Are YOU the Drama? Let's Find Out with Dr. Scott Lyons

The following podcast is a dear media production. Okay, hi. Hi. Hi, Doc. Hey, what's up? Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me on the podcast. This is what's selfish of me because this is just a free therapy session. Oh, wow. You're welcome. Thank you. You're an advanced. You're welcome. Okay, so you have a book coming out. Okay, I call the ticket drama. Yeah. Which is so cool. Are you excited? Yeah, I am. I am too. We were just talking about this offline that I think we should just... I should just drop it off at people's houses. Yeah, whose house in particular? Well, I can't say. I'm just stirring the pot already. I can't say because it would. But I know who it would be. I know who it would be too. And we can go to their house. I can also, my mom lives with me. I should just put it in front of her door. Would you want to sign copy for that or not? Here's a signed copy, bitch. It is truly the passive aggressive gift book of the year. I mean, let's just be real. You know what you need to do? Tell me. All these little hoes want everyone to go viral on TikTok. That's your viral TikTok thing. Is getting someone who's really famous to make it funny to drop the book off of people's houses. I know the perfect person, but I don't actually know them. You can, I'm sure, we could get a publicist on it. Yeah. Who are the hoes that you're talking about? You know, all these Instagrams, everyone's like, we're not viral on TikTok. We're not... We don't exist. We don't exist. I know. Welcome to addiction of drama. Who am I if I'm not important? I mean, this is the seed means of an addiction of drama. Oh, God. I'm so addicted to my phone, too. Do you probably talk about that a lot in your... Not as much. Not as much about like phone addiction, but what happens when you're what you're scrolling through, I talk about. So less about your particular phone. Yeah. That actually was fun. And actually the content that you're scrolling through on that phone. How did you get into this work? Well, I come from a long lineage of drama addicts. Cool. Okay. And so it was... Yeah. Tell me about it. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. And so it was part of my upbringing. It was part of the ecosystem. And I thrived in it. I was in the arts for a long time, too. So it was the perfect career to deposit the excess flair into and get rewarded. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And that didn't actually work in my relationships or any other aspect of my life. So like winter rehearsals had all this creative excess emotional energy. And then that didn't transfer over into successful relationships with anyone. Yeah. And I think it was by my mid-late 20s when I was going through an epic breakup. And I was really ill, too. Like just crashed. My whole nervous system was funky. And I noticed that every time I called my ex, and that was a toxic situation, that I would feel better. Oh, God. It was like all of a sudden I felt like a shot of adrenaline, and I would feel more alive. Or I would go get into a fight with my parents who were literally helping me out at the time, because I was just... I mean, I really was bedrests some of the days. Wow. And I would get into fights with them, and I would just feel better. I mean, better is relative, but I would feel more alive. I would feel like my old self again. And it just occurred to me. I was like, this is funky. Like something doesn't smell right about this. And I was listening to... Do you know who Pemichoden is? No. Good. No, I'm just kidding. Good. No, I should know him down. It's embarrassing either way. No, no, no, no, no, no, not embarrassing. Like, anyways, she wrote this book when things fall apart, which was like the story of my life at that point. And I was listening to some of the other stuff, and she talked about the hook. The thing that keeps you... You keep reaching out and pulling yourself back into suffering. And I was like, oh shit. You're like, that's me. That's me. Like, I keep finding things that are causing my own... Like suffering, my own pain. And prior to that, I think I just blamed everyone and everything else for that pain, for that lack of ease in my life. And so it was like a real turning point of going, oh shit. I'm the cause, or a significant cause of my own suffering. And I think... Am I the drama? Am I the problem? Am I the problem? And the answer is yes. Yes. Absolutely. How did that manifest when you were a child? Yeah, I asked my sister this the other day, and she was like, you know, you weren't that dramatic as a kid. It's more like when you really grew into it. Yeah. But I think I had a... I was a child actor. Like, I had a lot of places to deposit that energy, but I would go from zero to 100 really quick. That's probably manifest in like 80D, 80D, yeah. Which I was on tons of minutes for that. Oh my god, I loved my Adderall. You did? How'd you take it? But I had a time release... Well, I'll tell you the legal weight that I took it. I had a time release. I popped that first thing in the morning with a really big breakfast because it was really hard to eat food the rest of the day. And then I had my little blue 10 milligrams, which I was in. And it made me dead inside. Made 100%. I remember saying to my parents, I can't keep taking this. I was in ninth grade or eighth grade, and I was like, it's making me not me. Yeah, you completely disassociate. Yeah, 100%. But they were like, it's making you a better you, and you just don't know it yet. Oh, I know, my parents. I know, and then I hated them for that. But then they didn't know any better. They didn't know any better. His doctor was telling them, my grades were good. And I was the marker of if your functioning as a child, right? Yeah, and then later in life, we get a podcaster, a book, and we get to talk about the shit that they did. And it's all equal. It all evens out in the end. Oh my God, I'm so funny. They read my book and they're like, oh. And I was like, yeah, you know, I still love you. So what are ways, like even the work that you do, what are ways, I mean, obviously the systems from trauma. Yeah, it absolutely stems from trauma. And that's one of the things people are most surprised about, because we all know someone addicted to drama. We all do. And yet, when I was going through my own discovery process, there was no research, there was no studies, there were no books about, and there was no empathy. So I also felt a lot of shame. Yeah, of course, of course, of course. So I'm like, oh, wait. Well, you just categorize those people as those types of people. Yeah, I mean, it's derogatory names, like drama queen, and overly sensitive, and however we describe them, because often, you know, we're- I'm just like, he's hearing a family dinner in my head, and everybody's like, you're so dramatic, you're so sensitive. Why do you always have to say it like that? Or can't you just calm down? Oh my God. Yeah, or do you ever say like, oh. That's the story of my life. That's like a key word in like the drama language, the drama of an actor. I mean, when I was young, I mean, now I'm a more mature adult self with a child, but yeah, my twenties, it was like, I remember having moments where I thought to myself, I'm getting into- There's constantly chaos happening, it has to be me. Really? Yeah, I've always been super self-aware. I was like, it has to be me, because there's no way that everybody else is constantly has this much drama going on. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, how could it possibly be following you around? Yeah. That's the thing with like, any addiction is like, we find and justify all the ways that it isn't us, because it's our deep survival mechanism. Yeah. And you get rid of a survival mechanism, and it feels like you're getting that much closer to death. Oh, yes. And so like, why would you not avoid at all cost death? So you maintain this strategy, you maintain the addiction, you maintain whatever it takes to make sure there's no like cognitive dissonance between what you're doing and what you believe you're doing. Wow. Yeah. Oh my god. What are the practices for this? The practices of like maintaining your addiction? No, no, no, to like try to like untangle that like trauma. Oh, well- I mean, most people can't afford copious amounts of therapy, right? Yeah. First buying your book will be the step number one. Yes. Or having someone buy it for you as a gift. Leaving it on your doorstep. Because you have so many cool things on your, like your Instagram has so many cool tricks. Oh, thank you. Like, because you just won like a, about your list. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I mean, when I was in school and discovered that the tension level of our neck impacts the tension level the rest of our body. And so like the neck is like a access point. The constantly that you're talking about, I'm like, I got a car over my back. Oh my god. And my jaw like. Oh yeah. And they're like, like, so like that's a great. So like our jaws are such a point of tension, right? So what's interesting is that our jaws tense up as part of a stress response. And part of why they do that is it helps, it dislocates the jaw just a little bit to compress the nerves, to desensitize the nerves. So it makes us more numb in our face that if we were to get into a fight, we're less sensitive and we can keep. It's an adaptive response, right? Wow. That's why we have tension in our whole body. And if we don't actualize a stress response, that tension just stays there. Wow. And it becomes the pattern of kind of who we are and how we are in the world. Mm-hmm. And so that's a full body situation, but the jaws is a key point in stress reactions. And imagine now that you're carrying around, as many of us can imagine, like a full body tension, which is really unprocessed stress, which is un-mobileized, unprocessed emotions and stress. And then that becomes your baseline. That tension level becomes your baseline of how you're walking to the world, and you don't even know it. I'm just seeing my crooked husband how he like walks, because he's so, he has no practices. Really? No, he's like, he doesn't, we're trying to work on it, because I'm like, you're a grown up and... He can't force people. Now you need, like, you know, this we have like big responsibilities, because we're like adults with real jobs in a kid. And the adulting thing is real. Yeah, and he's just always a little like this. Yeah. You know, because it's just... Yeah, I mean, we don't even think about how our posture is a manifestation of our stress or our traumas. Mm-hmm. And it actually is. It's like a symbol for it. I have a question for you. Yeah, what's your question? Like, I'm sure the trauma that I had, like my dad had CTE. Okay. So he was explosive. Yeah. And my mom, my poor mom, like, you know, they were like so in love, and he was so loving, but there were two sides to him. Yeah. And you would see him just his eyes just go blank, and we were like, shit, we're in it for the night, you know, because he was just on another planet. Yeah. And would be really mean. Yeah. And my mom's gonna be like, you gotta take us out of the podcast, but like, it's fine. I got this mom. Yeah. Because it's important to talk about, because she was, and it was a relief for her when he passed away, and we sent his brain away and got that answer. Because she was like, I knew that that wasn't him. I knew he couldn't help it. Yeah. You know, the poor woman was like, I would see him just go, but I, at a young age, was very aware that I live outside of, you know, navigating that, which was very hard as a child, because I- Unpredictable environments are a major form of trauma. Yeah. I haven't even really, I mean, it was, there were nights that were bad, you know, when he yelled at her, and then I was really little, and I would break it up, or I would pretend that I was sleeping, and then be like, what's that noise? You woke me up, but like, I wasn't sleeping. I was listening to the whole thing, and hopefully that would get him off of her for a while, until he would get too tired and fall asleep. And then the next day, he'd act like nothing happened. Yeah. And we would be like, what? Like, there were a lot happened, and you said a lot of really mean things. And he was just like, morning, and like, hey, love you guys. Like, mwah, and we were just like, what? Like, he didn't remember anything, and we didn't want to bring it up, so we just kept it moving. But I always knew that I had a really privileged, beautiful life, that he worked really hard to send me to private school, to provide a beautiful home for us. Like, so I was like, it's fine. Like, I loved him. I was obsessed with him. I forgave him for it at a young age. I knew that he couldn't help it. So, but that's still sitting inside of me somewhere, right? Yeah, absolutely. I've not been done with it, because I was like, it's just like, other people have real trauma, you know, like other people have like, actual big things that have happened to them. Yeah, well, this isn't the trauma Olympics love. And compared to despair, you know, because here's the reality is, regardless of what the event looks like on the outside, how big or how small, it doesn't matter. It's about how it impacts the inner body. And trauma lives in this subconscious. So, in what we call like, the primal implicit. Okay. So, it's the part of like, your memory system that doesn't track like a storyline. It just tracks essentially sensation experience. And it's called the implicit. Okay. And how that works, it's the same part of your memory system, your brain, that helps you as like, you don't think about riding a bike, right? You just ride the bike. Yeah. That's the same part of the memory system as where trauma is stored. Oh, great. And it becomes a pattern. So, it just lives inside. It just lives inside you. And it's like a pattern. And your behaviors that come from it, emerge as behavioral patterns. Your compensation, your adaptive strategies. And it lives inside of you. You can't talk your way out of that trauma. Because it lives in the body where you can only access it through the primal language of the body, through sensation, through emotion, through feelings, essentially. And so, we can sort of lift above that and be like, oh, that never affected me. Because it wasn't this catastrophic event. But it's ingrained in how I think sure. It's ingrained in how you function. Yeah. Which explains the behavior of my 20s. Yeah. And it's not just your behavior, which is the, you know, we can't just modify the behavior. Because that's ignoring what's underneath the hood, which is the trauma itself. Which is like a big ball of unprocessed energy. Yeah. So, even outside of like going to therapy and talking about it or whatever, you're like, there are physical things. Yeah. That needs to happen here too, right? Yeah. We have to release it through the body. Yeah. And that we don't have to remember from the past what happened to release how it's present in our body now. So crazy. Yeah. Because it's still operating as though, like that memory system called the implicit doesn't exist as like linear time as we know it. So, the past is still operating as though it was the present. Mm-hmm. Whoa. God. Okay. Yeah. So, we're getting still dragged down by the past because there's a part of us that doesn't know that trauma isn't still happening. That's so crazy. Isn't it? It's weird that any of us are able to do anything. What is that? What is that? How are we leaving our home? How are we getting drafted? How are we doing this podcast? Literally. Literally. Yeah, because we're resilient. Yeah. Because we can still, it's not like you have trauma and then that's it. Yeah. It's like that, if we think about like your bank of capacity is $100 in your savings account, trauma might take up $30 in that account, but you still have the rest. It's just when more traumas load on and more stressors load on. That's why people get triggered by things. Yeah. And like a trigger, we think it's the truth. But a trigger is really just our truth. Yeah, that's your thing. It's just our truth, but it's not the universal truth of what's actually happening every day. I think people forget that all the time. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Because we color in reality from our truth, as though it was the truth. That's why when two people tell the same story, they're so different. Yeah. Because it's like, that's your whole life was a million experiences leading up to that moment that were completely different than the other person. Yeah. I mean, so you have this water bottle. It's what color is this? Green. I think it's green too. But the way we each see green right now is different. That the actual hue itself of the green, we're not seeing the same green. Cool. We have, everyone has their own reality based on the way that they perceive the world. And so like best case scenario, there's a Venn diagram where we overlap. Okay. And worst case scenario, we don't overlap. Yeah. And you know, and that's an addiction to drama. That's often the case. It's like there's not a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram of realities. Oh, got it. And so you'll often be like, if you're around someone addicted to drama, you'll often be like, whoa. It's like narcissistic personality disorder. It's different. It's right. I mean, it seems like it's like... Well, they're stuck inside themselves. Yeah. Because the intimacy is too dangerous. So of course, they're locked in the prison of themselves, and we might call that narcissism, but it's really like it's too scary to find this sort of bidirectional connection, what we call relationship. Which is the one thing that makes us all the happiest anyway, which is kind of sad, right? Yeah. I mean, it literally is a pain reliever. The sense of belonging, a sense of connection stimulates in the brain, not only oxytocin, but also endorphins, to relieve pain. Oh, God. Oh, yeah. And so when we're stuck in ourselves, like what we might call narcissism, but when we're imprisoned in ourselves, because intimacy feels dangerous, we're not getting that pain relief. We're not getting that sense of belonging. Oh my God. It's sad. Yeah. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's so easy to get caught up in what everyone else needs from you, and never take a moment to think about what you need from yourself. I mean, we're getting texts and emails from co-workers, and bosses, and our partners, and our friends who oftentimes need help with their crises while you're going through your own. We are getting inundated with images, and news, and headlines, and traffic, and it's all just a little great. Especially for people, perhaps like you, who spend a lot of your time giving, and it can leave us feeling stretched thin and super burned out. And that's why therapy is so great, because it can give you the tools to find more balance in your life, so you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind. I was feeling extremely burned out a couple months ago. I wasn't really talking about it, but it was really at a point where I was like, just felt like I couldn't catch my breath. And with the help of a therapist, initiated boundaries, one of them being, I no longer attend events or things at all during the week. And that has changed the last month of my life, because I was never wanting to say no to anybody. And now I do, and I feel great, and you can do the same. If you get a great therapist, you can find more balance, and I want you to get more balance with better help. If you visit betterhelp.com slash PIA, you can get 10% off your first month, which is great if you're thinking of starting therapy. I really want you to get better help with trying, because it's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire, and you get matched with a licensed therapist. So go to betterhelp.com slash PIA, and get that 10% off your first month. 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What are some things people can do? Oh, wait. Yeah. Before that, can you talk about, I listened to one of your podcasts where you talked about what our real first language is? Yeah. And it made me like, that made me want to cry because I thought about like my daughter and like, it's so cool. Can you talk about that? So going back to the implicit. Yeah. Our first primal language is sensation and movement and breath. Way before we speak German or Spanish or English or whatever, what I call the secondary language, okay. We all have a universal shared language, which is breath movement sensation. That is so, is that way breath work is so powerful? So powerful because it brings us back to the primal. I'm too scared to do it. Should we do it right now? Oh my God, I can do it right now. He's crying to feel the position this whole pod. Got you. She's lying. She's getting too strong then. I mean, people would turn into that. Tune into that. I mean, my doctor does it. My doctor is all about making sure. He won't work on anybody unless they're happy people who are doing other therapies because he's like the stress. He's like, there's nothing I more I could do through if you're continuing to be stressed all the time. Like you have to try to alleviate that in some way. And he started doing breath work. And he was like, I saw up to the first time I did it. He was like, it was such a relief. It's intense. What are other things people can do? If that's our first language, move man, use that. Move man. Like it's not just like going to the club and dancing. Like that's fun. And it does, it has the potential to really finish the stress response. Because when I was talking about before, like we hold that tension of incomplete stress responses. So we get that fight response. We get that huge cascade of adrenaline and cortisol. And if we don't actualize our feelings and our needs in a functional way, it doesn't get to metabolize. The wave of stress never gets to complete itself. And that's where disease comes from. We often think, oh, stress is this big, bad thing in the closet or the closet. In the closet. Out of the closet. In the closet. Who knows? Stress is this big, bad monster under a bed or whatever. But it's not stress. If we didn't have stress, we wouldn't be alive. We didn't have a capacity for stress response. We wouldn't be alive because that's actually our adaptational system. Yeah, of course. And it's the- Fighter fight getting chased by the lions or rival. Yeah. All of that. And it's just the energy. So stress is the way that energy rises in our body to respond to a stimulus. It's a little unexciting, but that's actually what stress is. Okay. And it's the interruption of that that creates disease. It creates massive inflammation in the body when we- Because remember that tension I was saying about? We're holding in our jaw, we're holding. It's literally locking in your fluids. Yeah. And that locking of your fluids creates a stagnancy around your cells and the cells in their metabolic waste or their poop builds up and it becomes toxic. Yeah. And then you feel chronic pain. And- It's manifested itself in me with PCOS. Which I was explaining to my mother yesterday. Because I was like, my body's using progesterone to make cortisol. If I'm constantly having these crazy cortisol spikes, no wonder I'm estrogen dominant. And then my- And then you know, then it goes- In PCOS, in fertility, all these things. I was like, we are designed to really work perfectly, unfortunately. Because we're not operating that way. And you can really feel it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And shit gets in the way. And it has this full cascade. Because it's not just like how we're adapting to like you come in and you're yelling at me and I adapt. It's a full physiological adaptation. Mm. Every- Every- Fertile. Fertile. Every cell is involved in this process. 90% of your cells have receptors for glucocoid stress hormones. Oh wow. Stress is so primal and fundamental to your well-being. Wow. The stress process is so fundamental to your well-being that 90% of your cells have receptors for it. That's crazy. It's wild. Yeah. You have a test in front of you. I do. Or quiz. Do you want to take it? Yeah. All right. Let's do this. Explain it. Yeah. So- Before. So this is a quiz that's- This is me being so vulnerable. I'm down. Do you need a hug first? No, I'll be fine. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. I like thrive in vulnerability. So do the people who troll me for it. So let's have- I used to thrive in stress. I shipped it. I rebranded in my 30s. Good call. Good call. So this is a quiz that- Oh, I have to find the rest of it. Hold on just a second. This is a quiz for- am I addicted to drama? Okay. You just had the whole quiz out. I know. And then I took the wrong sheet. Because I have two quizzes. One is do I know someone addicted to drama? Yeah, that's a hard yes. And this one is am I addicted to drama? And this isn't an adaptation from the quizzes in my book. Okay. Because it's hard to tell. Like unless someone tells you, hey, you're addicted to drama, you know, most people won't be aware of it. It also sounds like a funny thing to say to someone that's not that deep. You know what I mean? Like, oh, you're so dramatic because that's how we speak to each other. She used as like a derogatory kind of sly statement. Yeah. And it's actually like, hey, babes. But by the way, there's like merchandise that says like, I love drama and like drama queen. Those are like, you know, people have those coffee cups. I own all of them. I own all of them. I have them trademarked. And it's true. It's like, did you ever watch Jerry Springer? Are you old enough? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That was always on. Oh, we loved it. As a culture or, you know, there are many cultures, but especially the culture that we're living in. We love Heather drama, as long as we're not involved in it in quotation marks. We love the gossip. We love the tease, you know, like, but as soon as like it's at us, we want nothing to do with it. Talking about this with a friend yesterday. Yeah. Because I was like, no matter how big these things are, it's human nature. I was like, we were talking about somebody who was having something on a larger scale. And I was actually really impressed with both of us because we approached it as two adults. We like heard something that happened about time one. We both immediately went into a very empathetic state. We both agreed that we shouldn't be talking about certain aspects of it because we wouldn't want anybody else to talk about us in that way. Beautiful. And I was like, go us. Wow. This is like my bestie from eighth grade who I'm like, call me, I have gossip, you know, like very, and we both got really mature about it. And I said, you know what, even if this wasn't a public figure, or we were like, why are people like this? And I was like, this is how people are. Because I remember even just in my elementary school, the moms on the parking lot talking about shit or little, it's no matter how small the E, I'm sure, you know, hundreds of years ago before we had access to any of the ways that we communicate now, there was drama in little villages or calling this person. I mean, we saw it happen with like Jesus, you know, I mean, like literally. You saw it? I was there. Wow. I've had a lot of work done. You look great. Thank you. It's just our human nature. You're right to be just like these, you know, drama. We love to watch it happen. We love to watch it happen. I mean, like these are all drama devices. I love the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Teresa is really fulfills a lot for me with her behavior. Teresa, call us. Teresa and Judy Chang, please. I'm dying to get any of them on the podcast. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of wild. I mean, I really went on a drama cleanse years ago. So like- What did that include? It's no social media. No. Oh, girl. Wow. Wow. I know. I know. No news. No news. We didn't know news, Cleans. Yeah. How did it feel? Feels really nice. Sometimes we don't know what's going on. Yeah. But because my mom started getting- I saw my mom getting addicted to it. Yeah. And then she started being like, especially when Trump was- She was like, No, he's doing this and this. And I was like, We just need to turn all this off. Isn't it amazing? Like, I saw this with my mom too. It's like all of a sudden, the people on the news or the stories about these people were actually as though it was their best friends. I said that to her. And I said, I'm actually starting to get concerned because I feel like these newscasters know that cute little moms- Yeah. Or grandmas or at home. Or grandmas. And they're going to listen to any fucking thing that you say. Because I hear her on the phone and be like, Well, they said that I go, Mom, none of this is going to happen. You're spewing what you heard on the news. As though it was absolutely true. Only if I get out of here with this stuff. It's too much. And so now we don't look at the news anymore. Yeah. So a little interesting bit of information. The more someone watches the news and sees violent, like violent, they're sharing it, you know, on the news about violent episodes or whatever, the more the person who's watching believes those violent episodes will happen to them. Oh my God. So we have a physiological response. And you know- But that makes sense. Yeah. Because sometimes my TikTok algorithm will only give me like- Drama? Well, it's really sad, but like children who have cancer or like a mother who has cancer. And like they post like her last moment or what she's saying makes me sick to my stomach. It's even like it's so sad. It's so sad. Yeah, because I just- It's not like porn for me because I'm a mother now. And so I get very like, We need to live every day to our fullest and we need to not get caught up in this. And we need to be thankful and live with gratitude and leave with gratitude and end it up. And then I started having really severe anxiety the last like six months that like I have cancer. There's something bad that's going to happen to me. Like we're going to get like- It started really consuming me. Yeah. There is no neutral experience. We can't scroll through TikTok. We can't scroll through Instagram. We can't watch the news and have a neutral non-responsive process. Wow. That is a very impactful thing that you just said. Do you want me to say it again? No, I'm going to- I'm going to make it the title of this fucking- I'm going to- That's going to be on a post-sitting out on my computer. Should we get t-shirts? Yeah. A lot of merch to be- A lot of merch. Because that's really incredible. Yeah. And so we- It just makes it- It just makes it puts responsibility. It makes me feel like I'm very much- Now I have a lot of bigger responsibility to myself. You are being flooded. But what I can assume. Constantly by stimulus. That you don't even know you're having a physiological response to. I'm sure. And it's not just a physiological response to in that moment. Any emotion in your whole history will also light up in that moment. Oh shit. It's like, let's say I see this color green of your glass. Like gorgeous mountain valley? I mean- Oh, are they a sponsor? I'd like them to be good. I'm just very happy that we have this gorgeous spring water here. Mmm, the mountain valley. So every time I see the color green- All right, then in this moment I see the color green. Every other time I've seen the color green in my whole life, and any emotion attached to that, lights up simultaneously in this moment. Oh, that's why you're saying we are viewing it through completely different lenses. Because of the green that you've seen and experienced in me too. Exactly, exactly. So I'm watching the news, and I have a mix of flood of feelings, because there is no neutral experience. And let's say it's sadness. So I'm watching that TikTok video that you talked about. Every other moment in my life that I've had some flavor of sadness, the light of that memory turns on. Mmm. And then I am not only flooded with what's in the moment, but I'm also flooded with what's in my past. And any memory, what's called the future memory, which is anything I've thought about that might happen that also made me sad will also light up. Jesus. So the past and the future flood us with what's happening in relationship to the present. No pressure. Can we put that on the t-shirt? I feel like that might be too long. Shit. How do we condense that? Oh my god. Anyways. So overwhelming. So there's a power to this, and media. It does. Engineers. They love it. They utilize this power to capture your attention. Of course. Of course they do. Welcome to what's happening in our world and how it's actually mimicking the conditions that create an addiction to trauma. Oh my god. It's real. So everybody actually really needs your book. I mean, it's just like a big deal. Very important. Nary up for the world. I feel so like this is such an important topic. I mean, I'm joking about my book, but it's such an important topic that we don't even know we are being emotionally manipulated. And we're being coaxed into our own addiction to drama because here's another piece of it. You watch that video, and you get flooded by it. And two years time, you won't have a strong response to it. You will have built a tolerance level to it. Oh shit. So that video needs to get much more dramatic. It needs to have much more emotionality to it. The music has to be something else because in order to capture and maintain your attention again, it has to build above the threshold of your tolerance level. Wow. And so it takes more to feel more. And it takes more to feel more and it takes more to capture your attention. And you will go through withdrawal symptoms. So that was a big emotional waves. We're not really meant to have those in our life constantly. Yeah, here and there, like someone gets into a fight with us. We have a big emotional wave, but not 50,000 times a day as we're scrolling or watching the news. So that's why we seek it out more and more and more and more. We go through a draw and we seek it out. So I go back to the- What does the withdrawal feel like look like? I mean, what is that? Boredom. Man, fucking bored. I'm goddamnit. Goddamnit, I knew it was there. Oh my god. Yeah, it actually feels like an itch. It's like an uncomfortable discomfort, like a dis-ease or a sense like something is wrong, but I can't place my finger on it. So I go out and I seek or create conditions that justify that feeling of discomfort or dis-ease. That happen in that withdrawal and that boredom. Oh my god. Okay. You want to take the quiz? Are you addicted to drama? Let's do it. Let's do this. This is so exciting. What are you hoping to find out? That I've become an elevated adult who's not addicted to drama anymore. I'm fine with any response or with any, you know what I mean? However, this ends. It's like- Well, we'll still be friends. It's fine. Yeah. You might get a client. I think the whole world's my client. Yeah, literally. Or most of us, not you, not you, the listener. It's not you. You're not the problem. It's us. Yeah. It's me. Mm-hmm. First question. I'm told by others that I'm dramatic, overreactive, or overly sensitive. So the- No. That never seldom sometimes frequently always. Mm. Seldom. Seldom. Okay. I'm circling seldom. And also not believing that response. Okay. It's true. No, I believe you. I've been very cool and calm. I've been cool as a cucumber the last couple of years. You've been cool and calm the whole time I've been here. I've really handled the last 20 minutes with grace. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. For all the 30 minutes I've known you, I'm so proud of you. Thank you, Sam. Second question. After interacting with people, they say to me, wait, what just happened? Whoa, I don't know where that's coming from, or shit, that was intense. Never seldom sometimes frequently always- Oh, nobody says that to me. Never. No. What kind of conversations are people having? I have great conversations. I love that for you. Yeah, I get- I like text my friends after we talk and I'm like, that was a great conversation. Like, I love you so much. Like, it's so nice being your friend. I've had that- I've done that like three times this week. I just- for the record, she has never texted me that. We can change that. Number three. I make mountains out of molehills. My reactions are bigger than what makes sense to other people. Sometimes. Sometimes. Okay. Finally, an honest response. I'm just kidding. I crave extreme situations and sensations. That could be like pleasure and intensity. That could be climbing. That could be gossiping. Sometimes. Sometimes. I'm telling you me and- Should we take this as like a 20- 25-year-old? Yeah. This would all be- Always. Yeah. Wow. Big time. Wow. All of these would have been always. That's a huge transition. I know. There's a huge healing. Literally. Yeah. This would have been my behavior was unhinged. It was like every day living in- Yeah. Constant. You know what's interesting is like if we were taking this with your 25-year-old self, it might be actually more interesting. You know what I mean? Totally. Like you're telling the stories of like all the drama and we- And we would lean into it often. It would be much more fun for this to be. I'm sorry it's a boring right now for all the who are listening. Sorry that I've grown and done the work. I'm sorry you've done the work too because this would be more entertaining. I mean that's one that's a part about like- I know. Entertain by the drama. It gives us a sense of being alive and then we get to walk away. Yeah. Wild. All right number five. I think about past events or conversations on a loop. Reliving them as if I could say something or do something different. Oh I do that a lot. Is that like frequently always? Frequently. Okay. And you're 25-year-old self. I think about things that happened in third grade. I think about my- yeah my mom is always- yes she always tells this story of this woman who like yelled at her on the Ralph's parking lot and she really wish she would have said something and she didn't. She let this woman walk all over her and I've heard about that for a fucking decade now. Wow. I think when we drop the book off at your mom's door. Why don't we reenact that moment and really let her find the completion? This is some real gestalt there up in the house. Oh my god take her back to the location. Take her back to the Ralph's. We don't even have to. We'll just like set up the bedroom to make it look like we'll throw in some like grocery items. Oh my god. Oh I love that. All right number six. I live in the past and the future rather than the present through a compulsive worry, repetitive thoughts, stories, or imagining troubles in the future. Sometimes. Sometimes. Okay. We might try to only think about my- I try to manifest lovely things so I'm good about taking those thoughts and putting them somewhere else in replacement of good ones. Amazing. Great strategy. It's the work. That is the work. Practice every day. It's a practice to really marinate in the good, in the pleasure. And I think we have evolutionally, we have a negative bias. We're designed to attend to the- Why I wonder what I got to do. Survival. Oh yes. Survival. If something tastes really bad or is poisonous, it's better for me to attend to that and be more attentive to that than the good strawberries down the block. Got it. Wow. Okay. That makes total sense. Oh I'm glad. The good strawberries. The good strawberries. That went from air ones that are $40. Harry's berries. Oh you know those. Yeah. Why are they $40? I don't know. I accidentally bought them ones. I did too. They know. Everybody makes that air one mistake where you're like, why is my- oh okay. Because you can get out of air one with not that much damage. You just really have- It depends how much seamos you're buying. I would- Or as my sister calls it mermaid jizz. Oh that's so funny. That is. Can I say that live? We can say anything. Oh wow mermaid jizz. That's really funny. I love that for for seamos. I've never tried seamos. I'm not doing it. It's gross. We did it for New Year's. New Year New Ass. New Year New Ass seamos. Air one feel free to take that as your new t-shirt. The mermaid jizz is on aisle four. Yeah I bought those 40-dollar strawberries and then felt too shameful to bring them back and be like, I don't think this is okay. Yeah yeah I know. So I ate those 40-dollar strawberries. And I would like to say they were the best I ever had, because that's the theory of cognitive dissonance, right? Because you pay 40-dollar for a strawberry. It should- you trick yourself into thinking, this is the best damn strawberry of my life. And it wasn't. It was the second best. What was the first one? I can't talk about it live. Cool. Cool. Talk about it offline. We'll talk about it offline. Number seven. I sense that another person or the world conspires against me and I wonder, why me? Oh my god it's so funny. When I was in my 20s I was like, the world is conspiring against me. Right. So now it's just a sometimes. Sometimes. Or you say things like, it's always something. Oh. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Still sometimes. Yeah. Very infrequent. Yeah. But something. You know, either one. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, when I think about like- I have had someone say to me that it seems like people are conspiring against you. So it's not like it doesn't live in my head. This is, I've had a couple people say that to me. Does that feel super validating? Yes. And wherever you were. Because I was like, I'm not fucking crazy. Like, there's this thing like I'm not. But here's- I've had a very normal person say it to me too. Like it wasn't like a- It was like a calm, cool person that I trust. Here's the tricky part around self-fulfilling prophecies, right? Is that we might create the conditions so that people will act that way to us. And so we, yes, we are in a place where people are conspiring against us. Welcome to- Welcome to some drama. Yeah. Because it's not like, oh, I just interpreted it that way always. It's also I create the conditions- And providing you with the information to- Bring it back to the familiar. Yeah. Because that feels like home, and home feels safe, regardless of how chaotic and intense that is. Oh my god. All right. I want to tell you about the underwear that I am obsessed with. Can't keep it to myself. It's too good. And I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about. Everybody loves skims, guys. We can't hide from it. We can't run away from it. It's skims are bust, especially the Fits Everybody Collection. 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That is VIO NIC shoes.com. We're getting cute shoes. We're getting our feet aligned. We're getting our whole body aligned. We're feeling good. Number eight. How are any of us functioning? How are you functioning? I'm just like, this is so crazy. I mean, are we functioning? I think so now. Are we in the matrix? Hopefully. Oh, God. All right. Number eight. I get consumed by social media and comparing myself to others. Sometimes. Sometimes. I try really not to do that. What's your tactics? What's your tools? That I probably, I can't imagine what people see when they look at my Instagram. That my life is curated in a way that looks super perfect. And that's probably triggering to other people. And that it's literally just like Instagram is a glossy magazine. Yeah. I need to remember that the whole thing is like an ad. Like, even if it's not. You know what I mean? That's what we are choosing to present to ourselves. Yeah. It takes a real skill set to remember that everyone is presenting their social avatar. And the further away, these great studies that demonstrate the further away you are you, the actual person from your social avatar, the greater likelihood of depression. Oh my God. Because we're living in a dissonant world. Yeah, totally. We're not in our authentic self. Yeah. And that leads to his depression. Yeah. No, I mean, I made breakfast in my robe on Instagram this morning. So I feel like it's a very honest depiction. But I do think like regardless, it's just snippets of somebody's life. It's just snippets. Yeah. Like you don't see all the like the failed tapings. No, I also know so many people who are seem like they just have absolutely everything who are going through so much or have gone through or are not fulfilled and not happy. And so I have to just check myself. Yeah. This is just a flat thing. Yeah. Curated life is not actually the life. Yeah. Or their life. Yeah. Number nine, I get caught up in my emotions and I feel drained afterwards. No. Okay. Never. Like. Sell them. I'm trying to think of the last time that happened. What we're talking about kind of is another way of saying withdrawal symptoms. Like we have a big spike of feelings. Yeah. Yeah. I just try to avoid them at all times. Especially despite PCOS. Well, yeah. I try to avoid these giant spikes, you know? These big, I try to do it with my husband if we fight in the morning. Like we got him like a little tip about work stuff today. And I was like, this is now how we can start. And instead of when he walked off, usually then I would, I would be like, oh my God, we're fighting. This is, we're always going to fight. This is never going to. You can testify. And I make it this whole thing. And then I was like, I'm not going to do that. And I like put on music and I like continued my good morning and I went upstairs and I kissed him like nothing had happened. And I made him laugh and then he was like, you drive me crazy. And then we laughed about it and then the morning continued fabulously. Amazing. But it was work to do that. That's like, and I, and so these things have happened a lot since I entered into like an adult relationship. Yeah. Because I want to, I want to be with him forever. Yeah. You know, and so my behavior needs to adjust. Yeah. Well, you're, you're like barometer, a thermometer of emotional response. Like they intensity like, I imagine like, maybe when you were 20s, like when I was younger that to be sad meant I had to be out of 12. Oh, God. Anger was always out of 12. It was never like a three or two. It was never just a small little wave of feeling. No, it was bad. And when we would get in fights when we first started dating, I would cry and I would be like, oh my God. This is, of course, this is happening. And we're going to, now, and now I bet you hate me. And he would be like, what? What? Where did you just? What just happened? Yeah. He was like, you just went to a whole other weird thing. Yeah. But that's like, very probably like just like my dad trauma. Yeah. And part of the trauma responses like again, like, whoa, what just happened? How do we get from zero to 100? Mm-hmm. Like it's, it's in the blink of an eye that's impossible to track. Yeah. Because it's all happening internally for them and their reality, those who are addicted to drama. And it's impossible to track on the outside. So sad. It is sad. It makes me sad for people. Makes me sad for us. Makes me sad for me in my 20s. God Jesus Christ. Number 10. I recall this, I retell the same emotional story to different audiences so I can vent continuously. I mean, you do have a podcast. I don't do that. I do. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking because I just, I have, I know someone who just fucking does that all the time and I always notice it and I'm like, damn, dog, you're telling that story to that person? So you can get it. I was like, you're searching for the response that you want. Oh, yeah. And you modify the story just enough for the audience to make sure that they throw some type of log on your fire. I do that sometimes. Oh, sometimes. So I'll do seldom. Sorry, I didn't know that there was an in-between. Of course you didn't. Yes. Yeah. So seldom, seldom, seldom. Okay. I become reactive. This is number 11. There's two more. If you're having a moment at home, we're like, how many more are we? How many more are we? Oh, god. And the book gets longer. It's like three times a song. Oh, cool. Yeah. Number 11. I become reactive or go from zero to 100 very quickly. Seven times. Sometimes. But not, not today. I was, today was cool. It was a cute homework, baby. You rocked it. I'm not going to let my quarters all spike. I want to get pregnant at some point again, and I'm keeping my hormones level, baby. I love your hormones level. It's trying to keep, I always say it to my husband. I'm like, don't disrupt my fucking hormone. You want another baby? We got to keep a chill around here. I mean, yes. Just, just yes. Just yes. Are cucumbers cool? Mine are always in the refrigerator. They're always in the refrigerator. Wow. Okay. That makes more sense to me now. Number 12. I feel a sense of unease or agitation. I feel restless or overwhelmed by other people, events, relationships, or the world. Oh, never. Never. Not anymore. No, I love my life. Beautiful. All right. Let me do the math. Cool. People pop, people pop, people pop. I actually have to do it in my head. That's so cool. You can do math in your head? That's insane to me. That would never happen. Really? Five plus five. Oh, that's tiny. You did it. I'm so proud of you. Okay. All right. You're kind of on the cusp. Cool. I figured. Like of, like, Aquarius and whatever comes after that. I am a scorpion, so the drama does make sense. Oh. I did it as scorpion ones. Good sex. Sorry, what? Good sex. No. Oh, my God, really? Yeah. Scorpios are usually like, the sexual creatures. Oh. Wrong scorpion. Wrong scorpion. It was the wrong scorpion. All right. You are somewhere between the drama dabbler. Ooh, little dabble. And oh, you know the drama and the drama knows you. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I mean, we could read the description, but essentially, I think you know the description. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That tracks. Yeah. I mean, you're no longer a drama aficionado. No, I was. Oh, my God. You rocked that drama aficionado, Niss. Yeah, just letting all that trauma unleash on New York City. Oh, you lived in New York City. Uh-huh. It's a great place to be addicted to drama. It is, I think it is the place to be addicted to drama. I think a lot of people probably go there, because they're addicted to the drums. I mean, that... So, I don't know why that tickled me, but it tickled me. Well, you know that my focus the last couple of years has really been on my metabolic and hormone health. And that's why I have included armra colostrum in my health and wellness training. Armra colostrum strengthens your gut barrier and combats inflammation to guard against the toxins, chemicals, and pollutants that negatively impact your metabolism. Their bioactives enhance nutrient absorption, optimized sleep, help stabilize blood sugar levels, and support metabolic hormones. There's just nothing that the stuff doesn't do. Armra's adaptogenic properties uniquely buffer against the damaging effects of stress and cortisol for balanced hormones and cellular protection throughout your body and brain. It fortifies your whole body microbiome to promote healthy hormone production, helps with resilient cognition, balanced mood, sustains energy and focus, restorative sleep optimized and stabilized sex hormones. I mean, my god. I take this stuff every day. It's a little powder. I eat added to my smoothies. If I don't add it to my smoothies, I add it to my matcha. There's a blood orange flavor that I love. There's also an unflavored powder that you can add to any drink. Just make sure it's not warm. You can add it to any drink and you're cruising and you're just going to live your life optimized. It helps with inflammation to reduce puffiness in the face and neck. My skin is glowing. I swear it stimulates stem cells to reactive collagen production. So I swear my wrinkles are getting less. I feel like I'm amazing backwards. Visit tryarma.com slash best and use code best to check out for 15% off your first purchase. That is tryarmraa.com slash best and use code best for 15% off your first order. How do I ask my boss for a raise? I'm so jealous of my co-workers promotion. I just don't know what to do. Is there a good way to brag about my accomplishments? Careers are complicated and there are so many hush hush topics we're told we can't talk about. That's why you have the Career Contessa Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren McGood one and each week I'm joined by experts to help you overcome your workplace woes with actionable advice that you can use today. Subscribe to the Career Contessa Podcast and make progress in your career every Tuesday. Yeah, I mean the frequency of New York never lets you rest. So you get to always stay in some level of chaos and unrest. And for most of us at some point in New York, it feels like home. I mean I was just back there last week after being gone for a year. I was like, oh. How did I do that? That was exhausting. I do that. It was fun for like a day. Just like someone addicted to drama can be fun for an hour too. Yeah. You know they're like they can be like fun at parties and really entertaining. I mean it's not to say mostly entertainment industry is addicted to drama. But you know but then it does it gets exhausting. I mean 20 years I was in New York and I was tired all the time. I only made it like nine. So you weren't really a New Yorker. You missed that 10 year mark. Yeah. You didn't get your chip. I didn't get my chip. No. That's okay. I have two of them. It was 20 years. I'm open to sharing. Yeah I mean it's a lot. But it fueled me. And even when I go back I love it. Like my husband when we're there it's so funny. He'll be like let's go back to the hotel and like relax for a second. I'm like I'm like you're joking. I'm just like there's so many more people we can see. Why would you go inside? That's insane. We're here. Every second needs to be filled with so much. And he's just like getting out of here and I'm just like where are we going next? Like I would go to work in the morning and like knock at home until like 4am. Easy. Yeah. Easy. And it just supports that. Four was like an early night for me too. Oh sure. You know. Especially in your twenties you're like because like bars close at three then there's always something else happening. You know. The after after party. Yeah. The artist party. The loft party. Where's the loft? Where is the loft? What random famous person's loft are we going to? Andy Warhols. Yeah. The amount of times you and I ended up there together. Oof. What are that? Ugh. What are some? I want to give our audience. I want to end this with some practices that people can do on a daily basis. Like what is even your like I'd love to know a little bit about maybe the perhaps like what your morning routine is and then like a couple of the things that you show on your Instagram which we will link and everyone should look at because it's a great if you are scrolling. They're great reminders in there. You know it's a good thing to see in your feed. Yeah. And there are some amazing like physical practices in there that are really cool. Yeah. So I'd like to start my morning with a little primal screaming. And then I troll. I just troll the trollers. I just wake up and see whatever stress I can create for myself. That's what I do. And then I mobilize it. I look at Instagram. I have all my notifications on. I check all of them. I look at Daily Mail. Oh. This morning my husband said why you read the sad news in the morning. Where's your husband from? Italy. Say that again. What means like Italy? No. No. The accident. I know. It's adorable. It's adorable. Yeah. Oh. Now I want to see him fight. Like in a sweet Italian accent. It's really, really bad. Oh it's bad? No it's just funny. It's just like he's mad and it's cute and then I'm like. Yeah. That's the worst. But he's like has crazy, you know, he's just like a passionate person. Yeah. Like little things will and then two seconds later he's fired. The whole it's just like a little like watching a movie unfold all the time. That's that's really sweet. Yeah, it's really cute. That country as a whole is addicted to drama. I just want to be very clear. I did not say that. And when people write into me all the time and they're like, can you bring all your books to XY and Z country like Israel or Germany or and I'm like, I am not taking the bait. I will not take the bait and yes, I will send them. Yeah. Actually, you know, thinking about it really like they, the way that their days are structured are to relax, be grounded, calm down. Yeah, the CS in the middle of the day. Yeah. It's like, you know, coffee break, long lunch, coffee break, leave work early. I mean, they are really, you know, it's blue zoney over there, right? They might be one or two big gestures along the way. A lot of big gestures. A lot of big gestures. But there is a lot of, that's why you see the people there that are, you know, more content in the these like longer lives is like they're really community driven, they're community based. It's a different, yeah, a lot of other things that have been that are very good. So I take it back, Italy. And then when they come to the United States. All of them. What happens then? Yeah, it's sad. So my morning routine varies. I'm actually checking in with what I need as opposed to some ritualized form. Because if you don't hit the ritual, then sometimes that can cause a meltdown. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, for me, one of the things that's massively changed since I really deepen my practices, and I'll explain some of my practices that are not primal screaming. But it is actually, you know, not primal screaming, but I've done a lot of work to make sure that I go back. I feel where that tension is, that stress that's being held in my body. And, you know, because it will lead me down into the path where the trauma is, where the unprocessed stress. And I do, I move a lot from that. So I locate it, and then I find sort of that held tension or energy. And I just find whether it's running or whether it's dancing or whether it's shaking practices, releasing it because it never got a chance, because it wasn't safe enough. There was enough time or resources or permission to release and release it now. Because it's like, you know, all that compounded stressors, all that compounded trauma, there's no room for me. There's no room to respond and adapt because I'm filled to the brim with all that other stuff. Yeah. So I need to empty the glass. And when I have an empty glass, I'm much more resilient. And that's my experience now. It's like, you know, big things will come at me, stressors. And I'll be like, okay, cool. And it always surprises me still because I'm like, oh, I used to thrive on that. I used to pull that in. Why is this happening? Oh my God. I like call everyone you know. Talk about it. Jealous. I like to tell the story of it. Over and over. Yeah, everything. I used to milk it. And I used to, I was afraid I used to call when I was like, oh, I'm revving myself up and then milking it. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it's not good milk. I'll tell you that. It's toxic milk. But I have that feeling like something happened to me the other day. And I had such an urge to call someone and talk about it. Yeah. And I was like, I'm not going to do that. This is not information that I want. It was like something that happened to me too. And I was like, I don't, I was like, this type of information, this is the type of information that makes me vulnerable. It doesn't need to be shared. That I'm actualizing it. Yeah. I'm going to keep that. I was so crazy. I was like, who could I? And then I was like, I don't need to call. Also what we do a lot, we call people and unload on them. And I don't need to do that to someone in the middle of the day. No, because they're receiving our stress. My friend Hillary is so good at that. It pisses me off. If I call her and I'll be like, blah, blah, blah, she'll go, babe, I'm having a good day. Like I'm not available for this and we'll hang up on me. Great boundaries. It's amazing. Now if she calls me, she'll, she'll say, this is kind of, I have like some, can I unload on you? Like, are you in a place where I can unload on you right now? And she always does and that has made me so much more aware of that. Yeah. So even asking someone, hey, do you have the space to like hold my processing? And by the way, you can also ask someone, if I feel like I'm in a loop where I'm not actually mobilizing, processing, breaking down the feelings that are happening, or tell me, because then it means I'm just revving myself up and keeping myself in the drama. Yeah. Like, how people give you that checkpoint? Mm-hmm. It's absolutely helpful because, you know, the friends that I had who did that probably saved my life. Yeah, absolutely. They're like, or therapists who are like, oh, this story feels familiar. I think you just told it five minutes ago. Oh, God. Just in a different way. Yeah, yeah. You know, or sometimes when a friend calls me and I feel like they're venting, I'm like, oh, they're not, they're not processing. They're in dramatic narrative that's supposed to reflective narrative. Oh. And reflective narrative sounds like, I'm feeling this. And right now what I need is, where dramatic narrative is like, he said, and then she said, and then this happened, and then that happened. And you can hear it in my voice and the intensity and like, I don't have any pause. Sorry, folks. I remember doing, I mean, I remember so many times where I would be in my car and I would get all, it's just, in my telling the story and telling my, in my cortisol, it's just like, like, because you're just like going off on something. Did you ever play music that like would amp it up? Oh, yeah, of course. Such a brilliant drama device. Yeah. Or I read drama. Drama device. I recently became more honest about this. Like as a kid, and even as an adult up until last week, like, like I'm walking down the street and having emotion and instead of just being present with my emotion, I'll pretend like, what? And I'll even put it on maybe if I'm listening to music, but I'll pretend like this sound score, like I'm in a movie and this is sound score supporting my emotions. And everyone's watching me go through it. Uh-huh. I'm like, oh, wow. That's everyone walking down the street to New York City. Absolutely. Like living their life as though they're being witnessed inside of a movie. Absolutely. So funny. Thank you for validating me. Thank you for normalizing my drama. So yeah, so my practice daily varies, but sometimes it's, you know, shaking it. A lot of things just move through. What do you mean? Because you said it's shaking. Yeah, it's literally like moving your arms, moving your legs, moving your shoulders, releasing that health energy. Like what athletes do right before? Yeah. It's what animals do after a trauma experience. They shake it. Oh, wow. I mean, it's such a primal process. Like if you watch videos of like, um, and this is a little trigger warning, if a tiger is chasing a rabbit, I don't actually know if tigers chase rabbits. But if the rabbit got into the tiger cage at the zoo, I think it would. And so, so that, you know, like then you'll see like an animal like a rabbit or whatever, fall over, it'll fawn. It's, you know, like it will go into a freeze response. And like, and then the tiger's not so interested in it because there isn't the chase. Because the tiger's addicted to drama. Loves the chase. Oh, wow. And then the tiger goes away and the rabbit, you'll see, you'll see animals do this. They'll, it'll take about 30 seconds to a minute. They'll come out of the deep freeze response and they'll shake it off. They'll shake it off. They have to shake off all that stress response, all that cortisol in order to complete the stress response. Yeah. I had a doctor tell me to use the trampol, that like, a trampoline. Like, jumping out a trampoline is really good for releasing excess cortisol. Yeah. You got to tap into the actual tension and stuff. It's not like just doing the movement for doing the movement. But yeah. Yeah. I love that. So yeah, I jump on a trampoline every day. Mine, while listening to something. So I got help avoiding actually dealing with the promo. What else? I met, do you do meditation or anything? Yeah, you know. Do we love to many? Do we love to many? I would love a met. Yeah, I love a metty. Yes, sometimes, you know, I meditated a lot in my 20s. And when I was discovering my own propensity for drama, I was talking to a therapist and I was like, yeah, maybe I keep hooking myself into things that create more suffering for me. But I don't think so because I meditate for an hour every day. And I do yoga every day. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she just pauses and she goes, meditation and yoga. What a beautiful place to hide. Change my life because I noticed like all these ways, I was still avoiding myself by doing the action of something that was supposedly good for me. And you know, at some level probably was good for me, but I was, I was, you know, saying I couldn't possibly be addicted to drama because I do wellness. Yeah. I drink a green juice every day. Therefore, I could never be a toxic asshole. Yeah, totally. You know, because they never go hand in hand. Of course not. I'll never. And if you drink green juices at home, doesn't mean you're an asshole. I just want to be very clear about that. I was though. Yeah. So I like the idea of not having, you know, I think we're all very pushed to have this like elaborate morning routine that we do every day journaling and this and that. And I like that you're just like, what do you need that day? What do you need? Yeah. What are you hungry for? Like what, what would give you the space, the permission, the witnessing that you need to support you through the day? I love that. And it's just not as much. Yeah. We might need to start with ritual because we don't have the access point to ask ourselves that or the ability to listen to answer. But that our practice is leading us to be able to ask that and hear the response. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. Say how do you run for me? I will. Thank you. Yeah. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes this week's episode of Everything is the Best. I hope you enjoyed it. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that stuff. Maybe leave a comment. But remember, shitty comments are for shitty people. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram at Pia Barangini. And I hope you have a fabulous, fabulous rest of your day. Love you. Tao. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.