to write all of my feelings down and tell the stories and then continue to go to therapy every week and then read those stories back with a different perspective. And it's been a lot of perspective shifting for me. And how I think about things, I was always Michael, you said it like the underpaid person who's complaining about being underpaid. I was always the person that was outraged at how I was not treated right or respected, and then I would continue to get into these situations, and after a while, I'm like, Oh, my God, am I underpaid the common denominator. That's how it started, I said to my therapist once, I'm like, it's gotta be me. It's happened so many times. Like it's, I have to be the common denominator, this has to be something that I'm doing. And first it was freaky and scary to realize that because I had this belief that I was the best and everyone else sucked. And now it's do I suck? And everyone else is not that bad, but it also was empowering to realize that I had the power to change the situation and I wasn't just a victim of it. It wasn't, that wasn't going to be the story of my life forever change?

Michael: So that's the key, right? It's that thought sits with people, and they're like, oh no, it's me, I am the cause and solution of all of my problems. So why did you do something about it?

Gillian: That's a really good question. I think I just felt really embarrassed. I felt embarrassed that I kept ending up in the same situation over and over. And I saw my husband is very successful in his career. Right now, for example, he was selected as one of a couple people in his company to represent the entire company at this conference, and he was, like, on the slides as the representative, and he's extremely successful. And I saw him, thank you rise up in his career with no drama and nothing bad happening, and I was like he's a man, that's what I said for a while. And then I watched, yeah, that's what I said though, I'm like he's a man, okay. It's not the same, it's cause I'm a woman. And then I saw women at various companies that I worked at rising up in their careers and getting respected and getting promotions and I'm like, oh my god I can't use that excuse anymore And I just started to feel really embarrassed at my situation and embarrassed that like other people were aware That I had this pattern going on in my life and that pushed me I think seeing women that belief that it was like a man thing was really ingrained in me Sorry, Michael. And once I saw examples of women kicking butt in the same career that I was trying to be successful in, I was like, oh, and that really started to break it down, and then the embarrassment was what pushed me to finally address being the common denominator.

Nikki: So I want to point out that you're naming a big part of resiliency is.

Gillian: Oh, thanks.

Nikki: It's honesty. Yeah, we can't be resilient with ourselves if we're not being true and honest with ourselves and it's in those moments where somebody, something, or just ourselves looks in the mirror or hold holds that mirror up and we go. Oh shit, this is me, I have to change that excuse that I've been holding onto and holding between me and my growth, me and the ability to be different. I've been letting that belief block me, when you let that go and get really honest with yourself, life just starts to change, and so for me, that kind of radical personal honesty has to be a part of the resiliency cake recipe that I want to bake up.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. There's three steps here, there's a whiteboard. I have the side of my office and I try to remind my clients every time we're in coaching, whether it's individual or group or whatever, but it's also a reminder for me. There's 3 ways that you create your life. 1 is you show up. I literally that's fucking 90 percent of it. Number two is you be honest. And number three is you execute and you have, and that's where the change really takes place. And you said something really interesting, Gill, that I don't think most people leverage enough, you were embarrassed. Yo, I was so embarrassed of who I was at 26 years old. It was like, I cannot believe I've allowed this to become my life. And there's something about leveraging that level of darkness that can really catapult you, it can also cripple you and make things worse. But I think that's where you find out what you're made of. Because you're going to have to force yourself into the unknown, and one of the things that you pointed about that I think is also incredibly powerful is you saw other people doing the thing that you wanted to do. And that I think is the reality because I know women who are in my industry, they're making 10 million a year. Like they're crushing and I'm like, okay, so maybe the conversation isn't as gender as we thought it might be. Maybe it's your skills, right? And skills have utility, but then you, where's the scapegoat if it's about my skills as opposed to the gender, and so I think it's really important to not go and seek scapegoats, but seek more skills because skill have utility. And it's like, when I look at, this journey of mine, there are moments where I sit and I'm like, how the fuck did this even happen? Like last year I was on a New York times billboard twice in six months. One of them was the NASDAQ, that giant ass billboard, and I'm like, how did this happen? When I was 18, I told you guys, I moved to New York city. I was in time square one day, and I said to myself, I will be on a billboard in time square one day. Like that was in my psyche, it was just planted and grained in there. It took 20 years, right? It took 20 years for that to happen. But the thing that I'm always trying to leverage in this growth journey is like, can you be patient because even with resiliency, you're going to fuck up. You're going to make huge mistake, we all still do all three of us. I'm, I won't put words in your mouth, but you're all shaking your head.

If people are listening, you can't see this. And the reality is I know, even though I'm like the trauma coach guy, like I'm going to fuck up like, Oh man, should I really have said that? Oh, did I coach that person the right way? I can't believe I ended that friendship like that. Oh my God. And we're humans, we're having a human experience and it's can you take it a little easy on yourself and ultimately filter life through here? Here's how my thing all change. I just started asking myself this question. Am I taking care of myself or am I taking it easy on myself? Because those are not the same thing.

Gillian: That's really powerful.

Nikki: I like you naming embarrassment. I think we're living through a time where kids are being raised to never be embarrassed or never feel shame. And I'm a big believer that all of the feelings, even the deeply uncomfortable shitty ones that we don't want to feel have utility. They teach us something. I'm divorced twice, I was mortified to be a therapist to want to have a healthy relationship, to have gone from a sociopathic partner to a better partner, but not a healthy partner. My people picker was broken, and I didn't like that about myself. It was embarrassing, and I think the stuck point that a lot of people hit and shrink from instead of transversing and overcoming isn't it true that we're embarrassed to stay the same and then also we're embarrassed while we're changing? And so if you can just embrace Screw it. I guess I'm going to be embarrassed. I might as well be uncomfortable towards my greater good than sitting in the muck of whatever I'm sitting in right now. And that's just a shift that brings you towards resiliency instead of complacency. So I think if something has an if resiliency has an opposite, it might be complacency. Just like sitting down right where you are, and it's why they're so anti complacency in Alcoholics Anonymous, because if you're complacent, the hell are you doing? You're sitting there like a lump, and you're letting your life pass you by. And so resiliency is really grabbing that and going, oh no. I refuse that for me. And no matter how embarrassed, no matter how much shame I have to work through to get to the other side, I'm willing to do that for myself. And that's where it starts to be a self respecting practice to be resilient.

Michael: And that's your belief.

Gillian: The best analogies.

Nikki: Thank you.

Michael: Mean, and that's a belief system, right? Because if you believe that you're destined for this life, that will be what you have. And I think changing that internal dialogue is very important because we've all gone through it, especially if you come from backgrounds where you're like, you've had sexual abuse and you have a high ACE score and you were a homeless kid. And like you, all my clothes came from the Goodwill and church and shelters. And it was really embarrassing to this day. I will not wear used clothes, like I'd refuse it. But it was like, I was so embarrassed as a kid and so shame guilt, like that shame and that guilt actually carried more weight than opportunity. And it wasn't until I changed the dialogue in my own head was I able to start tapping into something different. And I don't think affirmation, I'm anti affirmations. And the reason that I say that is because I can't sit here and be like, I love me, and then I love me. It doesn't work that way. But I can be like, I love myself enough to create a belief system which allows me to go and create the life that I want by taking action. And so again, that's that. Execute phase. And if you're trapped in the shame and the guilt and the pain and the suffering of the past, I don't know how you can be resilient other than just enough to survive, which all of us have been in. And you change that thought process in your mind. You have the psyche shift, and then you have this thing about these rewirings of your brain happening in real time by doing different things through a different outlook, and then 18 years later, your life is very different, and I think in this conversation too, you have to leverage some patience. You have to give yourself some grace, but not grace in this bullshit way where it's like, ah, I'm tired. I worked hard today. I'm not going to do the thing, but it's no, I went hard. I'm exhausted, I actually need to rest, and it's can you differentiate like who you really are and what you really need?

Gillian: You guys are talking a lot about self respect, and I think that's so key. And it's hard to get there when, you're deep in whatever it is. Trauma, you're drinking, toxic family or toxic relationships. It's hard to respect yourself and feel like you deserve anything more than the crap that you have. When I was Drinking I thought that I was the biggest piece of shit in the whole world, and I only deserved the worst things ever So it's really hard to get to that self respect spot where you can push yourself to set good boundaries and take care of yourself and make good decisions, and I think Michael you keep emphasizing patience and I don't think a lot of us are very patient at least I see that a lot, like people quit drinking and then two or four weeks later, they're like, okay, where's my good life? Like, why isn't everybody treating me better and acting as they should? Why don't I feel amazing? Why haven't I lost a bunch of weight and got a promotion and a big raise? And for me I didn't think sobriety sucked. I liked it most of the time, but if I look back on the first year of my journey compared to years into it, I'm like, wow, that was a big healing journey. There was, I thought it was awesome, but I was still doing a lot of work then. And I think that we don't consider how long this can take. And I try to encourage people to reflect on like how long you, you sat in those patterns and reinforce them or how long you received the conditioning that you did and it's going to take time to undo all of that. But it doesn't mean that the process has to suck. And I'm also anti affirmation by the way.

Nikki: So

Gillian: you saying it.

Nikki: I'm big on inner child work. If I take the example you just gave Gill, when Michael's talking about patience, to me that's an immature part of us. And if we had struggle when we were young, we have some psychological states that are just stuck at some younger spots. I love inner child work because I've never found anything else that helps grow those up, so that we don't, we aren't letting the inner children inside of us drive the bus of our life. All of us will recognize the kid in the backseat on a road trip, that's are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? So it's a very child like way of being to expect ourselves to be there in an amount of time, that makes no sense for getting there. We might be driving 4 states over 10 minutes in the kids. Are we there yet? And so if you, work with this idea of, okay, let me reparent that inner child to, that's been the only way that I've been able to cultivate a real relationship with patients, I would joke that I was the most impatient person. Ever on the planet, and now I have such a deep patience for myself, for other people. There's a time and a place to not be patient and go, no this shit needs to happen right now, too, but there's so much power in my wise woman self, or if I was talking to Michael, his wise man self, tapping in and going, Hey, sweet girl. Hey, sweet little boy, I know you want to be there yesterday, take a deep breath, settle in. We're gonna get there eventually, and just if I was babysitting somebody's toddler, I would know, okay, I can't just say it one time to this toddler, I'm going to have to repeat myself, and I'm going to have a lot of patience as I repeat it, because that's how that child learns it. If we didn't get what we needed from safe parenting, then who the hell else is going to do that for us except ourselves? I'm such a big teacher of patience, and I know you want to get there as quickly as possible, that's the paradoxical trick, you bring patience to it, that's actually the thing that's going to help you get there faster. But it's never as fast as we want, ever, and if you can accept that, there's more peace and freedom.

Michael: Yeah. And that's a lifetime journey too. And I think I'm still doing the work, it's hard for me a lot of times, and there's days where I'm like, I don't want to do any of this. And there's days where I'm like, I've spent, I actually did the math one time and it's disgusting where I've spent literally I did the math cause I had to know I've spent 300, 000. And over 11, 000 hours of my life on my healing journey. And I'm still doing it. And, I saw this guy, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Bishop T. D. Jakes. So he's a religious speaker. Okay, yeah. He's powerful, he's got this powerful, booming, deep voice. You can tell he's been a preacher forever. And I was, I don't remember where I was, but I was speaking at the event and he either did before or after me, either way, it doesn't matter. He said something that has sat with me every single day for the last four years since I heard this man say this. He said, new levels, new devils, and it is as you go down this journey, you will hill and you will uncover. And as you hill and uncover, there will be another layer, and another layer, and another layer, and I don't know that the journey ends, and I think you can get to this place where you have a ton of regulation, where you feel super good, where life is going in accordance. I love my life, my life is amazing compared to what it was. I get to write books and speak on stages and host a podcast and it's that's so much better than getting high and having sex with a stranger in the back of a Walmart parking lot, it just is right. Not that there's not joy in both, but I'm just saying when I look at my life now, it's a lot better, and so you look at that and I'm like, okay, cool. But now what's the evolution, what is next? What is the revolution of this life in this experience? It's yeah, okay. You want a deep sense of love with community and with friends and with a partner. You want to be very successful in business and make millions of dollars a year or not, whatever that thing is for you, but you want to feel fulfilled and like you're contributing and that you matter and that you can look in the mirror and ultimately be okay with the reflection, and there's days where I'm like, fuck all of this, and that is a reminder to me that there's still work. It's just, it's not done because you listen to a podcast. It's not done because you went to therapy or got coaching or read my book or any of the other things that people do. It's like the movie Groundhog's Day is a great analogy for life because you're going to wake up tomorrow and it's a reset and you're going to have to do it all over. And maybe you don't need to yoga and meditate and ice bath and journal and all the other things, maybe today is I just need to go do something for me and I think if you can get to that place and be okay with the fact that there's days where you're on the healing journey and there's days where you're not, but knowing that simultaneously you'll be doing both forever, there's freedom in that, at least there is for me.

Nikki: Oh yeah, it's not a destination. It's a continuous journey till we are dead and gone. And to be able to connect with that as a positive, as a gift, as an opportunity instead of some kind of big ass burden that we have to carry around is part of being resilient.

Michael: So how do you get there? Okay, that's a great point. How do you get to the point where you're not carrying it as a burden?

Nikki: I think you get sick and tired of carrying the burden, just like if you were carrying a hundred pound sack at a point, you go, why the hell am I carrying this? Do I need to carry this? Is there a way to lighten this load? And so I think that seeker spirit and insight guides us like an AA. They say, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? And we all will hit that point. It's just some people will. Some people will interestingly have more comfort in the pattern of risk like having sex with somebody in the Walmart parking lot instead of the risk to vulnerability, the risk to have love. And again, when we get radically honest with ourselves, it's, wow, I'm scared to go for this love because what if I lose it? What if it walks away from me and I hurt? When we only focus on the fear of it, it's just going to look scary, if we go, yeah, but what if it's wonderful? What about that possibility? What if it grows me? What if it teaches me? What if it makes me a better version of myself and opens up the world to me and our fear doesn't really know how to do that? So I think when we get sick and tired, because it feels like beating our head against the wall. Like when I was drinking, like I remember waking up in a hotel room closet. I don't even know how I got in there. And then had to sit with myself and go, what am I doing? What am I doing? And if I value me and my inner child, I have got to figure something out. Doesn't mean the next day I had it figured out or started walking a straighter path, it means that there were some seeds in me and maybe that's just a spiritual seed. When people have asked me where did that come from? It's I don't know. I don't know, I was born with a temperament of a seeker spirit that has made me seek out something, to me, that's some kind of spiritual nugget, some kind of spiritual whisper that just said, Hey, do you see what's going on around you? Is this what you want? And I think you get closer and closer as things get more terrible and more terrible. I had an arrest there. I have a drunken public arrest at 10 in the morning. That's hard to do. That's hard to do, so there were things that, again, that embarrassment, mortified at that. And to sit with myself and go, I made all the choices to get all the way to there. And to get sick of the choices I was making, beyond sick of what had happened to me and what I was self medicating, to get sick of how I was being with myself. Now I know in me, one of the divine gifts of my entire existence is that my German hard ass grandmother raised me. And she did not allow for excuses. And one of the tragedies is she died when I was 15. My life might have been very different had she lived till I was 25. It was a very impactful time for me, then my grandpa died when I was 17. So my functional parents also died when I was a teenager. I go back to her teachings. I've actually been working on an episode about some of her teachings. She wouldn't allow me to be jealous of other people. She would not allow that, she would say, no, you'd be happy for them. You're not allowed to covet what they have, and so I had some real nuggets that were instilled in me that Helped that were seeds that despite all my best efforts to murder those seeds With no sunlight and no water somehow just like seeds growing in the middle of a city like through the concrete somehow grew Inside of me. And I do think that is available inside of all of us, it's part of why I originally wanted to show because I knew the power of having those nuggets, those seeds that my grandmother planted for me, and I wanted to be able to help plant those, offer those seeds. Would you like to plant them yourself for other people? So I think getting sick and tired of ourselves is part of what opens up that path.

Gillian: Guys, this has been amazing. I think we have to do it again. But if I was to ask you, what is one thing that you think someone listening could do to improve their resiliency? What would you tell them, Michael?

Michael: I think it's very simple, actually, like so much of this healing journey is not complicated and we try to make it complicated. I've interviewed some of the greatest minds in mental health on planet earth and often people will herald me as one of them as well, and I'm like, I'm not. This is actually very simple. We don't need books that are 400 and 500 and thousand pages long. We don't need DSMs for healing. It's do the shit that keeps you awake at night. That is that internal compass that's the seed Nikki's talking about. That is the thing that is inside of you, you know what you need to be doing. When are you going to stop lying to yourself? There's a moment in my life that everything changed. I hit this massive rock bottom and, again, I'm 350 pounds, I'm smoking all the time, I'm drinking all the time, like I'm not by any scope of the imagination the definition of health, and I'm laying in bed It's 11 o'clock in the morning, it's a Saturday. I'm smoking a joint, eating chocolate cake, and watching the CrossFit Games. It's like, how the fuck is this my life right now? And I pulled myself up out of the bed, and I went in the bathroom, and I'm just looking at my fat, round, jaundiced face. Again, honesty is one of my words, guys, I was fat, I'm not gonna lie about it. And I'm sitting here, another bender, another day, I'm just going to get high to make the headache go away. Another, I'm just going to watch porn and cheat on my girlfriend, another one of these days. Here we are, good job, dude, fucking loser. I was a loser, I'm going to be honest about it. And I looked in the mirror and I was just, I had this thought, this memory that was so vivid, I was eight years old. And I was living in Indiana, my mom's house, and our power was off, and it's August. It's like blistering hot Indiana summer day, and later in that afternoon, the water company comes to our house. We have a little small manhole cover in the front of our yard, and the water company guy Puts his tool down there and turns our water off, we are that poor, we have no electricity and no water in the middle of August in Indiana, and my mom says to me, go across the street with that bucket from the backyard and get some water from the neighbor's house, and so at eight years old, I go and I grab this little blue bucket. I walk across the street to the neighbor's house. I turn on the spigot on the side of their house, and for the first time I stole water. And it wouldn't be the last. And I remember being like, when I'm a grown up, this won't be my life. Vividly, at 8 years old, I'm like, fuck this. This is insane. No more pill bottles, no alcohol, no drugs, no new step dads, nah, I'm done with this, and I'm looking at my life at 25 heading into 26, and it's chaos. I've broke Nikki, you talked about this thing about honoring that inner child, I've lied cheated, stole, back endilled myself into success and business, and every element of my life was a disaster. And when I looked in that mirror, I realized the truth, I broke the promise I made to that eight year old, and I asked myself a question. I said, what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have? And the answer was no excuses, just results, and if you could ask yourself that question, and if you can get to that answer, your life will be fucking different.

Gillian: I love that so much, thank you. Nikki, what would you tell someone is the first step that they could take to improve their resiliency?

Nikki: I can piggyback on what Michael said. I would say make the choice and make it now. I have a story that stays with me from my early years as a therapist working in residential addiction treatment. And there was this older lady who said, I was washing my mother's China, and she dropped the plate because she'd been drinking. And for her, that was her bottom. That she broke her dead and gone her mother's plate. I think a lot of people hear a story like mine, a story like Michael's, and they're like, Ooh, yeah my life's not that bad I'm good, I can still handle this. Your bottom is when you decide and make a decision to stop living a life that's full of bullshit, frankly. And it is as simple as that, deep down, everybody knows it's as simple as that, and that's part of what drives so much depression in this country. Because when you know that deep down, but your actions every damn minute of the day are more like sitting in bed with a chocolate cake in the joint, you're depressed. And so the, if I summarize it, it's be the parent you wanted for you, like Mike, these are my words, not Michael's. Michael basically woke up and said, Hey, son, I love you. Get your ass out of this bed, this isn't your life.

Michael: And that accent, too.

Nikki: Yeah. And when we do that for ourselves, that's really the self love and that's, what's ultimately healing, ‘cause that's what I missed from my mom. That's what I missed from my biological father. That's what I missed from my adoptive dad. I missed it, and when my grandparents died I missed it. I felt lost in the world without them as a compass. And so you have to be able to stand on your own two feet and become that parental unit for yourself and guide yourself with that respect and self love, and that is resiliency in action.

Gillian: Rudy has arrived just in time for me to speak on cue. I used to make a New Year's resolution every single year in my 20s, and I would say, I am going to be happy this year, and then every year would go by, and I would still not be happy. And I remember, when I got to 27, I started to feel pressure. I'm like, time is running out. I'm getting close to 30, I feel like I have to achieve this by 30, why can I not figure this out? And that was around the time that I started to get curious about being the common denominator. So I think anyone that's working on becoming more resilient and not self destructing. I would say be open to your role in it and your role in the patterns and the things that are happening in your life. Nikki, you use the word immature a lot, and I freaking love immaturity because once I realized that I was immature, I had the power back in my life, and I could fix the problem. So I think it's alarming to realize... How you're contributing. It's not, everything's not your fault or your choice, but we do Contribute to our situation whether it's the way we think about it or our patterns and it's freaky to realize that But then it's also empowering So I would just be open to your role in how you think about things or how these patterns keep occurring in your life And that was the first step to me for me. So just be open to it I think we have to do this again, with a different topic, because you guys are the best, I learned so much, I feel like I got a therapy session. I got a little emotional in the middle, when we talked about me being embarrassed. But if we would like to connect with you, Michael, and learn more about your work, where can we do that?

Michael: Yeah. And this was amazing. I love this conversation, I'm everywhere at Michael Unbroken on all the social medias. And then Think Unbroken Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, just search Think Unbroken.

Gillian: Thank you. And Nikki, how can we connect with you?

Nikki: Emotional Badass pretty much everywhere on every platform and find the podcast. That's the best way to find me online. If you're interested in what I teach, I'm teaching a big boundaries course in October. I don't know. I'm thinking about not teaching it next year. So yeah, just come hang out. You'll know if you want to work with me, you'll know your gut will know. So yeah, come hang out anytime.

Gillian: Thank you, Nikki. And you can find my podcast, it's called Sober Powered, and that's my website too, soberpowered.com. And thank you guys again so much, and we definitely have to do this again soon.

Michael: Sure.

Nikki: Definitely.