0:01

You're listening to How to Be a

0:03

Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. If

0:06

you've been listening to the podcast for a

0:08

while, it's practically guaranteed that you've heard either

0:10

me or one of our guests talk about

0:12

therapy. And I feel like these days, there

0:14

is a lot of talk about how great

0:16

therapy is, but a lot less about how

0:19

it actually works. It's a little bit like

0:21

if everyone kept telling you that it's so

0:23

great for your body to use weights to

0:25

work out, but then when you tried to

0:27

join a gym, it involved doing all sorts

0:29

of research and asking for recommendations and it

0:31

was extremely complicated to figure out how much

0:34

the gym was going to cost each month

0:36

and also whether the gym had openings for

0:38

new members. Plus no one could really explain

0:40

to you exactly what the difference was between

0:42

using a gym and just buying some dumb

0:44

bells and keeping them under your bed. I'm

0:46

not going to belabor the gym anymore here,

0:48

but I think you get my point. That

0:50

is why I am so excited about today's

0:53

guest Lori Gottlieb. Lori is a therapist

0:55

and an author who wrote the book, Maybe

0:57

You Should Talk to Someone. Lori is amazing

1:00

at explaining how and why therapy works,

1:02

what you can do to change the

1:04

inner narrative you may be telling yourself,

1:06

and why therapy has been such an

1:08

important force in her own life. One

1:10

thing that I love about Lori is how

1:12

she's so willing to talk about both the

1:14

big picture stuff and she is just as

1:17

willing to dive into the nitty gritty details,

1:19

including some very practical steps for how to

1:21

find a therapist and what you should look

1:23

for if you do meet with someone

1:26

for the first time. To get us started,

1:28

here is a clip from Lori's TED Talk.

1:30

Now, I have a pretty unusual

1:32

inbox because I'm a therapist, and

1:34

I write an advice column called

1:36

Dear Therapist. So you can imagine

1:38

what's in there? I've read thousands

1:40

of very personal letters from strangers

1:42

all over the world. And these

1:45

letters range from heartbreak and loss,

1:47

dispatch with parents or siblings. I

1:49

keep them in a folder on my laptop,

1:51

and I've named it the problems

1:53

of living. But I have to be really

1:55

careful when I respond to these

1:57

letters, because I know that every

1:59

... is actually just a story

2:01

written by a specific author, and

2:04

that another version of this story

2:06

also exists. It always does. And

2:08

I know this because if I've

2:10

learned anything as a therapist, it's

2:12

that we are all unreliable narrators

2:14

of our own lives. I am.

2:16

You are. And so is everyone

2:18

you know. Most of what people

2:20

tell me is absolutely true, just

2:22

from their current points of view.

2:24

depending on what they emphasize or

2:27

minimize, what they leave in, what

2:29

they leave out, what they see

2:31

and what they want me to

2:33

see, they tell their stories in

2:35

a particular way. The way we

2:37

narrate our lives shapes what they

2:39

become. That's the danger of our

2:41

stories, because they can really mess

2:43

us up, but it's also their

2:45

power. Because what it means is

2:47

that if we can change our

2:50

stories, then we can change our

2:52

lives. We're

2:54

going to talk

2:56

a lot more

2:59

about how we

3:01

narrate our stories

3:03

in just a

3:06

moment, but first,

3:08

like any great

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story these days,

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we've Better

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5:03

we're talking with Lori Gottlieb about how

5:05

to change the stories that we tell

5:07

to and about ourselves. Hi, I'm Lori

5:10

Gottlieb, I'm a psychotherapist, and I'm the

5:12

author of Maybe You Should Talk to

5:14

Someone, and I co-host the Dear Therapist

5:16

podcast. There's this big idea in your

5:18

TED Talk, and it's a big piece

5:20

of the book as well, that we

5:22

are all unreliable narrators of our own

5:24

lives. And so I want to talk

5:26

to you about that idea, but I

5:28

also want to talk to talk about

5:30

the thing that to me as a

5:32

funny metal level, You are also literally

5:35

the narrator of the book about your

5:37

own life. How do you think about

5:39

it in general for all of us?

5:41

And then how did you think about

5:43

it for yourself when you were crafting

5:45

like a quite literal narrative that then

5:47

people are going to read about your

5:49

life? That's such a great question. Nobody

5:51

has ever asked me about the part

5:53

about my narrating the book and the

5:55

unreliable narrator part of that. I think

5:58

that we like to think that we're

6:00

reliable narrators because we feel like I'm

6:02

telling the objective version of what happened.

6:04

And it's not that what we're saying

6:06

is untrue. What we're saying is absolutely

6:08

true, but from our own vantage point.

6:10

So we're leaving out a lot of

6:12

things. We're bringing in certain things, certain

6:14

threads to the story that we want

6:16

the other person to hear. We're minimizing

6:18

the parts that maybe we don't want

6:20

them to hear as much. And the

6:23

parts that maybe we don't want to

6:25

acknowledge to ourselves. When I was writing,

6:27

maybe you should talk to someone, I...

6:29

was following the lives of four very

6:31

different patients as I was working with

6:33

them as their therapist, but I included

6:35

my narrative and I'm the fifth patient

6:37

in the book where I go to

6:39

therapy after something happens in my life

6:41

because I felt like it would be

6:43

really unreliable if I positioned myself as

6:45

the expert up on high. I wanted

6:48

to show as in all of my

6:50

subjectivity how I do the same things

6:52

in therapy that my therapy clients do

6:54

with me in terms of being an

6:56

unreliable narrator. And for the first part

6:58

of the book, I'm a very unreliable

7:00

narrator with my own therapist. One of

7:02

the things that you did with your

7:04

own therapist was saying the same story

7:06

over and over hoping that you would

7:08

convince them that like your perspective on

7:11

it was of course the right one

7:13

and the only one, which is I

7:15

certainly can relate to doing that in

7:17

my own therapy of saying my way

7:19

has to be the only way, right?

7:21

Give me some confirmation on that, which

7:23

of course a good therapist is not

7:25

going to do. I think that's the

7:27

difference between what I talk about in

7:29

the book, idiot compassion and wise compassion.

7:31

So idiot compassion is what we do

7:33

with our friends. So after this breakup

7:36

happened for me, everybody said about my

7:38

boyfriend, oh, you dodged a bullet, he's

7:40

a jerk, all of these things. But

7:42

that really wasn't the story. But it

7:44

was the story that felt comforting to

7:46

me. And I think my friends truly

7:48

believed that because I was telling them

7:50

a certain story. It was the accurate

7:52

story from my perspective, but it wasn't

7:54

the whole story. And so idiot compassion

7:56

is when our friends say, listen to

7:58

what happened with my boss, with my

8:01

co-worker, with my mother, with my partner,

8:03

with my sibling. And we say, yeah,

8:05

you're right, that's terrible. wrong because we

8:07

think we're being supportive. We're supporting our

8:09

friends version of the story and we

8:11

take that as truth. But I think

8:13

if you listen to your friends long

8:15

enough, you start to hear a pattern

8:17

like they've told me these kinds of

8:19

stories before, maybe different characters, maybe different

8:21

scenario. If a fight breaks out in

8:24

every bar you're going to, maybe it's

8:26

you. We do not say that to

8:28

our friends. Wise compassion is what you

8:30

get in therapy. Wise compassion is where

8:32

we hold up a mirror to you.

8:34

and we help you to see something

8:36

that you aren't willing or able to

8:38

acknowledge about your own role in the

8:40

situation. And that doesn't mean we're blaming

8:42

you for the situation at all. There's

8:44

the word compassion in there. It's about

8:46

what is your part in this dance

8:49

with this other person? We're all doing

8:51

a dance when we're interacting with someone.

8:53

What are your dance steps in this

8:55

and can you change them? It really

8:57

struck me. in your book and in

8:59

prepping for this interview and watching other

9:01

talks and interviews that you've given, the

9:03

idea of relationships as a dance, not

9:05

just the therapeutic relationship, but all of

9:07

them, because one thing that you say

9:09

that I think is really revelatory for

9:11

me and for a lot of people

9:14

is the idea that you can't change

9:16

what the other person does, but if

9:18

you keep dancing in the same way,

9:20

they're going to keep dancing in the

9:22

same way with you. That's right. I

9:24

think a lot of people come to

9:26

therapy wanting something to change and what

9:28

they want to change is usually someone

9:30

else. It's how can I change this

9:32

other person? How can I get them

9:34

to do something different? And the way

9:37

you do that is you do something

9:39

different. So you can't change another person,

9:41

but you can influence another person. to

9:43

see if they will change. And I

9:45

see this in couples a lot when

9:47

couples come in for therapy. It's each

9:49

person wants the other person to be

9:51

the first to make the change. In

9:53

other words, to change the dance first.

9:55

And I always say to people before

9:57

they even come in for their first

9:59

session, what is something that you would

10:02

like to do differently in this relationship

10:04

regardless of whether the other person changes?

10:06

if you were going to be your

10:08

best self in this relationship, what would

10:10

that look like? What is something that

10:12

you can do better in this relationship?

10:14

And they come in with that mindset

10:16

of, I'm not here to change the

10:18

other person, I'm here to do something

10:20

different myself and to see what's here

10:22

when I show up in this way.

10:24

So the thing about the dance is,

10:27

and this is like with boundaries too,

10:29

people say, oh, I'm going to set

10:31

a boundary with this other person. I'm

10:33

going to tell them, you can't talk

10:35

to me that way, or you can't

10:37

bring up this topic, or whatever the

10:39

thing might be. And that's not really

10:41

what a boundary is. A boundary is

10:43

a request that... I would like it

10:45

if you would not do that and

10:47

it's the consequence that you're going to

10:49

do, not what they need to do.

10:52

And if you do, I'm going to

10:54

end the conversation and we'll come and

10:56

we'll talk about it another time. The

10:58

boundary is about you changing your dance

11:00

steps. It's I would like it if

11:02

you would change these dance steps, but

11:04

in the meantime, if you don't, I'm

11:06

going to leave the dance floor. And

11:08

what we find, by the way, is

11:10

that if people change their dance steps,

11:12

that the other person is either going

11:15

to change their dance steps too, or

11:17

they're going to fall flat on the

11:19

dance floor, if they won't do the

11:21

new dance, then you have a choice.

11:23

Do I want to have this person

11:25

as my dance partner, or this is

11:27

not a dance that I want to

11:29

do? I find that the moments that

11:31

are the most powerful, or the moments

11:33

that really have changed my life, have

11:35

been realizing that they're... are these invisible

11:37

systems that I have built around myself

11:40

that seem instinctive and natural. And of

11:42

course, that's just how things have to

11:44

be. When someone acts like this, I

11:46

must act like that. And to just

11:48

get the tiniest bit of distance to

11:50

see that, to just get the tiniest

11:52

bit of distance to see that actually

11:54

that's something that I built, that's a

11:56

choice that I'm making. And I don't

11:58

necessarily have to make those choices. I

12:00

don't have to dance in that way,

12:02

if it's not serving me. I think

12:05

that we forget that we're all co-creating

12:07

a dynamic with a person, that it's

12:09

not this... is bad and I am

12:11

good. This person is toxic. That's another

12:13

thing that gets thrown around on social

12:15

media a lot. And I'm the healthy

12:17

one because if you're participating in an

12:19

unhealthy dynamic, you're co-creating that with the

12:21

other person. I think a scene in

12:23

the book that people talk about a

12:25

lot is the moment when I'm in

12:28

therapy and I'm feeling really trapped. And

12:30

I feel like I don't have any

12:32

choices. And my therapist says to me,

12:34

you remind me of this cartoon and

12:36

it's of a prisoner shaking the bars

12:38

desperately trying to get out. But on

12:40

the right and the left, it's open.

12:42

No bars. So the question is, why

12:44

is it that sometimes we can't see

12:46

that it's open? And why is it

12:48

that even when we do see that

12:50

it's open, we don't walk around those

12:53

bars? And they think that a lot

12:55

of that has to do with the

12:57

idea that there is some comfort, it's

12:59

discomfort, but there is a way of

13:01

abdicating responsibility for our own lives if

13:03

we say the problem is someone else

13:05

or something else. And if we walk

13:07

around those bars with freedom... the freedom

13:09

that we would then have comes responsibility.

13:11

And now we're responsible for our lives.

13:13

We can't blame our unhappiness, our stuckness,

13:15

whatever it might be, on someone else.

13:18

Now we know we have the freedom

13:20

to change that, and if we don't,

13:22

we only have ourselves to blame. We're

13:24

going to take a quick break, and

13:26

we will be right back with more

13:28

from Lori after this. This

13:33

episode of How to Be a Better

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And we are back. So Lori, you're

16:11

obviously not just a really talented therapist,

16:13

you're also a really talented writer and

16:16

editor. And I know you've spoken before

16:18

about how you see those as being

16:20

complementary skills. Can you talk a little

16:22

bit about that? Yeah, I always love

16:25

stories and the human condition. And I

16:27

started first working in film development after

16:29

college and then I was an executive

16:31

at NBC. And when I was at

16:33

NBC, I was working on a show

16:36

you may have heard of called ER.

16:38

I was not a writer on the

16:40

show I was an executive. at the

16:42

network. Our consultant on the show who

16:45

was an ER doc kept saying to

16:47

me, I think you like it better

16:49

here than you like your day job.

16:51

ER of course was this incredible show

16:53

and the stories were so real, but

16:56

they were also fiction. And when you're

16:58

in an ER and you see these

17:00

inflection points in people's lives, I was

17:02

fascinated by that. And so I ended

17:05

up going to medical school. I went

17:07

up to Stanford and I started writing

17:09

when I was in medical school and

17:11

I left to become a writer and

17:13

it was later that I came back

17:16

decided to become a therapist but I

17:18

think that they're all related. They're all

17:20

about stories and the human condition. And

17:22

I feel like as a therapist, when

17:25

I'm sitting in the therapist here, I

17:27

almost feel like an editor, that people

17:29

come in with their stories, and they

17:31

come in with these faulty narratives. And

17:33

a lot of them are these narratives

17:36

that we've carried around for so long

17:38

that we don't even realize that we're

17:40

holding them. These stories that someone else

17:42

has told us about ourselves. that were

17:45

much more about the storyteller, the person

17:47

who told us this when we were

17:49

younger, than about us, but we interpreted

17:51

it to be about us. So we

17:53

took away these stories like, I'm unlovable,

17:56

or nothing will ever work out for

17:58

me, or I can't trust anyone, the

18:00

way you see the world, and you

18:02

act out those stories every day in

18:05

all of your interactions without being aware

18:07

of it. So one of the things

18:09

I really do as an editor is

18:11

to help people to edit their stories

18:13

and make sure that they reflect. their

18:16

world in the present. As a writer,

18:18

the arc that people go through in

18:20

therapy very much mirrors the arc that

18:22

people go through in any kind of

18:25

narrative. There's a chapter in your book

18:27

called How Humans Change, and you talk

18:29

about the steps that change actually takes.

18:31

One of the things that I heard

18:33

you say that it really, I'm still

18:36

gnawing on and mulling over, is the

18:38

idea that change is complicated because with

18:40

change comes loss. And I think that

18:42

can be really one of the big

18:45

things that holds us back. It is

18:47

even when the change is positive. it

18:49

still comes with loss because we tend

18:51

to cling to the familiar. The familiar

18:53

is something that feels comfortable to us,

18:56

even if it makes us miserable. It's

18:58

still something that we know. If we

19:00

haven't processed the ways that we've been

19:02

heard in the past, we tend to

19:05

do this thing, this phrase repetition compulsion,

19:07

where we try to master the situation.

19:09

that we couldn't master when we were

19:11

younger. This time I will win. But

19:13

we don't know that going in. We

19:16

meet someone and we think this person's

19:18

really different from the person who hurt

19:20

me. This person is not at all

19:22

like my alcoholic parents, my parent with

19:25

anger issues, my parent who was very

19:27

withholding. And then you get into the

19:29

relationship and it's like, uh-oh. This feels

19:31

really familiar. And the reason that change

19:33

is so hard is because even though

19:36

we're not happy in that situation, we

19:38

know it and humans don't do well

19:40

with uncertainty. And the other thing about

19:42

changes is that there are stages of

19:45

change. This is why New Year's resolutions

19:47

fail so much. is because people don't

19:49

realize that there are stages to change.

19:51

And it starts with pre-contemplation, where you

19:53

don't even know you're thinking about making

19:56

a change. Then contemplation, where you are

19:58

wanting to make a change, but you're

20:00

not ready to do it yet. And

20:02

that's when people land in therapy. Then

20:05

there's preparation, where you're not the last

20:07

step. And so a lot of people,

20:09

this is why people tend to fall

20:11

off from change. The last step is

20:13

actually maintenance. And maintenance is how do

20:16

you maintain the change? And a big

20:18

misconception about maintenance is that once you've

20:20

made the change, you're just maintaining it

20:22

and you're just going along. And if

20:25

you fall back, you failed. That is

20:27

not true. It's like shoots and ladders

20:29

maintenance. And what happens is until a

20:31

habit becomes something that starts to feel

20:33

familiar to you, going back to how

20:36

we... get comfort from familiarity, you're going

20:38

to keep falling back. And so you

20:40

need to have a lot of self-compassion.

20:42

So someone might say, oh, I was

20:45

going to break up with that person,

20:47

but oh, no, I called them, and

20:49

I got back together with them. And

20:51

then you just say, okay, but that

20:53

was that day. And now you just

20:56

get back on track. Or, oh, I

20:58

was going to exercise, and then I

21:00

didn't do it. It's OK. So that

21:02

happened that happened that day. that you're

21:05

not holding yourself accountable, which is just

21:07

not true. And I just want to

21:09

say that self-lagellation does not work in

21:11

the long term. It might work in

21:13

the short term, but it does not

21:16

work in the long term. It's interesting

21:18

with maintenance as a form of change

21:20

because I think that with some pretty

21:22

dramatic forms of change, one that comes

21:24

to mind immediately for me, a sobriety.

21:27

The maintenance piece I think feels really

21:29

natural to people the idea of I'm

21:31

four years sober I'm 30 days sober

21:33

the idea that it is an active

21:36

thing It's not just like you decided

21:38

to be sober and that it's done

21:40

that it is something that needs to

21:42

be maintained But with other forms of

21:44

of change, people sometimes, they don't give

21:47

themselves the pride that people feel in

21:49

10 years of sobriety. If it's 10

21:51

years of working to set healthy boundaries

21:53

with family members, you pat yourself on

21:56

the back. Right, and I think that's

21:58

because we're so self-critical with ourselves and

22:00

we don't realize it. And what we

22:02

say to ourselves isn't always kind or

22:04

true or useful. But an example of

22:07

this is I had this client and

22:09

she was so self-critical, it didn't realize

22:11

it. And this could have been anybody

22:13

because so many people are like this,

22:16

I'm like this with myself. And I

22:18

said to her, I want you to

22:20

listen for this voice in your head

22:22

and I want you to write down

22:24

everything you say to yourself over the

22:27

course of the week and come back

22:29

next week and let's talk about it.

22:31

And so she comes back the next

22:33

week and she starts to read her

22:36

list and she starts crying. And she

22:38

said, I'm such a bully to myself.

22:40

We should always be kind and true

22:42

and useful, not just with ourselves but

22:44

with other people. I think it would

22:47

really change the dialogue if we use

22:49

those criteria. Do you recommend that people

22:51

literally keep a list of what they've

22:53

signed to themselves or what's the first

22:56

step in making that shift? I think

22:58

the first step is yes, writing down

23:00

what you say to yourself. And then

23:02

looking at the why, whose voice is

23:04

that? Usually it's not your voice. We

23:07

are not your voice. We are not

23:09

born. with that critical voice in our

23:11

heads. Usually it came from somewhere. It

23:13

might be someone in your environment when

23:16

you were growing up. It might be

23:18

the culture. It could be the school

23:20

system. Maybe you had a learning disability

23:22

and people told you that you were

23:24

not smart and that's just not true.

23:27

Where were you getting these messages? Whose

23:29

stories are they? Again, going back to

23:31

getting rid of those faulty narratives and

23:33

rewriting those and rewriting those. We've talked

23:36

about some of the patients who you

23:38

talk about in the book. There's four

23:40

patient stories and then your own as

23:42

the fifth. One of the patients who

23:44

I want to talk about is John.

23:47

And he's really rude to you. That

23:49

is a person who I think many...

23:51

people would question and then did question

23:53

to you, like, why do you take

23:56

care of someone who is going to

23:58

treat you badly, even as the person

24:00

who's trying to provide care for him?

24:02

But you have a really interesting reframing

24:04

of why some people do act in

24:07

this kind of obnoxious, rude, disrespectful way.

24:09

Yeah, when John came in, he was

24:11

so insulting to me and so rude.

24:13

paying in cash because he didn't want

24:16

his wife to know that he was

24:18

coming to therapy. He was a very

24:20

successful person in his professional world and

24:22

he said he was coming to me

24:24

because I was a nobody and he

24:27

wouldn't run into anyone he knew in

24:29

the waiting room. He said that he

24:31

was paying in cash. It would be

24:33

just like I was his mistress and

24:36

then he said, actually, you're not the

24:38

kind of person I would choose as

24:40

a mistress, more like my hooker. And

24:42

I think that the way he was

24:44

so extreme in pushing pushing me away.

24:47

said to me that he was very

24:49

damaged somewhere that getting close to people

24:51

was terrifying for him. And I think

24:53

that when we can't speak with words,

24:56

we speak with our behavior. Behavior is

24:58

another way of communicating. And a lot

25:00

of times people misinterpret the behavior. So

25:02

they say, this person's an asshole. Well,

25:04

no, this person is actually terrified is

25:07

what they are. So yes, their behavior

25:09

is not really acceptable. The way that

25:11

they're coping with their pain. is to

25:13

make sure that nobody gets close to

25:16

them so that they don't get more

25:18

hurt. Everybody has this story and I

25:20

need to get at what the story

25:22

is to help them. What would happen

25:24

if I was able to see if

25:27

he could talk about that story with

25:29

me after we get past the behavior

25:31

way of speaking? We act out the

25:33

unspeakable. and they wanted him to understand

25:36

why he was acting out what was

25:38

unspeakable to him. And when people read

25:40

the book, they say, oh, I really

25:42

hated John at the beginning. And by

25:44

the end of the book, they say,

25:47

I just wanted to hug him. He

25:49

is my favorite person in the book.

25:51

It's also, I feel like there's an

25:53

important disclaimer here that for you because

25:56

you are in a therapeutic setting it

25:58

makes sense to to deal with someone

26:00

who is going to be disrespectful and

26:02

obnoxious and try and get to the

26:04

root of it but for the rest

26:07

of us we can maybe use those

26:09

ideas that they are acting in a

26:11

certain way because of something that happened

26:13

to them we can use it to

26:16

have more compassion but it also doesn't

26:18

mean that we have to then tolerate

26:20

that person treating us poorly. Absolutely not.

26:22

The reason I wanted to help him

26:24

was because he was ruining all of

26:27

his relationships outside of the therapy room

26:29

because nobody would tolerate that kind of

26:31

behavior. His marriage was about to end

26:33

all kinds of things like that. And

26:36

the therapy room is a microcosm of

26:38

what happens out there. So whatever people

26:40

do out there, they will reenact that

26:42

with you. I think people forget that

26:44

you as a therapist are having a

26:47

relationship with your client. And so whatever

26:49

they do out there, if they don't

26:51

tell the truth out there, they're not

26:53

going to tell the truth in here.

26:56

If they are easily injured out there,

26:58

they will be easily injured in the

27:00

therapy room. If they distract and avoid

27:02

out there, they're going to do that

27:04

in the therapy room. And it's a

27:07

really good place for you to be

27:09

able to talk about it in a

27:11

way that it's really hard to do

27:13

outside of the therapy room with the

27:16

people in your life. Since you are

27:18

inside this therapy room, a huge part

27:20

of how you're spending your time, and

27:22

you're hearing a lot of traumatic things,

27:24

you're hearing a lot of painful things,

27:27

heavy, dark stuff, does therapy feel like

27:29

a depressing profession to you, or is

27:31

there instead, do you feel like you

27:33

get to take that and transform it

27:36

somehow? So I'm smiling because I think

27:38

that's such a misconception about the work

27:40

of therapy. I think it's the most

27:42

inspiring, hopeful profession. I'm so inspired by

27:44

the people that I see. And I

27:47

think even the idea that everybody is,

27:49

I feel like a hero in the

27:51

sense of they're making these small changes

27:53

all the time that are really hard

27:56

to make. they've never done before in

27:58

their lives. And you get to be

28:00

a witness and a guide as they

28:02

go along and do this. And I

28:04

think that we don't have forever and

28:07

people forget that. Life has 100% mortality

28:09

rate. That's not just for other people,

28:11

even though we like to believe that.

28:13

We are all going to die. None

28:16

of us will get out of here

28:18

alive. And that's not a morbid thought.

28:20

It's I think a very, it's a

28:22

thought that gives us intention. How do

28:24

I want to spend my time? that

28:27

I know is limited while I'm here

28:29

and able to. And I think that

28:31

when you're in therapy, you're much more

28:33

aware of the limited amount of time

28:36

that you have to make your relationships

28:38

the way you want to make them,

28:40

to do the things with your life

28:42

that you really want to do, and

28:44

not be stuck by old narratives or

28:47

these ideas about what you can and

28:49

can't do with your life, and really

28:51

realizing that we have agency to choose

28:53

how we want to live our lives.

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