Uplifting stories to uncover the Hidden Keys to Healing & Love

How Somatic Work Transforms Relationships | with Lauren Zoeller

Michael: People get these awakenings, right? And they're standing in front of the mirror and the three phone calls come in, and they have to face reality. And some people do, and some people don't. And I would encourage most people to, right? And like that mirror is such an important moment for many people's journey, myself included. Why do anything now? 

Lauren: Yeah, for me, I think that I was in a place where I was so tired, and I think, first off, you have to do that. If you want your life to shift, if you want to change, you're going to have to take action at some point. And I think that people do have to get to a point where they are so tired and they are so beaten down. I was in a space where one thing would fall. My relationship would fall, but I still had my business to fall back on. I still had my health to fall back on. But when something is ripped from you completely, when your health is ripped, when your relationships are ripped, when your business, your source of income is all ripped from you, I think that there comes a moment where you have to choose how tired are you? Do you want to, do you want to shift? Do you want something to be different? And that was the point. I hit that point. And some people don't choose it in that moment, but I can say this, when I did choose it and I decided, okay, there's something not working, something that I'm doing isn't working. And I think a lot of people in the personal development field, they get to this place because they invest in talk therapy. They invest in going to summits, they invest in all of these things where people are preaching. I can change your life, I can change your mindset. Which is where I was, and they get frustrated, they get jaded because they wake up and nothing has shifted. And that's a really hard, like I want to normalize that's a really hard place when you've been so beat down by the personal development world. It's a hard, it's a hard place and a hard time to look at yourself and say, wait a second. There's still something that's being missed here and my goal hopefully is to show people that there is a different way you've got to start to look at the language of the nervous system. You've got to start looking at the body versus doing all of this mindset work. That was the moment that I had to choose something differently. And I hope that people can understand if you're in that if you're in that space of being jaded of doing wasn't therapy for 10 years. And not that therapy didn't do anything for me. But I had done so much work up here cognitively, and I had not addressed anything in my nervous system. And that's where we have to start to shift the conversation around, if you want lasting change, if you really want to shift your life, you've got to be able to get the whole approach, the body approach.

Michael: Okay. And this is delicate, right? Because here's what I think about all the time transcribed One of my therapists taught me this, it singularly is a thing that transformed my life of all the things I've ever done, because it was just this very vivid shift in the way I thought about the world. And he said to me one day, he said, change only happens when you make change happen. And that was so pivotal to me because I'd been doing a lot of the work about just changing the way I thought about life and changing the way I had conversation and doing this and that, but like I wasn't accelerating. Into what I thought my potential was. And I realized that real change is actually the doing, but let's go into this. Cause I want to know your opinion. And this is where I get chopped up on the internet. Sometimes is I'm such a big proponent of no excuses, just results. And I'm, I know that as fact, because it transformed my life. It transforms the life of the people who come into my coaching programs that I speak on stages in front of. It's the thesis for why I'm here. And sometimes that requires you doing it anyway. And we live in an odd time now of, and I'm saying this with kindness, but it's just true of massive weakness. And in this massive weakness, we have allowed people the space to make excuses for why their life sucks. I've been in a position where my life sucked tremendously. You've been in a position where your life sucked tremendously. You made choices to change your life. Yeah. One of the things that I see people say all the time in the work of somatic work in regard to change is that you can't do it if you're not in a regulated nervous system. I counter that and I go that you get to a regulated nervous system by making the change. And so I'm curious about your thoughts and your approach to that. 

Lauren: Yeah. So this is a great topic because I'll say this, if someone is in a chronic free state, which means they're in what we call dorsal vagal shutdown, which means their system is in such a state of survival that moving and choosing feels unattainable because the nervous system, the body has actually shut the system down, it's going to feel very difficult. The nervous system doesn't want to do it. It thinks it's in threat. It's going to feel difficult to make a move to take a radical act towards change, right? So just having that awareness, like just letting yourself orient towards, am I frozen right now? Can I not make a change? Can I not take a move to reach out to somebody to get help? That, in and of itself, can start to thaw that freeze response. The problem is that most people don't have that information. They haven't, they think that there's something, and we oftentimes will put someone in the corner and say, oh, they can't make that, they need to be in a regulated state. The way to get towards regulation, towards safety. Is to start to acknowledge that you're in a survival state. Like I am in freeze. It feels absolutely impossible to make a move right now. And maybe what I need to orient towards right now is just putting on a podcast that talks to me about being in a free state and let that start to thaw my system enough to where, okay, maybe tomorrow I feel like I can reach out for support, but we can't, if we go past what's called our window of tolerance and we try to just go straight into change. We're going to blow our nervous system out of its window of tolerance to where we're not going to be able to change or we're just going to re traumatize ourselves. So I think that it's definitely a delicate line. It's a delicate line between, yeah, you've got to move to make a change in your life. And if you've experienced a lot of trauma, your nervous system might be in a chronic free state. And the best thing that you can do is to just. Become aware that you're there and allow yourself to start to tiny baby steps orient towards okay today Can I just learn more about what it means to be in freeze today? Can I just maybe start to follow someone who talks more about nervous system right dysregulation? Or can I reach out to someone like it's those tiny baby steps But you have to have the awareness of where you are Before you can think about even making a change. 

The Secret to Attracting Your Soulmate | with Sami Wunder

Michael: Was there a specific moment for you where you're like, wait a second, I'm the problem.

Sami: Yes, absolutely. So my transformation point was, I think when I was having all these heartbreaking experiences, men fizzling out, ghosting, things not working out, just like guys wanting to just take me to bed, not wanting to get to know me as a person. I just said, men are intimidated. Men are intimidated by my brains. Men are intimidated by my success. Men are intimidated because I have an opinion. It was my narrative to protect myself. It was my narrative to not look deep within myself, because when we put the problem on the other side, at least we can absolve ourselves of it. Personal responsibility, but it was when I met a man who was far more successful than I was. And, he was a lawyer from New York and there was like electric physical attraction and he treated me so well and everything was going great. And then two months down the connection his effort started to dwindle, like stopped hearing from him. And of course my feminine intuition said, if he's not messaging, he's not interested, but I had, I was surrounded by all these equally masculinized German girlfriends who were like, come on, text him. He just wants to hear from you and figure out what the problem is and solve the problem and, take it ahead. And so I remember messaging him and saying, Hey, is everything okay? I haven't heard from you. And him going, You're so lovely. You're so attractive. I like you so much. I just Don't feel it. I just feel like our connection is not deepening, and so I don't think it's working and I think that was my moment of, pure heartbreak. I think I went into this angry, bitter energy for two hours that evening where I was like, all men are like this and I eat guys and I'm gonna like just get it. Super successful. And I don't need a man. And I'm not gonna like even look at this aspect of my life. It's not working. And then I woke up the next morning and I was like, Sammy, you are the common denominator in all of these experiences and don't give up on love because I think love is that thing in life that really brings us to our knees and, And we feel extremely vulnerable in love. I think success is so much easier to achieve because you can push through and control so much more than you can in love, because in love, there is another party involved and they may or may not want to be with you. They may or may not like you. And that involves rejection and rejection involves vulnerability and we all resist vulnerability. And so that was the day when I woke up and I was like, no, I'm not going to give up on love. I know I have a very good heart and I know the man who's gonna really get to experience the real Sami is going to be so lucky. And I'm going to work for that. I'm going to work to bring out that real Sami. And of course, it was a journey because the men I was attracting before I did. The inner work and before I, which today I call my six-step love success framework, today I call it that. But back then, I understood that I was just. Showing up with a mask and dating, I had a mask on and I had walls up and nobody could really experience the real Sami. It was just like the strong, successful facade. It was the impression I wanted to give men. And so, the work involved, putting that mask down. And letting the man in front of me see the true me, even if it felt uncomfortable, even if it felt scary, even if it brought up fears of judgment and rejection.

Michael: Sami, one of the things that you said I want to go back into, cause I think it's actually incredibly important. And I think it's one of the things that may help a lot of people who are listening, particularly to this show. Growing up in traumatic households, growing up in abusive households, growing up in households without love or bearing witness to love or seeing this idea of love not really exist or not feeling valid or worthy of it, so many people give up on it. They're just like, I don't want to deal with this, I'm not deserving. I'm not worthy, no one will ever love me. I personally have had that experience when I was younger before really stepping into and doing the work. And I'm so curious for people who are already giving up or have given up on love, how do we help them?

Sami: Okay, so I think what really works for my clients is to depersonalize experience of love first and foremost. So let me explain that. Love feels very personal. Rejection feels very personal. The concept of worthiness and not being good enough feels very personal. The idea of putting yourself out there and not being liked or not being attractive to some people that you like, can feel very personal. So what is important is to depersonalize this whole intimidating idea of love and start to approach it from the perspective of a skill set that you can develop. So put the emotions aside and ask yourself, what are some skills I can develop that will help me show up as a healthy partner that will help me show as a confident dater and help me see, and evaluate the other party also from those. Principles and also from that skill set. So, for me personally, I put my emotions aside and I developed the skill set of confidence. I developed the skill set of showing in my feminine energy I developed the skill set of speaking my truth. I developed the skill set of drawing my boundaries I developed the skill set of authenticity and so when I started to approach everything as a skill set It was more exciting. It felt less intimidating and it actually felt like I could make progress and I could win and I could put a tick mark on my checklist of, I have this skill set, I have this skill set, I have this skill set. So, I think for me that really worked because I think we overcomplicate love. There's so much advice on the internet about relationships. And I think the reason why my process works, I work with women, it's because I really. Make love objective. I presented from an angle off. What are the skills we can develop to be a healthy partner to show up as a healthy date for the man we are with? And what are some healthy principles we want to look out when we're choosing a partner? And then what are some skill sets to develop to be healthy in a relationship to communicate in a healthy way in a relationship to speak your truth in the relationship? And so, everything feels less personal. And more like a skill set that one can cultivate.

Michael: That's such an interesting way to look at it because I can see how that can be powerful, right? Because I often think about mutually for both men and women. What is the number one trait of attracting this right? And it's generally speaking, not physical, right? But when you talk about the thing that someone else brings to the table, Nine times out of 10, it's confidence, right? Because we all want to be around someone confident who sees themselves, who believes in themselves. And I think that's where the inner work like really shows up and you can tell who has done it and who has not. And I coach people of all varieties, men, women, everyone in between. And whenever we're talking about dating and relationships, the one thing I'm always saying to them is if you can't sit in front of someone and make eye contact with them, you will never go on a second date with them. Because that confidence element is so unbelievably important. And to get to the place that you love yourself, and find yourself worthy of love. I think it comes through like the actions of building up who you are, like, who do you truly want to be? And then taking that and looking at it from a practical standpoint, which I love the way that you frame it because very much, they are skill sets. Vulnerability is a skill set. Authenticity is a skill set. Good dates are a skill set, right? And obviously we can go down a lot of different paths with that, one of the things that is so important about those skill sets is they also present the opportunity for polarity, right? This thing that is so unbelievably important in the human dynamic. And so I think in order really to understand that first, can you define a couple of things for us? Cause I really want people to understand this. When I understood this, it changed my life forever. And that genuinely. One, what is polarity? Two, what is masculine and feminine energy? And three, how do those three things all intersect with each other?

Sami: Okay, sure. Great questions. So polarity is just one step in my six step process. So, it's one of the skill sets we can develop to have a healthy romantic relationship. So, what is polarity? Polarity is the presence of polar opposite energies. So, in the world of energy, there is the masculine energy, which is the penetrative force in the universe. It is the action, it is the doing, it is the forward movement, it is the giving, it is the planning, it is the logistics. It's about the future, it's about structure. And then there is the feminine, which is the receiving energy. So this is about emotions, this is about the present moment. This is about being able to receive from the masculine because the masculine has something to offer and the feminine can receive, receive that. So when we talk about polarity and romantic relationships, what really goes on is that, for the women that I work with, for example, these are professional women, career oriented women, ambitious women, and they are, Embodying a lot of masculine energy, because that is what has what life has required out of them in order to get to where they want to be. So if they are at top level, positions, their engineers, their doctors, they've had to work really hard. They've had to push their way through life. They've had to pass many exams, many interviews, drive, like they can do it all because that's what life required out of them. And here's the interesting thing. What are they attracted to? They're attracted to masculine embodied men because at their core, they're women, at their core, their nature is feminine. It's, it wants to be taken care of. It wants to receive, it wants to be protected. It wants to be cherished, but that's not the life they have lived. So, in their careers, they're extremely in the masculine. However, in their love life, they want a man who is bigger than them. Who is better than them, who can look after them, who can give, who can do, who can provide. But here's the irony of it. You cannot attract an empowered, masculine man while still being in your masculine energy. Because by the definition of if attraction, sexual tension is created in a relationship when there is the presence of polar opposite energies or polarity, then if you show up in your masculine and you want a masculine empowered King, you're just pushing and repelling those men away, right? Like they're not attracted to mask. They're not attracted to a female body with masculine energy with that masculine spirit. So often we think that a woman who is wearing high heels and a pretty red dress and has a red lipstick on and a Prada bag, sitting at a bar, she's in her feminine, but that's not true at all. You could be wearing a red dress and have red lips and looking completely 10 on 10. And when a man approaches you, you could still have very thorny energy. You could still have a very egoistical energy. You could still not be warm. You could still not be inviting. You could still have walls up. You could still be argumentative. He offers to buy you a drink and you say, I can do it myself. It's so interesting that my client, she has this issue that she shows up in her masculine and wants to attract the masculine. And what we teach is that if you want to show up. In your masculine energy and you insist on showing up in your masculine as a woman, you're going to attract more feminine embodied men. Now, this is not a judgment. This is not a judgment. I think there are some people who will be better off with those men, but let's just talk to, what creates real sexual desire, real sexual tension, real attraction between a man and a woman. And that is the presence of those polar opposite energies. And this is true for men as well. So of course the more you are laid back and the more you are not in your full masculine force, the more you will attract, women who are in their masculine, because you're more in your feminine, but you want to attract a feminine woman. So if you want to attract a more feminine embodied woman, a more receiving resting woman, then you have to step up more in your masculine force. And the beauty of polarity is that when you have that in a relationship, the fire, the spark that so many relationships miss. They will always be there. So, my husband and I, we've been together, we're going to be celebrating 11 years until today, 11 years of being married. And, till today, he's just smitten. He's just it's so funny to watch, he's just like crazy about Sammy. And he will do everything for Sammy and he will, carry me and love me and bring me gifts and spoil me. And it's because. When I decided to let go of my masculine, and I decided to be vulnerable and just be and be okay with being imperfect, letting a man see my imperfections, letting a man give to me, do for me, and just being, becoming that receiving container, it was then that I started to attract more keen kind of men, because earlier I just was attracting takers. I was so much in my masculine. I was trying too hard doing too much and it was attracting just the wrong type of men.

How to Heal from Collective Trauma | with Thomas Hübl

Michael: I want to dive into this a little bit deeper and delineate some of this into a way that I think could be really practical for people. One of the things that I appreciate about you is your expertise and your ability to break these very complex things down into something palatable. And so, where I want to start here is. Kind of looking at this from a definition standpoint. What is trauma? 

Thomas: Yeah, trauma is the inner response to a strongly overwhelming situation. Because many people say that trauma is the situation, and I would say no. The classical view on trauma says the trauma is the response that happens in our bodies, nervous systems, whatever, in response to a strongly overwhelming situation. And what that is that I believe a process that is, And that's why we have a very intelligent that has been formed over tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years in our nervous systems is able to deal with that strong overwhelm in multiple ways. And there are two main reasons. One is that every time there's a strongly adverse situation, there's a high level of escalated stress that leads to high fight flight or freeze mechanisms. And the second part is then the nervous system can shut down the overwhelm. So, there's something very noisy and suddenly you push the mute button. And when you shut down a part and compartmentalize the overwhelm. In a box and shut it down in the unconscious, you can survive better. You can still act, you can do something in that adverse moment that you couldn't do with all that noise. And but what happens is in the moment that's dissociated and shut down is like we have a window with a crack. So, from that moment on, when something just comes a little bit closer to touch that place, we get really triggered. And we see the world not anymore as a, as an interdependent whole, but we feel separate. And these are also the trauma symptoms. You have high escalation of stress, trigger hyperactivation, you have hypo, you feel numb, you feel distant, you feel disengaged and indifferent, and you feel separate. And then it's me and them, it's us and them. It's like the whole story of separation that is in a way the reenactment of the next cycle of trauma already is built into that. And so that's, let's say it's a bit more complex than what I can say in the short words, but that would be for me a description of the trauma response and maybe the symptoms that many of us can identify in ourselves that either we are very stressed or we've become distant and a bit checked out indifferent has nothing to do with me.

Michael: What's so interesting about that is because it does become this autonomic response that becomes for many of us are emotional home. You see, high performers who are constantly on edge. And one of the things I used to say, having now been an entrepreneur for a very long time and going through my own healing journey, honestly, was I thrive in chaos and then Thomas, one day I was sitting back and I was like, that is the dumbest shit imaginable. Why would you want to thrive in the place of which you suffer the most? And for me, it's so much of the journey. Has been getting into this place of restoring homeostasis, but what's so fascinating about it. Is in my own personal journey, I'm now heading into 14 years of doing the work, like really intentionally showing up every day. And it is still like a day in, day out journey, and one of the things that I teach my clients all the time is, if you sign on the dotted line, where you're like, I'm going to Hill, this is a rest of your life game. And one of the things that I want to try to do is give people permission to accept that reality. And I'm wondering I think about acknowledgement around the experiences that we've had and looking at our life in the truth, not in the reality we wish existed, but in the truth of the reality that we're in. I find that to be the jump off point, that acknowledgement for creating change to going down the path. If I'm sitting here, I'm listening, I'm going through this. I'm like, I know some traumatic things have happened to me. Where do I begin my process? What does that look like? What is like the most practical thing I can do in this moment?

Thomas: First of all, I love the wider framing. I love that you demystify the healing process. And you say, this is a journey for the rest of our lives, we don't know. The question is how long is not relevant because how long actually says that it's hard for me here. That's why I want to project myself into the future of when it's good. When, in fact, all that grows is my, every time something heals, of course, my capacity to be in a world that is still traumatizing to a certain extent. It's not that suddenly all the world is going to be great because I'm healed. I will have a much higher capacity to be, stay related to that world, to find new solutions, to be innovative, to maybe create healing around myself. But it, it increases my capacity to be more grounded in the world and not more checked out, not more in a kind of a paradise seeking reality, but more grounded in dealing with the world that we have. And I think that's also where our efforts need to be. That's where our impact and purpose needs to come. And all the healing that I develop in myself is also how I become the remedy. That's the remedy that I become. So, post traumatic growth is also what I heal in myself will serve others. They can learn from my nervous system that it's possible. And that's amazing. So, thank you for. Because there are many, oh, self-help and you do it fast and it's fast and it's, no it's the process. It takes the time that it takes. And I think we need to be realistic about that. And that's also one thing we can do is we can say yes, because trauma, when we are on the trauma healing path, the reason why we get there most of the time is because we are suffering from something. And I think coming back to your question, one element is to see, okay, there are multiple great friends that we can gather around us that can help us on the journey. One is a learning practice and practices and techniques to self-regulate differently and to train our nervous system to change its inner state. So, there are many self-regulation techniques and ways to do that, that we can acquire, we can read books, we can do trainings, we can do that. The second thing is, and my breath is a very important aspect of regulating my nervous system. So I, there's something that is very close. There's a simple remedy that I can train and work within myself and my body, my embodiment. I can find the resources that help me like nature, music, friends, meditation, all kinds of things that helped me to resource myself. So, I can learn about that, but. I think it's very important to know that. A lot of trauma has been inflicted through inappropriate relationships, and that's why a lot of healing of trauma happens in appropriate relationships, in relationships that have an expertise to hold us. They go through with us through the bottlenecks of our development when it's really painful that somebody is there that we can trust, somebody that we feel safe with, or we develop the safety over time. And I think finding the right guides and maybe these are different guides at different times of our process that can help us to go through the journey. That's amazing. Also community. community and having a community where we can also what you create with your podcast to create or with your work you create a community and that community is an asset like it's we are together in this we are learning something collectively. We are developing collective competencies that are maybe not like very highly trained trauma therapists, but we learn something collectively and we can be with each other in certain moments. So, the individual, the relational, the collective, and also the spiritual. If the spiritual is not a bypass, then it can be a tremendous resource for our healing process. And so, these are a few elements that I can see, okay, how can I bring that more and more into my life? And I, and the important thing is we are not supposed to do it alone. We don't have to do it alone. It's not a lonely fight to heal myself. It's the more relational support we can allow back into our life, because often that's what's the most threatening. So, we, it's a step by step process, but the more support we can let in, that's also a sign that we can open up again and be more nourished. And so, I think these are just a few components to not make it too long. 

Survive Anger and Suicidal Thoughts | with Benoit Kim

Michael: How did anger play out in your childhood?

Benoit Kim: I think I would go against what she, I think, a lot of times parents are just older children, having children for the first time, right? Just like your therapist asked you, have you imagined your mother's childhood? Until I got to the point of grace and forgiveness, it was nice. I didn't understand, so I will go against what my mom would say. I will go against the instilled beliefs and teachings only because. Because I didn't want to. And through that, when you're operating your life in such a black and white, all or nothing framework, you lose out on a lot of the benefits and helpful things that my mom did teach me and did try to instill. And anger was blinding for me for a long time.

Michael: Yeah. Anger is blinding for a lot of young boys, especially growing up in single parent female dominated households. One of the things that I experienced in my life and in my childhood was obviously being raised by women. And then an abusive man and my stepfather, and that makes you angry. It makes you resentful, it makes you callous. It makes you want to burn the world down in a lot of different ways. The opposite of it, which I don't know if this was your experience or not. So, I'm very curious about it. Is it actually feminized me in a lot of ways like I was a young boy who was deeply in feminine energy being raised by a woman even though I was unbelievably angry dude one time I got suspended from elementary school For stabbing a kid with a spork, you know, so I know about anger and violence and those things coming out did you feel like The world was against you. Do you feel like you tried to make meaning of it? What was going through your head at such a young age?

Benoit Kim: I want to answer that question by sharing a concept, external and internal locus of control. It's a psychological term that you might know. All of us are at the grace of life, this force that's larger than we are. Always, almost. And I just felt like I never had a sense of control. I never felt I had an agency of control of my life, whatever my mom said goes. When I defied that, I was under the tyranny of my mom growing up, and that's what that meant for me. Until I realized, hold up, there are things I can control, and there are things I could do. But I think the theme was, I have no control, what's the point? I guess I'll just accept whatever reality my mom creates for me, because I'm under her roof and under her tiger mom regime.

Michael: And in that When you talk about lack of agency, I don't think kids really have a lot of agency to begin with. We're being molded into whatever our parents choose us to be in a lot of ways, which is strange. How would you like looking back at that? Like, how would you define agency at such a young age?

Benoit Kim: I think a lot of these are in retrospective view, right? I've been a personal help junkie since I was 13. The first book I read was the secret. Of course, some of the concepts are outdated, but it still played a role in the development and the growth of personal development worlds. But I share that because I didn't have that level of introspection when I was six, seven or eight. And with our memory recall. We tend to paint our realities rosier than it actually was, right? That's the whole point of confirmation bias, self-selection bias, and so on. But I think the way I thought about agency is. What is my role in this world? What is my role in my household? What is my role in this family that I was born into since none of us choose to be born? That's why I feel like parents have more responsibility than children do. It's a philosophical thing that I hold I don't think we owe, I think our parents owe us more than we owe our parents even as an Asian because I didn't choose to Be born, but I'm very grateful that I was born, but I think agency is for me. What is my role? And what can I do about it?

Michael: I want you to go deep into this and we have time and I think this is a really important conversation. once went pretty viral because, I had said in a video that most of your parents are gaslighting you and they didn't do the best that they could because if they did, you probably wouldn't be watching this video to begin with. And I'm curious I agree as someone who grew up with a very chaotic background, I felt and I still do to some capacity that my parents owed me something I did not choose to be brought into this world. And then, of course, you have the conversation like as eternal beings, maybe we did blah, blah, blah. We could go down there if we need to. But what do you think that our parents owe us? 

Benoit Kim: That is a deep cut question. I think our parents owe us the duty and the responsibility by upholding their decision to give birth to us. I think they owe us the responsibility and space because they chose not to, either choose not to give birth or chose to give birth, right? And I think they owe us the space to raise us to become the people they wish they were. And I think that's what instillment is, right? I think a lot of our parents, to your point, it's not my place to comment how many parents tried their best and how many didn't. There’re no stats for that since I am a psychotherapist. But what I can say is, in a lot of our at least Asian culture and ethnic culture, I don't want to speak for everyone, but this is my truth, where a lot of our parents, they want to mold us, using our word, and condition us to become the versions that never were themselves. They give us this instilled beliefs and dreams because they never had an opportunity to achieve it at their own accord. So therefore, they whip us, for me literally, I was beaten growing up, Asian, pretty common in Asian households, because she wasn't able to achieve her dreams because of her circumstances. So, I am the extension of her legacy. So, she must try whatever she possibly could to mold us to the version that she never was. And that's very traumatic in its own sense. Because it wasn't until recently, Michael, that I realized, hold up. What are the beliefs and references that operate by day to day? How many of those are my own voice, my own desire, my own purpose? And how many of that were instilled by my mom, my stepdad, church leaders, thought leaders, and so on? And this process of peeling back the false layers, as I call it. It's like peeling back onions, I love cooking, and onions fucking hurt. I cry every time I peel back onions. But when you get to the core of it that's where the essence is. And a lot of us choose not to go through that process because it's painful.

Michael: Yeah, and it part of me believes that it's supposed to be painful and the reason that I say that because it's like how in the world do you break free of that if you do not elicit some kind of response that challenges you and I think part of the problem is, there is emotional enmeshment that happens and you end up with a lot of an emotional enmeshment and emotional incest and you end up in this culturally, we are seeing unbelievably damaging shift happening of son husbands in the world, where there are so many young boys who are being groomed by their mothers to be the quote unquote man of the house, to be the leader, to be mommy's good little boy, but and that is so unbelievably detrimental to both masculinity and the male-female dynamic that I think that there's going to be a price to pay that we don't even understand that is (A) is starting to play out right now, but in 25 years is. Possibly going to be a downfall of our civilization as we know it. I realize that's grasping for straws, but I do think about this a lot. Growing up, what was the, ‘cause I think this is really important because obviously you've created a ton of success in your life. You have an amazing podcast, you serve the country, you're a psychotherapist, you've been able to create success, but I also believe that there is a price to success. And that price to success often begins in our childhoods. For me, I went the opposite way. I was like, I know that I will create the life that I want by being a massive contrarian, by going against the grain, by doing the complete opposite that everyone ever tells me to do. And so, I'm wondering with the expectations of a tiger mom, with these cultural expectations, with the, I assume, I'm guessing probably a ton of bullying, especially growing up Asian in LA. What were the pressures that you put on yourself? And then what were the pressures that your mother put on you that defined who you are as a man?

Benoit Kim: I think the concept that answers that is productivity dysmorphia, I work out a lot, right? You're a six, four, 230 pounds. I'm a veteran. As you said, I saw a lot of men. We struggle with modern body dysmorphia, men and women alike, especially for former athlete, especially but what we're not talking about is productivity dysmorphia. Whenever I'm in this in between spaces of not being hyper productive or rest, I know you give yourself the grace of gaming all day once every couple months, right? I don't know how to deal with this in between moments. Some of my most depressive moments are when I'm in a chill stage. When I'm just doing 40 hours a week, since I have a full-time job in a business, I don't know how to embrace the chillness. I don't know how to embrace the rest. Idleness is this demonic word in American culture, but idleness just means inaction. If you think about law of thermodynamics, right? Every action has reaction, but to do that, you have the pauses in the buffering space in between, and I don't know how to do that. This is my growth edge. I can each and work through it. But going back to your question, I think that's the biggest thing my mom instilled in me is if you're not always achieving something, which is my core identity and my core belief, I'm working through it, being an overachiever. If you're not achieving something, you're worthless. If you're not mounting to something that you lack, if you're not doing X, then you don't have the Y, but productivity dysmorphia is something I think a lot of men, especially like you and I can relate to, and I'm sure a lot of the clients you coach.