14098 Steve Harper Interviews Susan Engel Psychotherapist, Social Worker and Certified EMDR Clinician

0:00Broadcasting from the business capital of the world, this is the podcast business news network. Well, welcome back, everybody. We're going to pick up with her where we left off last time we got together and that's talking about the power of positivity, but real positivity, not just putting the rose color glasses on, pretending that everything's okay, no looking at things in a different way. And even the activities that you do looking at them with positive lens, she oozes positivity all the time. She's like the one of the most grounded people I know. She is an amazing psychotherapist, works with everybody in all different challenges and also helps them reframe their lives, shall we say in a positive way. So great to have her back with us, Susie Engel on the program. How are you doing? I'm great, Steve. How are you? Real good.

1:00Real good. That's good. Lots of think about here with the power of positivity and maintaining that. I think that's the challenge. How do you stay there? How do you stay in the mode of positivity? I don't have an answer. Thoughts? Well, I mean, first of all, it was funny. You were like oozing. You do? I don't know because I just view myself as me. So it's always funny to hear people's opinions of me or summations of me. It's very, very amusing to me because I just like go through my life and yeah, you know what's interesting? You say that. So the man's group, I'm in. I've shared with you before. We went around the room last week and we forgot what we were at, what the reference was. We talked about you needed to, about eight of us there that night, go around and each person pointed out from the others. What you view is something positive in them and what you view is something challenging

2:06in them, not being negative, and like you said, bring this up because the way people view you and I'm going to share what they said and for the majority of me, they said that I share a lot of wisdom, empathy, I said, you love what you do on the flip side, majority. So it's out of eight, probably five out of eight somewhere around there, felt that I'm not as transparent as I could be or should be or as we call it, mask down. Now on the flip of that, I think I am, like I share every day, I have no secrets and my feelings along with that, but maybe it's something to look at, because that's how you view it, others may view things in a different way. Right. And also who knows, maybe you are masked down as you, because you are open and maybe the people who are saying you're not masked down or the people who are uncomfortable with

3:07people who are masked down. Interesting. And you know, something else we said too, that I hide my mask down status by a lot of the stuff that we talk about. And I, I don't agree, I could see how it could be perceived that way, but it's more of, I'm sharing, you know, here's the crap going on in my life, here's what I've learned how to deal with it, like essentially what we're talking about, these types of things that we're talking about today, because I want people to, you know, feel better and grow like it's helped me. So what is, so that's, so I mean, this is not the subject that we're discussing, the power of positivity, but what I want to say about this is just the construct of saying around the room, what is positive about you and what is challenging about you or whatever that is, in terms of getting other people's feedback is awkward.

4:12It's awkward, it's, it's a lot of families do this and I find this to be extremely awkward and very, um, disconnecting when they all get to the dinner table, there's an assignment, what is the best part of your day and what is the worst as if, as if people don't know how to just strike up conversation naturally or organically and it's just awkward and that's, you know, this is coming from my perspective, it's just awkward. So I wonder if there were a different way for the men's group to, to approach the subject. And that was just one exercise, that's a one off, I'm never going to do it again, you know, but, because it's awkward, you know, believe me, it's just, it's like saying what's good and what's bad, what's good, it's just binary and it's, I don't know, I found it interesting. I did find it interesting and others found value in it as I did to, um, which is good, which is good. But talking about positivity, I just feel like it's very left brain rather than from the

5:15inside out, yeah. It's just, it was an interesting exercise, but talking about positivity, we always do this. What you win for the week, we go around the room, what happened, what's good, what's good. Oh, I landed this new account or, um, you know, everything, whatever it might be, like even, I would be, that would be me, I'd be like everything, you know, like, when are we supposed to, yeah, no, it's, it's funny, it really is, when you say that, everything was a win for the week, um, yeah, let's go there, let's, let's look at that for a second. Let's look at that for a second. So, yes, and, and not being silly about it, but saying what you win for the week, well, everything, because if you look at everything, even the things that didn't go well and reframe it, as an opportunity or another experience, I mean, listen, this is the work with clients, they have a struggle or they may feel even deep, deep shame about something

6:16and we start talking it through and working it through from the inside out. That's not left brain. That's the whole body experience. And then they, the client themselves can start turning a quarter or making connections and say, oh my gosh, you know, not that I'm glad this happened and nor would we wish it to happen to other people, but the struggle brought up one of my limitations and let's say one of my limitations is to advocate for myself so rather than learn how to advocate because I wasn't taught that I was, I was growing up. This is just an example. I shut down and I excuse myself and then nothing really gets resolved and it just sits or festers or grows or mushrooms within us. And so, you know, even the challenges become, and now we're talking about positive, become

7:17an experience that brings growth. And you said at the beginning today, even though we zigzag, which is great, I think, you know, you said, how do people maintain positivity and maybe this is one life skill, right? To be able to look at our challenges and be able to say, what was the best part of the whole week? Well, it was everything about the week. What if you were in a low? Let's say something happened, you're just feeling, yeah, let's say you're working on this and you're trying to ride, you know, on a more positive train and then something happens and you're like, you didn't get enough sleep last night as well. So now that's a great like just, you know, the way you're having it today, it happens. Exactly. Yeah. How do you pick yourself up? Well, I think you have to look at because I didn't get enough rest or because I have this difficulty right now, right now, and I'm emphasizing now, is it, is it throwing me back

8:25at a time where I wasn't as empowered or I wasn't as mature? And even a seven-year-old who may get thrown back to when they were five years old can start understanding this type of concept. And you know, the other major part of this, so part of it is time orientation and part of it is, is it tapping into this deep-seated self-worth that was imposed upon me? You know, and we've talked about this where you say somebody might say something innocently to somebody else and that person might internalize it as an injury or wound to their self-worth and that's nobody's fault. It's just how sometimes interactions happen. And so if it's tapping into that deep-seated self-worth that had been imposed upon you

9:28me, anyone, then we have to be able to recognize that. If we can recognize it quickly, we can say, hey, yeah, you know, that's not, that's for my past. I'm not that person just because I'm having a difficulty now, doesn't mean me as a person is less than, or I as a person, me as a person, I don't think it's grammatically right. I love what you said there right now because that... It's temporary. It's just, you know, I'm feeling this way right now, doesn't mean you're going to feel that way in an hour, a day, it's right now. I love that. Well, and this is very eastern and hopefully more eastern is coming west that things pass. You know, I sell boot-a-boards you paint on the screen with water and the image evaporates eventually, right? And it's representative, it's therapeutic, it's representative, everything passes.

10:32You know, and it's not to say that we can't look at it or we have to avoid it. It's just to say it's, like you're saying, it's temporary, but also if it doesn't feel temporary, then there's something about our self-worth that's holding us back from being positive, moving forward, having a healthy sense of self. It's often been said, we've talked about it before, gratitude and expressing gratitude in everything or as much as you can. What if you look at it through that gratitude lens when something presents and instead of saying, oh, I can't believe that happened. Well, you know, to say, you know, I'm grateful. That took place because that's going to get me ready for the next step. Or I'm grateful. It wasn't really, you know, pleasurable, but I learned from that and I'm grateful for it. I mean, yeah.

11:32That takes time. That's like the process of letting go. I mean, there's a lot of steps before that for a lot of people, but to be able to say, this is the reality and do I have the capacity to handle this, you know, or am I, you know, deep in some wounded self-worth that's preventing me? I mean, if we get back to positivity and playing sports, you know, you know, as well as I do, I have a lot of clients who play golf. I actually play a little golf, but I play more tennis. But I have fun playing. I don't, I don't bash myself. I don't, I just want to enjoy myself and improve. And it's sociable and what have you now, I have clients who have worked through just feeling embarrassed about how they play.

12:35And that's talking about shame, shame. Shame didn't come from the golf course. Shame came from some other time and place in history for this person or these people, you know. And I think that if people work through these things, then they're at a different level of existence. I relate to this completely because I'm going to say that was me. Like when I was growing up, I wasn't into sports. Before I had a duum elementary school, whatever, I never got picked for Dodge ball because that was the big fat kid and whatever. So I would think about how I perform now. I play tennis like three times a summer. And I'm here to admit, I'm horrible, but I love it. And I may not have the perfect swing or the perfect form, but I move my butt so fast that I can keep up and I get it done. I get it done.

13:36Maybe not in a conventional tennis way, but I play by the rules and it's fun. You have fun with it. Yeah. Enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah. And make the most of it. We were talking a little bit about that last podcast about, well, there were those series of snowstorms and we have to shovel if we don't afford or we don't have access to a person who does that for us. And isn't it, isn't the snow less heavy if we have a positive attitude or that it's giving us exercise or that we're outdoors and seeing the quiet of the winter or that's exactly all the things you just said are exactly what I did. And I had a goal of freeing my old Jeep that was in the street. So now it got really plowed in with, you know, two and a half feet of snow. But it was more of a, can I pull this off in a reasonably short amount of time?

14:37Can I get this thing free? I'm outside. I'm getting some fresh air. I feel grounded because I love being outside. Yes. I hate the cold. I hate the snow. I hate doing that kind of work because yeah, what's the end result? I move snow. It's not like I dug a hole and planted a tree and now I got something to see. But I flipped it all to those other things and made it a positive experience. And you know what? I kind of enjoyed it. You got to tell you it was kind of fun, you know. Well, I don't like the cold because I find it painful. Yeah. But if I have to be out, I make sure that I get enough activity going so that my metabolism starts warming me. I agree. And it really works. It doesn't take that long in the cold unless it's those below zeroes and you get that brain freeze feeling. But that's different. So there's a lot of agency within ourselves to make decisions, to have a positive attitude

15:44about something. And everything usually goes a lot better or a lot quicker or a lot lighter and there's probably more to appreciate around that sports. I feel like the people who are angry about their game. I feel like they're self conscious. Where does that come from? I feel like they're ashamed. Where does that come from? So they're externally focused on who's judging them or not or who's looking at that or not. Or they have an inner script that somebody else taught them or many other sources taught them to be an inner critic. If the people who free themselves from that play freely, their bodies are less tense. Their motions are free. They play really, really better or well, you know, and the bottom line is they're probably

16:48enjoying themselves. Do you notice that? You can see the difference. Even in tennis. Sorry. I've experienced this even bowling when you don't think about it. You do so much better. You just haven't fun with it doing your thing and like, wow, I hit that one over there. But then when you start thinking, right, right, make sure I get this, you usually don't do as well. You find that? It's the truth and there's that great book in your tennis. It's like part of that book talks about how to become consciously unconscious and that means get out of your head and that means it's not about the left brain and that means, I mean, sure, we can learn proper technique. Oh, that's fantastic, but at some point it all becomes natural. And when you're not thinking, you play better, just like you said, and that's like such a key to life, everything, everything you do. So I want to, I want to ask this question because I, and we're talking about positivity.

17:52I think this is part of it. I wrote this down. I heard it and I wrote it down. Stop giving your power to the pain. Stop giving your power to the pain. So I know we're talking about positivity. This is the flip side of positivity, but so many of us, I believe, they were in victim mode. I'm not minimizing anybody's struggles and challenges, but we're, we're allowing that to happen. You're giving, you know, that, you got to let's hurting you. It's taking your power. And let's think about this. At some point, if we've done personal work on our own development, what, what do we come to understand? We come to understand that a lot of what was unconscious or that we were unaware of is becoming, is, is becoming, is not becoming, is coming to our forefront, is coming to our awareness.

18:54And when we have that awareness is when we can make those types of decisions or have our own agency. Now, if somebody like certain clients are deep in this, they don't have the awareness and I can't, I can't say, oh, you know, these are your choices. I would never, but, but once we do the work, the therapeutic work to bring what is unaware to us, to the awareness, what is unconscious, to the consciousness, and maybe that's a life's, a life goal around everything, because we probably could never be on to present it out any of this, but it's a life progress and it's exciting because we feel differently in our bodies, we feel, and then we're conscious, we're our own agency and we make decisions or choices that benefit us. And if it means getting on the court and getting out of our head, we can remind ourselves,

19:56let's say we forget after a few minutes and we start saying, oh, I know, you know, I should have hit it this way or my back hand was backward or whatever it is. Okay, then start again, reset and get out of your head again and pretty soon that elongates. It's like people with focus problems, oh, I'm ADHD, it's like, you know what, if you focus for 30 seconds, take a break and then focus, maybe you're going to be able to focus for 45 seconds at some point, go on with your life, maybe you're going to be able to focus for 10 minutes, but if you use those lines, well, ADHD, and this isn't, you're limiting yourself. And I don't have ADHD, but there are things that, you know, I'll beat myself up on. Like, you know, you asked me right now to do 30 deep knee bends. I'm going to talk, I can't do those, my knees, I heard some of that. I'm going to say that. I'm not going

21:00to lie. It's going to be painful because I haven't done it in so long and I need to get back on track. We have like 30 seconds. I heard this too. And it's, I think it's the line of positivity, things change and you see things in a positive way when you take responsibility or everything that you need to. That's an agency. You agree? Yes, that's an agency right there. Responsibility, accountability, it's not a blaming thing, it's not the external. We talked a little bit about where's the focus. Yes, the focus is here. What can I do to improve? I love it. Yeah, I'm all in. And it's tough, you know, to take responsibility for things. But again, you're, let's say you're in a relationship, it didn't go well. Look at what they did, but let's be honest. Two people. Two people, right. Two systems and two families and two histories and two ancestors and two, it exponentially grows. It can't

22:02be one thing or another. It's just not. And not to say no, and not to say that you're, let's say somebody did you wrong. That's really bad. You had a hand in it. It was a relationship. It takes two. The scales may be tipped way off, but it is what it is. And now you use the gratitude, learn from the situation and move your life forward or call you. Another thing you can do, Susan Engel. Yes, listen to our podcast. Or that. There's a lot of nuggets there, you know, just Google the previous ones. Your website, Susan Engel-LCSW.com. Do I have that right? Correct. And Engel is ENGEL. Thank you for today. Thank you for your positivity. One of these days, because you're a state away, we're going to be playing tennis. I'm telling you right now. That'd be great. It's getting warmer. Not this week, but we did have two days of warm.

23:06Just don't judge. I'll get I'll get I'll get I'll follow the ball. I'll get it done. But it's all fun. It's all fun. Yeah, don't judge. Who would that's no, I would never. No, I know you want. Thank you. Thank you for today. We'll talk soon. Okay. Thanks Steve. Thank you, Susie. We'll be right back. Broadcasting from the business capital of the world. This is the podcast business news network. When I was little, I didn't talk for a long time. I like things to always be the same. Anything new or different would scare and upset me. I was very sensitive to lights and sounds. It was almost like I had bigger eyes and ears than everyone else. So I built secret hiding places where nothing could get in. I didn't like looking people in the eye. It made me feel uncomfortable. I threw a big tantrums over little things like when my socks didn't match.

24:06Sometimes I do the same things over and over. Until one day, I found out I had autism. My family got me help. Slowly, I learned how to live with it better. You can see signs of autism in children as young as 18 months. Early intervention can make a lifetime of difference. Learn the signs at autismspeaks.org slash signs. Brought to you by Autism Speaks and the Ad Council.