“This Is How You Love Yourself" (Coaching Session Breakdown)

Brett: We just released a video on the YouTube channel that people are loving. It's a coaching session that you did with a kid who said he hasn't felt good in years, and I'd love to just dive into this video and do a breakdown to see the patterns that you see and how they might be showing up for people who are watching this and how they can learn from this and their own lives.

Joe: Yeah, that would be fantastic. There is, if I recall correctly, there are some very cool patterns in here that really touch a tremendous amount of us, especially if we didn't get that kind of care that we need from our parents.

Brett: Alright, let's dive in.

Coachee: I keep getting overwhelmed by bodily sensations, or you might call them emotions. They're extremely uncomfortable and they make it very difficult to rest.

Joe: Okay, hold on a second. So you can see I'm smiling right now, and the reason I'm smiling is because he's clearly reading. And so what I know is that he's in his head. He's not fully in his body. He's clearly concerned that he's going to describe it wrong, which makes me immediately realize that he's in a deep self-reliance pattern.

Joe: You can already tell, it's very important to him that he gets it right. So the pattern that he's in is deeply self-reliant, and that means that he's not particularly getting the care; he didn't get the care that he really needed or wanted when he was younger. And so all, I can tell all that, but I also just find him unbelievably adorable. So you can tell by the smile on my face. Like, I'm already enamored with this kid. And I think one of the things in self-reliance is that it is really hard for somebody to see. When you're in a self-reliance pattern, it's very hard to see that when people are enamored by you, because you think you have to keep on proving yourself, because you had to as a kid when you were younger. And so I think he's just, all of that can be seen almost immediately just with him reading and the way that he's reading. It's not just the read, it's the way that he's reading. He's really trying to get it right.

Brett: Yeah. It's also really cool just to see how much he cares.

Joe: Oh my gosh.

Brett: Gosh. Like he spent the time to prepare for this.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: And there's a lot of conscientiousness, and on the other side of wanting to get it right, there's just so much care.

Joe: Absolutely. Yeah. It's beautiful, and I think it's often hard for the person who's doing it to see their own care.

Brett: It probably feels more as anxiety than care, but there's a deep care.

Joe: Worry is a sign of devotion.

Brett: Ooh.

Joe: It's not maybe the healthiest sign of devotion, but it is a deep, like anything you worry about, you're devoted to.

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: And as soon as you can see that, oh, my anxiety is just my devotion, something gets relieved in it.

Brett: Love that.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: Well, shall we move on?

Joe: Yeah. Let's get past the first, what was that, 10 seconds? Yeah.

Coachee: They're extremely uncomfortable, and they make it very difficult to function. I really wanna know what I can do about them, because every single time I try to feel my feelings the same way. Right now I'm trying to feel everything. I'm trying to feel my hands, I'm trying to feel this whole experience.

Joe: Okay, pause again.

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: So he's trying the same way he tried to prep for the...

Brett: Exactly.

Joe: He's telling me again, he's like, I tried to do everything you're telling me to do. Like somehow or another, again, it's like that quest for love, that quest for approval, but it's also the deep care. It's also the devotion, but it's also this deep self-reliance. So you can just see, you know, and yeah, this I just want to live old enough to see what happens with this kid, because it's gonna be amazing.

Coachee: You know, I'm shaking right now. Yeah. It feels so distressing and overwhelming. Yeah, and I've been using mindfulness. But I'm just so curious. Emotions are just so much.

Joe: I'm with you. Do me a favor. The thing that you're reading down on your thing, what are you reading from?

Coachee: It's a Notion document.

Joe: Cool. Can you throw it onto the bed behind you?

Coachee: Okay.

Joe: Great. Cool.

Brett: Just noticing he's giggling, laughing, joyful right now.

Joe: Yes.

Brett: But he just showed up like, I haven't felt good in years, and he's clearly having a good time with you right now.

Joe: Right? Yeah. And he was tickled by, oh wait, I don't need to get this right-ish. Like there's something, like his world got... The other thing that you can tell about him at this point is he moves really quickly from one thing to another. That's usually a sign of intelligence and some ADHD potentially, but he's moving. He can't even particularly complete a thought before telling me another thought. And so this is something that's gonna make this learning experience or this kind of learning more challenging for him. So the mindfulness is great that he's doing, but slowing him down so he can really feel the thing. So he's clearly feeling, even though he says he's having a hard time feeling. He's literally telling me while his body's shaking that his body's shaking. Somebody who can't feel wouldn't be able to do that. But what's happening is that his mind is coming in with narrative so quickly, so hard, that it bypasses, it tricks him into thinking that he's not feeling.

Brett: And the shaking, another sign of devotion, another sign of the care.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: And why would you be shaking if there's not something important going on happening?

Joe: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do you want... Let's see what's next. 

Tell me, what's your question? Like, from your heart. What's your question?

Coachee: I want to feel good. I haven't felt good in years. That's what it is. I haven't felt peace or safe or good inside or happy in years.

Joe: So hold on a second. So now he's told us really everything. He can feel that he is feeling. He's told us that all that he's doing is to try to feel good. All the preparation, all the, like, his devotion is to how do I feel better as a person? How do I love myself? How do I care about myself? That's what he's actually deeply devoted to, and that's what he's worried about. And he's using all that self-reliance that he's learned to, you know, get good grades or do whatever he does, as a high schooler or whatnot. You can just tell that's what it's all for. And so, and he touches into that emotion so quickly, it tells you that he has done some work. Meaning, when I was his age in that pattern, I could never have done that. Never could have touched into the emotions that he is touching into.

Brett: Mindfulness wasn't a thing I was talking about at this age.

Joe: Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Let's see what's next.

Coachee: I feel tears coming.

Joe: Yeah. You don't feel good right now?

Coachee: No.

Joe: No. Part of you feels good right now?

Coachee: Yeah.

Joe: So I don't want you to feel your whole body. I just want you to look into your body, to the part of yourself that feels the worst. Not the story, but the visceral sensation that feels the worst in your body right now.

Coachee: I don't know how to do that. I've been listening to all your podcasts and I can't find out how to do that.

Joe: Well, you just told me you don't feel good, so there must be some way that you notice that or you couldn't tell me that you don't feel good.

Coachee: I just do mindfulness for this whole experience. That's all I know how to do right now.

Joe: Okay, hold on. Slow down. You said I don't feel good. How did you know that?

Coachee: I can just feel it. I don't even need to do anything. It's there.

Joe: Great. Yeah, that's the thing that you're feeling that doesn't feel good.

Coachee: What's the part of your body that feels the worst right now?

Joe: Okay, I'm pausing for a second so you can watch his mind. This is what's happening. His mind is moving so quickly. He has so many stories. He's of the age where he still believes all those stories that he's ignoring the reality that he has told me that he is shaking, that he doesn't feel good, that he's got tears coming. He clearly can feel his body, but his mind is coming so quickly, so slowing him down so that he doesn't speed-bump things with his mind is gonna be critical, because that's part of the work that has to be done if you're doing the deeper internal work, is to slow down. Not just pay attention to your thoughts, but pay attention to the body. And typically, especially in the early stages of the self-reliance pattern, what you see is that the mind is deeply relied on because feeling the feeling, which is somebody's not there for me who should be there for me, is so devastating that you just go to the mind for any kind of relief, to get away from that emotional experience, which is what he's touching in on with this deep sadness.

Brett: Yeah. So that's fascinating. I just wanna double click on that. So the emotions are happening, a full experience in this call. He's gone from shaking sadness, there's been joy, there's been all kinds of emotion and sensation that clearly is happening for him. But what's happening is before he even registers that that's happening, he's gone to his mind for a memory or a story to live in, the story of the problem.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: And what you're saying is that story has actually protected him from feeling in the past.

Joe: Correct.

Brett: And now it's, and it's the problem. He's now using that story not to feel the thing that he wants to feel, and he's prepared and come to this session to work on.

Joe: And the story in a self-reliant pattern is always the same version of I'm not doing something right. I'm not good enough. I haven't figured it out. I need to do something more. That's always the story in the self-reliant pattern. And so, which I won't believe any of because it's not particularly true, especially this guy's like, I'm doing mindfulness. Clearly, he is doing a ton, and he is doing it at this age. But that's always the story in the self-reliant pattern, is I don't, I can't, I don't get it. I don't understand. I still need to do something more. It's all very I-thinking. It leads to usually a deep depression, but it's always I-thinking and it's always what do I have to do? What did I not do? And so you'll notice all of his stories, most likely, or most of them, are gonna revolve around that.

Coachee: It's like this area.

Joe: Great.

Coachee: Like this area.

Joe: Great. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to go and hang out with that part, this part right here. I just want you to just spend time with it for a minute.

Coachee: Focus on it? Put my awareness, like Eckhart Tolle would say, right? Awareness?

Joe: Yep.

Coachee: Awareness.

Joe: Yep. Just put your awareness in it. Yeah.

Coachee: I feel shaking.

Joe: Yeah. Great. I see. Yeah. You don't have to narrate anything until I ask, because it'll slow it down a bit.

Coachee: Okay. For sure.

Joe: Yeah. So just hang out in that for a moment. And then what is it that you, what do you want from, say, your mom and your dad right now? What would you want? Not just generally, what do you want from your mom and dad?

Coachee: Yeah. I would say love.

Joe: Great. Okay. So I want you to love that thing. Go back to it, pay attention to it, and I want you to love it exactly the way that you want love from your mom and dad. All the patience, not needing it to change. Don't forget to breathe.

Joe: He's not doing the thing that a lot of people do when they're meditating, which is to bypass. So he actually said, oh, to do the thing that Eckhart Tolle said, and then he actually sits with it and there's a little bit of a bypass. And then I'm like, oh, what is it to love it? And all of a sudden whatever that bypass is is gone, which means that it's not like a deeply set-in pattern in his system and tells you how emotionally and what I would call energetically sensitive he is. So all of this is happening. So he is actually really fortunate that it hasn't turned into the rigidity that can sometimes happen with meditation. And so he's amazing. He's still holding something back. I don't know, I can't remember if I address it, but you can see he's still holding something back. So let's see what happens.

Brett: Yeah, almost looks like there's a little bit that he is enduring it.

Joe: Exactly. Yeah. And he is going in and out of loving it to mindfulness. You can see it.

Coachee: So here's the question. Which do you want more, to feel good or to love yourself?

Joe: To feel good?

Coachee: To feel good.

Joe: Okay. What's making you smile right now?

Coachee: Because it felt like, from what I've heard from the many podcasts, like the podcast Love Over Defense or if you can love the feeling, love the resistance, I was expecting you to... I know you're cool with any answer, but I felt like the answer that you were looking for, even though you probably weren't, was to love myself.

Brett: It seems a little bit there, like he wants to please you, or he's like, there's a certain answer I was supposed to have. I didn't have that answer. And he's testing the implication of that in relationship with you. Does that seem like something that's happening for you?

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. There's that. And again, his mind is operating faster than his, his mind is convincing him not to feel what he's feeling. So I've already seen like, oh, there's a smile. And he has this whole story about like, I shouldn't, but I should. I wouldn't, but I would. I know that you wouldn't really care, but I think you might care. I have an answer. So all of that is occurring. And so I don't know actually what I do next, but I can tell where my focus is right now is how do I help him see that he actually gets it all, his mind is just getting in the way.

Brett: Mm-hmm.

Joe: That's the main thing, but there is a little bit, correct, that self-reliant pattern of like, are you gonna be happy with me? For sure.

Joe: What made you smile around that?

Coachee: Because the truth is...

Joe: You could have been scared. I wanna feel good. Oh my gosh, Joe's gonna be mad at me. You could have been defiant. No, I want to feel good because you're gonna tell me I have to love myself. But you didn't. You smiled. What made you smile?

Coachee: I'm not scared of anything. I don't have anything to lose. I'm depressed. I literally have depression. I have nothing to lose. I just wanna feel good.

Joe: Huh. You have nothing to lose.

Coachee: I have nothing to lose.

Joe: That means you have freedom.

Coachee: Exactly.

Joe: How many people do you think are on this call looking for freedom?

Coachee: Wow. I think everyone wants that. So I'd say everyone.

Joe: And you have it.

Coachee: But I'm not happy.

Joe: So what's the difference between freedom and happiness?

Coachee: I think happiness feels good, and I don't know if freedom, my experience has been freedom, it feels okay, but not good.

Joe: Okay. So the other thing that's happening is that you're perpetually giving me a happy face while telling me you don't feel good.

Coachee: I actually...

Joe: Say again?

Coachee: I actually have smile. Like I'm in this conversation with you right now and I'm happy now. I'm happy. I wasn't before. Okay. But as I'm smiling, I'm happy.

Joe: Okay. How did that happen?

Coachee: It's just my natural personality. I'm just a smiley, happy person, but I feel so bad inside.

Brett: Wait, wait, wait. Yeah. So he just flipped entirely. He is like, I'm a naturally happy person. I'm happy right now. Can't you see?

Joe: Yep. Totally. A hundred percent flip.

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: And it's again what his mind is telling him versus what his body is actually feeling, right? So his mind is telling him there's something wrong, just a perfect self-reliant pattern. There's something wrong. He has to do something. Which does create depression, so I'm not disagreeing with him. But it's literally what he's listening to. Is he listening to his body? Is he listening to his mind? And it's interesting to see. He even has enough intelligence to know that that's where he has to spend his time. He is doing mindfulness, which is a lot of time in the body. He's doing our work, which is a lot of time in the body. And so there's this natural wisdom in him and he's just fighting it with his mind every step of the way. So that's, to me, the main place that I can see his opportunity. The biggest opportunity for him, and I think for a lot of self-reliant people, is working with the emotions and with the body.

Brett: Yeah. And something I'm noticing right now is we're about halfway into this 14-minute session.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: We're seeing the cracks. He's seeing the other side of it.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: And I'm also curious just to see over the next seven minutes how this session moves in such a way that this brings a lasting seeing.

Joe: I think for most likely the way this session is gonna work for him is it's gonna show him something that then his mind will convince him that he doesn't feel. I'm talking over the years. It'll be this North Star.

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: So immediately he'll see it, it'll feel good for a couple days, then he'll convince himself that he didn't see it, and he'll come back saying, how do I get what I want? But it'll have been there. It'll be this North Star that will allow him to orient. It'll allow that change to be deep and long-lasting, but most likely he's gonna fight himself along the way. This is an entrenched pattern.

Brett: Yeah.

Coachee: My natural personality, I'm just a smiley, happy person, but I feel so bad inside. There's so much sadness.

Joe: So hold on a second. Let's just look at the thing. What just happened is you hung out, you loved this aspect of yourself, before you weren't happy, now you're happy.

Coachee: Wow. Oh my goodness. You are right. You're actually right. Yeah, I'm wrong. You're right.

Joe: You can see the pattern again. I'm wrong. You're right. Right. That's what his mind does. His mind is constantly correcting himself because that's how somebody who needed to rely on themselves instead of their parents, this is how they learn to operate.

Brett: Yeah. And another instance of that relational piece showing up with you too, because there's the way that he relates to himself and you brought that up with, you know, if you love this feeling the way that you wanted, love yourself.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: But now he's bringing it into relationship with you. So there's a way that you are providing that in this context.

Joe: Correct.

Brett: So that he can see the way that he can provide it to himself.

Joe: Yes. And he's interpreting whatever I do into something that he has to do to please me or to get it right.

Brett: Correct. Right. And I'm imagining that the way that you're responding is somewhat different than the way he used to get responded to.

Joe: I'm hoping. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's also something happening. You have this story in your head about how you're unhappy that persists even if you're happy, on a moment-to-moment basis. Do you see what I'm saying?

Coachee: Yeah.

Joe: So there's moments where you're happy, but you're like, no, I'm unhappy. I'm an unhappy person. This is what I do. I'm unhappy. But then you're not noticing the actual moments of happiness.

Coachee: You're right, because the feeling of unhappiness feels overwhelming.

Joe: Yeah.

Coachee: You're right though. Absolutely.

Joe: Right. So do me a favor. Try to feel happy right now.

Coachee: Every single time I've tried, I'll try again. Yeah. It's just when I feel happy, I notice when I try to feel happy, I relax my body.

Joe: Mm-hmm.

Coachee: I slow down, I become more aware of sensory perceptions.

Joe: Yeah. So just do it. Just show me.

Coachee: Okay. You're trying to feel happy. There's just stillness, like Eckhart Tolle says.

Joe: Yeah. So you figured out how to be present in an attempt to feel happy.

Coachee: I did. I read all the Power of Now and all Eckhart Tolle.

Joe: That's right. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But now let's go back again to feeling the part of you that is most in pain, and your job is to love it the way you want it to be loved, want to be loved by your parents.

Coachee: I tried to do it earlier, but I've always had confusion when you said love, how to do that. I heard welcome. I don't know how to do it though.

Joe: You did it.

Coachee: I did it?

Joe: You literally just put your attention there.

Coachee: So literally just put my attention there?

Joe: No, and then you loved it. I mean, how to do it, you didn't...

Coachee: You didn't ask me how to do it the first time, so I'm not gonna buy that you don't know how to do it.

Joe: Okay. So this is the beginning of, it's been there a little bit, but there is an attention-seeking thing going on here as well. Which is like, I'm gonna create a problem so that we get to continue to be in this relationship. There's this, which is usually the unresolved thing, which is there's a problem, I need to take care of it myself. I want my parents' help. I've been wanting my parents' help for a long time, or a caregiver, whoever it is, but I'm not gonna get it.

Joe: And so there's a way in which that itch never got satisfied, so it gets amplified in other relationships, which ends up being a golden algorithm for this guy, which means that grasping for the attention is often gonna push it away instead of him trusting that he is awesome, amazing, that people are enamored with him. Instead of trusting all that stuff, he's gonna keep on hunting for that, seeking for that validation, particularly by having a problem that somebody can help him solve, to be cared for in that way. And so you can see that pattern, also a very self-reliant pattern, kicking in here.

Joe: And just something to know for anybody else who's in this pattern, that's something to know. Because you never got the help that you really needed, there's this very young help that you're still looking for that nobody can give you because it's the kind of help you give to a young person, not a young adult person or an adult person.

Brett: Another piece that just happened there was that he's like, I don't know how to love.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: Everybody knows how to love, but a lot of us have experienced love tied together with other things that we don't want. And so the idea of, I don't know how to love, implies that there's been a lot of confusion in his system around what love is.

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. That's definitely part of the pattern and part of generally the self-reliant pattern, but really very, very across-the-board human pattern, that whatever our parents did while they were loving us or while they weren't loving us very well gets tied to love. Whether that's abuse or criticism or shame or performance. In this case, probably performance is a big part of what he, you know, having to perform was part of getting love.

Brett: Yeah. Alright, let's see what happens.

Coachee: I'll try it again.

Joe: Okay. So just act towards it the way that you wanted your parents to act towards you when you were in pain.

Coachee: Sounds good.

Joe: I notice you're resisting this thing. You don't need to resist it. It's not gonna destroy you.

Coachee: How am I resisting it?

Joe: I just noticed you're...

Coachee: Oh, whenever I tense up.

Joe: Yeah. You're trying to not have the full expression of the sadness. Like somehow in your mind it's wrong to be just fully sad.

Coachee: Oh, it's just because I have neighbors and I don't wanna just be too loud. That's all.

Joe: Fuck your neighbors.

Coachee: Feels so good. It feels like what I've been looking for.

Joe: Yeah.

Coachee: I feel so good. I love myself unconditionally, at least...

Joe: Yeah.

Coachee: It really feels what I've been looking for my whole life.

Joe: Yeah, that's what we're looking for. So I want to share a couple of concepts with you just to help you in your journey. You've got it. I see that you've got it. There's two concepts that are really helpful. The first is when you start to love yourself, all the unloved parts come up to be loved. And so you're like, wait, I'm loving myself and now this is here now. Oh my God, I thought everything was great and now this thing has shown up. That's because it's coming up to be loved.

Coachee: This is the fish example, right?

Joe: Exactly. The fishing example.

Coachee: I know what you're talking about. I heard on a podcast.

Joe: Great.

Coachee: Cut the fish. There you go.

Joe: Yeah. So that's the first thing to know. And then the second thing to know is there's no rush. It'll be there to be loved for a long, long time, so you can just do it at the most enjoyable pace.

Brett: Like you're catching the next thing he would do, which is to make this into a task.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: Another thing to get right, another thing to not be doing right and be failing at.

Joe: And you can immediately watch the relief in his face when I say it, and the sadness that kicks. Like, oh fuck, I don't have to abuse myself. And I don't even think it's fully conscious, but his reaction to that was like, oh, I'm good the way I am. Even just the scent of it allowed him to have that experience.

Brett: Yeah. And this is part of what I was alluding to earlier when I was like, let's see how this session proceeds in a way that makes this stick, because a lot of people are wondering when they see these sessions, does this last? Or is it just, you know, a carnival trick.

Joe: Right?

Brett: And this is the integration that's happening right now. The very next step in the evolution is being rolled out on the red carpet for him to see and relate to in a way that might be a couple steps ahead of what would've happened otherwise.

Joe: Yeah. And he'll, as is necessary, I would even say that he will pendulate. He will go back and forth between convincing himself that he can't feel, convincing himself that he is not lovable, to seeing it, to loving himself. That is just kind of part of the experience. But I guarantee you, if I talk to this guy in, what, five years, he will be loving himself better than most 50-year-olds, because he's there, he's dedicated, he is determined, he's ambitious, internally ambitious, and he's smart and he's now touched it.

Brett: All right. Marking my calendar for five years to reach back out to this guy and do a follow-up.

Joe: Exactly. You know, if it starts overwhelming, then you can take a break, go take a walk, hang out with friends, and then when you've got a little space and it feels good, then start loving yourself again. There's no rush. You're gonna be just as lovable, I guarantee, just as lovable in 20 years as you are today.

Coachee: But how? How do I know when? It's really hard for me to know when it's too overwhelming. I'm too broke. I tried to make money for the Great Decisions course, but I missed it because I'm a broke 18-year-old. How can I make a good decision for when it's too overwhelming or when I should go deeper into feeling it?

Joe: Just do the thing. Your nature is to go into the thing. So your job is to just make sure you're enjoying going into the thing. If it becomes unenjoyable, take a break. That's it. Okay? You can trust your sense of enjoyment because you have the tendency to investigate.

Coachee: Thank you so much, Joe. I love you. Thank you.

Joe: I love you too. Thank you.

Joe: Wow. Yeah. Love that kid. My goodness. I can see why this thing is popular. He's just so sincere.

Joe: The thing that I think is important is when you're working on a pattern and you have a breakthrough like this, there is something that has changed that is undeniable. I was talking to somebody about this just the other day, and he was talking about these two experiences that he had that were like awakening experiences that had come and gone and passed. And he's like, well, I want it back. And I just asked him the simple question. I said, if those hadn't come and gone, where would you be today? And he said, not here. Not doing what I'm doing. My life would not be as good.

Joe: And what we typically recognize is, oh, this thing has happened and I want it back. But what we don't recognize is that this thing has happened and it has changed my life irrevocably from this point forward. And so when you find yourself having that kind of breakthrough, like this young gentleman had, it's really important to realize that's gonna change your life no matter what. And your brain is gonna try to convince you, oh, how do I keep it? How do I get it? How do I get it back? Where did it go? Instead of, oh, I'm still talking about this thing. This thing still had a huge impact on my life. I can't see the world the same way. My trajectory, my course, my orientation, where I'm headed, has changed forever because of it.

Joe: And that's an incredibly powerful thing, and it happens like that for a reason, because we can't just disintegrate a personality overnight. So this gives us the most efficient path to get there. Could you imagine if one day you just, boom, saw the world completely differently, like how hardcore that would be for everything and everybody? And so there's this way in which a flower blossoms over time, and it's the same thing. There's a blossoming. And so if you're listening to this podcast, you've had one of these moments, I highly recommend, like I said to him, how do you just enjoy this unfolding as much as possible? Because that's what makes it as efficient as it possibly can be.

Brett: Yeah. And I'd also add that the blossoming isn't just an individual thing, it's something that is constantly in relation with those around you and in your community.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: Which is one of the reasons why we do this work in community.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: But also his system has been accurately responding to the world for a period of time.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: Including finding a way out of the system he's been in.

Joe: Correct.

Brett: And as he starts to engage with people like you and people like the friends he's taking the Connection Course with and the people that he gets partnered with, then he starts to see and actually impact the world around him in such a way that this change isn't that fast switch that causes a bunch of disruption.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: It's something that is in conversation with his world.

Joe: Yeah. And brings his world along with him, and then his world supports him in the new version of him.

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah. Beautifully seen. Beautiful. Yeah.

Brett: I'd like to add one more time, just because we are often talking about the parenting that people didn't receive in these sessions. If you are a parent, and maybe you're a parent of this kid or you see this kid in your own kids and you're feeling like, oh, what did I do wrong? You didn't do anything wrong. This doesn't mean that you are bad parents.

Joe: Yeah, that's right.

Brett: We're just exploring dynamics that exist for all of us. I don't think anybody has escaped experiences like these to work on through their adult life.

Joe: Also, I'll say it. If you notice that as a parent, listen to the Upright Apology podcast and go and apologize to your kids.

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: It's incredibly healing. It's an amazing thing just to acknowledge to your children that this is something that you did and you wish you hadn't done it. That can be so incredibly healing, and so don't let that opportunity pass. You don't have to be wrong about it. That's the whole thing about the upright apology, is not to be wrong about it, not to have that shame, but go take advantage of it. It's a massive boon to do that.

Brett: Thanks everybody for listening to The Art of Accomplishment. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Share it with somebody who you think would get a lot out of it. And as always, we'd love for you to rate and review the podcast, and you can always find us on YouTube. If you're listening to this on audio, the whole video of this session is on YouTube, and we'll put that in the show notes. This show is hosted by myself, Brett Kistler, and Joe Hudson. Mun Yee Kelly is our producer. This show is edited by Charlie Garcia.

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