A2 The Show
The Power Of Honesty And Self-kindness with Catherine G. Cleveland | A2 THE SHOW #524
We're excited to introduce our latest guest on A2 THE SHOW, Dr. Catherine G. Cleveland, a PhD-trained and licensed mental health counselor and author, who is deeply committed to enhancing mental health awareness and well-being. As the founder of Cleveland Emotional Health, LLC, and developer of The Cleveland Emotional Health Residency Program, Catherine’s work transcends traditional counseling. She specializes in facilitating profound neural changes that lead to genuine healing and sustainable transformation, particularly for those in rural and local communities. Join us as she shares her insights on the transformative journey from discomfort to growth, the challenges of honesty in relationships, and the impact of perfectionism on self-esteem.
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⏰Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 04:08 - Challenges and impacts of honesty 10:12 - Importance of self-kindness 14:41 - Catherine’s strategies for managing negative self-talk 19:52 - Negative effects and setting realistic goals 25:00 - Difficulties in maintaining boundaries 30:05 - Conversations sparking beneficial ideas 35:04 - Ongoing challenges and matching consequences 40:21 - Impact of boundary violations on happiness 45:20 - Rewiring the brain through habit formation 50:00 - Transforming discomfort into growth
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- Broadcast on:
- 30 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
Katherine J. Cleveland is a PhD trained and licensed mental health counselor is that is a dedicated author and founder of Kebland emotional health LLC with a passion for supporting individuals in rural and local communities. Katherine emphasizes the importance of mental health and well-being. Her books and counseling approach focus on creating profound and lasting challenges that align with her client's goals. Through her work, she aims to bring joy, content, and mental wellness to a broader audience. Follow her on Amazon for new release updates, special offers, and more. Katherine, so good to have you here. And I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name in the beginning. Was it that I say that letter wrong in the middle or what exactly happened at that point? Oh, it's fine. Kevin G. Yeah, gave me, gave me a J. But that's okay. Okay, it's the messed up accent, the international accent. Yes, there you go. Katherine, I the first question I was thinking I thought about today was when I was reading your book, I read something about therapeutic alliance. And it talked about how between the therapist, the kind, the slash counselor, and the patient, there has to be like this sort of connection that is very positive and motivating, which as someone who's gone to counseling, maybe when I first start doing counseling, I don't have those thoughts. Like, I don't think as that person is, you know, I don't look at that person that way. So how does maybe looking from the patient's perspective, how should they approach this alliance? Yeah, that's a really good question. It's really difficult for a patient if they've never been into counseling or they're meeting somebody new for the first time to go in there and really open up about personal things, especially if that's not something they do well anyway, even with loved ones. So we kind of have to have and as the counselor, the therapist needs to be very understanding of that. And be able to build a rapport that feels like you're putting them in a really safe environment. You're not raising their anxiety, you know, and you're actually, you know, building trust between the two of you. It's actually a type of professional intimate relationship that you're developing. And if you don't, is the patient, if you don't feel safe and comfortable with the person that you're talking to, then it's not always the best fit. And there was also a part that said that it's always good to ask. And I completely agree with that point. And I think that also applies in general in life, you know, obviously you might not have the same response as doing it to your therapist when you just like ask if they if they like you or not. But I feel like I wanted to ask your perspective is like, if this would be a good approach to have with maybe your friends, family members, your colleagues, or whatever, or is it too much of an an ego question? Can you can you be a little more specific in what you're looking for as far as the question? Yeah, yeah, I think it was okay. I was a bit too too vague with it. Maybe let's say, so there was the question that you posed in the book which which struck me was, if the therapist asks the patients, what do you think about our relationship or some something along those lines? I forgot, I'm paraphrasing. And I was wondering if we can do that, you know, in the outside world, not only in the counseling session. Yeah, I think it all depends on what you're looking for. I think if you may not get the answer you're looking for, because people are always trying to be kind and not hurt your feelings for the most part. So yeah, sometimes it takes, even for us, to ask that question directly, you know, as students that are coming up and learning how to be counselors and therapists, it's really difficult to ask that question because it really, like, you don't know what's coming, you know, and somebody, I would want somebody that's that's a patient to be really honest with me, because then I need to know what I need to do to adjust and work again towards that relationship. So I think if I ask someone that really cares about me, you know, like, you know, what do you think about me? What do you think about what I'm doing? I don't know if I'm, I think they're going to be kind to me, but I think if I'm talking to a patient, that's important for them. And usually they'll be pretty honest with you. They'll say, you know, one of the questions I can ask is say, you know, how do you feel here working with me? What is your anxiety level right now? And that answers a lot of questions while you're sitting in here with me, because it's a little bit different type of relationship, because the relationship that you're having with a counselor and therapist is a little more one-sided. It's about you. It's about the patient. It's not about me. So there's, it doesn't have to be a reciprocation. And that's rare to have a relationship where it's just, you know, you don't have to take care of my needs. I'm here to take care of your needs. So why, I understand the point where you say like, people are just trying to be kind. So why do they, why is it such a struggle to be honest to someone that, you know, you have a strong, you have a relationship with, or you understand what like, okay, they might get upset from the truth, but isn't it beneficial to, to be honest in the law? Yeah, why won't people be honest is because for many, many reasons, but one of them could be that I don't want to hurt your feelings because I care about you. And another one is, is to worry about what you think of me. So if we're just in a friend relationship or connecting and I say something that's very direct and very honest, I might be afraid of losing our relationship that you don't like me anymore. So we kind of, we're just, we just work and stick with the being kind rather than being truthful. Maybe there's a better way that we can say something and maybe we've had a relationship where we were honest with somebody and they got really offended. So we could be have just to deal with the responses you've had in the past. So it's kind of like just trying to fit in and not get excluded from society, because if you're just honest all the time, then the amount of people that would actually like you decreases quite a month. Yeah, and there's times to be honest, but be kind and, you know, take into consideration the person's feelings when you're explaining something that they may be hurtful or something that they don't want to hear. Sounds good. Are you feeling about honesty? No, I mean, let's talk about it. I think this is the time for us to be honest right now. How can we talk about self, self sabotage and self hatred? Why would people hate themselves? Why would people sabotage their own lives? Why do I do it sometimes too? Why do we all do it? I think we all do it at this point. There's so many reasons a lot of it can be cultural. You know, we get a lot of these messages in media and sometimes we find humor in it. You know, a lot of people use humor with self-loathing or self-deprecation. But really, what I notice a lot that's very common, and that's like a third book that I'm working on. It's called kinder to myself. There's so often when someone who's had a lot of trauma in their life or even a little bit of trauma that the way they talk to themselves or the way they label themselves is just brutal. And it's just that they don't necessarily, we don't necessarily notice that we're doing it. So for example, I have people like, and I've done this myself, I remember back when I was in school about like not getting a good grade on a test. I'm like, oh my God, I'm so stupid. So we label ourselves, we call ourselves these names, we can call ourselves stupid, ugly. And we don't realize how much damage that does to ourselves. You know, when I did that, all of a sudden I realized I'm like, well, I'm not stupid. They let me into this program. I just had a bad test and maybe I need to get better at test taking. But that's a kinder way to talk to myself. But first of all, there's like a lot of times there isn't an awareness of how we're so cruel to ourselves. And we so we start to bring that awareness in and in. And it is very common. I don't think we realize how common of a problem that is. I see one of the things I say to him is like, when I hear somebody really being cruel to themselves, like, like, oh my God, I'm such an idiot or, you know, this whatever language they're using. And I'm like, what would it be like if I treated you like that, what would you do? And their use of responsibility like I'd have nothing to do with you. Yet this is how you treat yourself. So a lot of healing starts with having a better relationship with yourself. That is very important. Because if I don't have a really good relationship with myself, and I'm not talking about being like, egotistical or conceited, I'm just like being kinder to myself. And if I don't have a good relationship with myself, it's very difficult to have good relationships with anybody. Yeah, that's so true. And why is that? Well, I think what we put out there, we get. So if I don't think highly of myself or I have low self worth or self esteem, I might find somebody that's going to kind of treat me. Because if you treat me a little bit better than what I think of myself, I might not believe it. If someone's validating me and saying, oh, you're doing such a great job, I'm going to be like, I'm not going to believe it because I don't believe it. So it doesn't ever land. So there's lots of reasons. But I really don't think we're aware of the relationship that we have with ourselves isn't as healthy as it needs to be. Man, it's interesting that you point. Yeah, it's interesting that you point this out because I actually had an experience of that today where I was at the gym in the morning, and I was doing basically barbell lunges. And I kind of stumbled and lost my balance. And the weight was kind of like, you know, took me off of balance. So I kind of fixed my posture again. And then I started giving myself like positive affirmations and started. And I was saying it out loud. So like, my friend, I made that the gym was standing right beside me and he was watching me the whole time. I was just like telling myself, no, you can do this easy. It's an easy weight. You can do this. Go on. And with every, and then I was able to complete the whole set with a new weight. And it felt very easy. When I was done, my friend just took them. I was just like, like he just giggled. It was like, it was funny to watch that happen, I guess. And I was like, oh, that actually felt so easy, you know? And it really felt like telling myself those words kind of like really pushed me and definitely motivated me. So just felt like sharing that. I think what's important is that you noticed it. You noticed that this is the way you're, you know, not being kind. And then you changed it. And so, and sometimes positive affirmations are great. But sometimes it's okay to be honest with yourself too. It's okay. You don't, you know, you can see like, wow, maybe I can't do this right now. And it's like, like, say that it was too much weight or you're trying to PR something and you couldn't quite get it. And then what is, how do you react to that? It's like, oh my God, I just, I'm, you know, I'm a little good at this. Or you can say, you know what, what do I need to do to get better at this? So that we can also be honest with ourselves. Like, I'm not where I want to be right now. I failed at this. So what do I need to do rather than just always being positive, because it can actually be too positive. Like, there's a positive overdose sometimes. And if we don't believe what we're saying that's positive, it's never going to really work. So we can be honest with ourselves, but be kind. And I'm just going to say, well, you know, maybe I couldn't do that, that lunging workout today. But what can I do so I can get to that point? So it switches into, you know, just being kind, but honest. Yeah. And so I wanted to ask from your own personal experience, what do you usually tell yourself if you find yourself in a rut or, you know, and then this kind of situation, you know, what do you tell yourself to motivate yourself? That's a great question. I know that this is something I've been practicing for years, you know, to be kinder to myself. It's not just like one day, we're just really kinder yourself. It is a practice because we have to hear what we're saying. And right now, a lot of, we're not hearing it. And so in a constant situation, we're actually pointing it out. And then they can say, oh my God, I didn't realize I just did that. So a lot of things that is if I'm really nervous about something or I've made a huge mistake or I've embarrassed myself, it is uncomfortable. I allow that to be there. But I also know that I'm a human being and I have two choices. I can either bury my head in the sand and not be kind to myself and use some negative language or I can learn and grow. Or I can, you know, always, if something I can apologize or just realize that I am going to make mistakes. So we want to watch out for, look, if I'm always trying to be perfect, that's not going to help me. So being being counter to myself is allowing myself to be human and allowing myself to make mistakes and allowing myself to learn so we can we can shut down or we can learn and grow. It just depends on the mindset that you have in that moment. You know, you mentioned a key term for me that I clicked on my head, which was perfect. So perfectionism. On Wednesday, yeah, yesterday, while I was at work, I remember telling a colleague, he was like fumbling with a task and I just told him it doesn't have to be perfect. And then our manager came in and he's like, no, everything in life has to be perfect. And I just like ignored and just kept walking away. But I wanted to, because this is something I've been trying to kind of avoid, which is, you know, get out of this perfectionism kind of mindset because I noticed how exhausting it can be. So I was wondering what's your opinion about, you know, about what he said and like what impact it has on people? I think the impact is it has when he said that it's more likely directed towards himself than towards you. So that's his belief system. And then he might be putting that out to other people. I don't know the situation exactly. But if he says, okay, everything has to be perfect, that is the other side of that coin is dealing with self-worth problems. Because if my self-worth is, is okay, you know, I'm okay just the way I am. Maybe I'm a work in progress because I am a work in progress. I'll always be a work in progress. And so I'm okay with who I am. But if you're not okay with who you are, that's some self-worth issues. So if you look at perfectionism as one side of the coin, you flip it over the other side of the coin, you will see shame and low self-worth. I don't know why, where that came from. But that's, that's usually what the opposite, what's going on with perfectionism. Wow, that's a, that's an interesting correlation there. I don't know when I was, when I was a kid, my mom told me I had to be perfect, I had to get straight A's, I had to do everything perfectly all the time. And that's how I was kind of raised, always, always trying to be the best or the most perfect. Until this day, my mom's always like, "Why can't you be perfect? Why can't you do this podcast perfectly? Why can't you do the perfect introduction and the perfect questions and the perfect everything?" And, um, you know, and I appreciate where she's coming from and I understand she wants me, you know, to strive for greatness. But, um, I'm, and I do try to do better, but I think, uh, I also think that I don't, you know, I don't want to have that kind of relationship. I'd rather have a relationship with support as opposed to like a coach. How about that? And so, that's how I feel about it. It's an unattainable goal. So it's nice to be able to feel accomplished that you've attained a goal. And if you are always looking for perfectionism, you put a bar so high, you can't ever reach it. Because one day you'll do something that seems almost perfect, but can you maintain that all the time? And if you don't, then you feel like, wow, you know, then something's wrong or something's wrong with me. So that's the same aspect. If you think something's wrong with me because I can't be perfect. So it's an unattainable goal that we're setting for us and that that's really heartbreaking to see somebody, like, Ali, if you're, you know, always trying to reach that goal, can you ever reach it? I mean, what human being do you know that's perfect? It does everything perfectly. No one. Yep. And so I'm trying to figure out how to have the perfect boundaries with my family, with my friends and my colleagues and everyone. But even that sometimes gets tricky because you might have like red flags or lines that you don't like being crossed. And then sometimes people cross those lines. You know, like, I really value honesty and transparency, even if it's news I don't like, or if let's say I want to hang out with a friend and then he's like, Oh, I actually have, you know, work or actually I don't care to go, you know, rock climbing right now or whatever. I much rather had more direct approach than someone be like, Yeah, I think I can today. Let me double check with yes, I'm in. And then they just flake and lie, for example. And then, you know, that for me is way more disheartening. And that for me is definitely, you know, makes me don't want to hang out with this person as much anymore. And I guess that's the kind of natural consequence of, you know, in friendship, that's what you can do. But if my brother does something, that is a bit awful, I know if he's good or something, he's my brother, still I love him a lot. He's my one and only brother. And so I just want to teach him to do better and I want him to do better. So yeah, how do you manage the difference in those kinds of relationships? Because I'm not going to just cut off my brother or push him away or because he's my family. And even even with your friends, too, you don't necessarily have to cut them off. You just have to know where they fit in your life. But with your brother, of course, you don't want to cut him off. But if you're expecting him to change or that you can change his behavior, whatever that may be, that that's kind of difficult because those are your expectations that you actually have for you to act a certain way, like with an integrity. So when we start putting our expectations and other people to behave the way we think that they should behave, we're going to get disappointed because we can't change the way they behave unless they want to change the way they behave. So one of the things is one is I want you to act differently than I'm wishing, you know, if rather than accepting. So part of the boundaries is like, I have to accept you, it's a radical acceptance, just the way you are. Now, yes, do I want you to change, of course. But if I'm always wishing that you're different than who you are, then I'm not really seeing in reality of situations, this is who you are. And then how can I work with that? Because if I'm wishing you to be different and having expectations, I'm going to be angry and upset and maybe frustrated somewhere in that range. And I don't want to be that way around you because you're my brother and I love you very much. So if I can see for who you really are, then I can work within those limitations. And then I can not have those expectations, then I don't get frustrated. This is who you are. This is this is what I can work with. So for the example with your friend is, I had a situation like that. I had a girlfriend that would want to go bicycling or hiking, and then we'd make a plan for Saturday, and then she'd call up with a last minute and cancel. You know, and what would you do? I was like, you know, and she did it more than once. You know, it wasn't like, oh, you know, my car broke down or something. And I was like, it was really starting to dislike this person. I'm known her my whole life. And I'm like, no, I don't want to do that. I don't want to dislike her. So I changed it to where I said, you know, I'm one of the things I do now is to say, I'm going bicycling here. Would you like to join me instead of saying, would you like to go? We'll meet here at 10 o'clock. I'm going to be here at 10. If you would like to come, I would love for you to be there. Then if she doesn't show up, it's no big deal because I was going to go anyway. That's just just a basic example. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. So you're like kind of reframing the whole situation to also motivate yourself to just do it. Yes. In a way. And also, yeah, also, also with someone like your brother that you love so much, Ellie, that we want to keep that connection. So if I don't expect him to be a different person, then I'm not going to get frustrated with you as much. I mean, we're always going to get frustrated with his siblings, of course. I think you actually answered my question that I was going to ask, which was about integrity, because that's also something you talk about when you're helping practitioners. I was going to ask you if you have like, how does a person maintain integrity? And if you have a personal example of that, I feel like with the example, you just provided that kind of answers the personal example. But in general, what kind of advice would you give to people as entrepreneurs specifically to make? How do they maintain their integrity when, you know, let's say when they're in negotiations, you know, when you want to negotiate for a new business deal, or maybe even for someone in their career when they're negotiating for a promotion? Yeah. With personal relationships, it's more with like, what are my values, my personal values? And what that means is, what am I okay with and what am I not okay with? So whenever we do any kind of negotiation, even in a business relationship, is that sometimes we go in there unprepared, not really knowing, like, this is like making a list. This is a yes, this is a no in personal life. These are my personal values. Like, you know, I'm okay with this. I'm not okay with that. A lot of it's what I'm not okay with. So if we don't know this before we go into any kind of negotiation, then we're not really clear. So if it's in our head, we need to put words to it and put it in paper on paper. And then that grows and we can see it more clearly. And then we're more confident. Now, it doesn't mean that we can't compromise, and everything can be a compromise, personal relationships, business relationships. But if we're not really clear, and the more I write things down that I can see it, then I see more and more and more of. So it goes back to really having a better relationship with yourself, knowing your business, and coming in really prepared before you do any negotiations or set any boundaries with anybody. So that's the relationship. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the relationship I have with myself. Again, if I do that, then the negotiations, I'm not taking anything personally. We're just going back and forth, because I'm very clear about what I'm okay with and what I'm not okay with. And I feel like also when you're writing down what you want, it gives it kind of like adds structure in your head when you say it out loud. That way also when you're in the negotiations, you say it more confidently. And then it's received better from the opposite party, so that if they're receiving it better, then maybe they'll be more willing to give you what you're asking for. And you can also say, since you know what you want and what you don't want very clearly, you don't have to think about it, because you can say, well, if this is, you see it differently than I do, convince me, let me hear your side of it. So it opens us up. So we're not like going, no, no, no, this is just how it is. This is just the way it is. I want to hear your side of it. I may completely disagree with you, but it doesn't mean that you don't have some valid points that, hey, let's open up. So that person that you're negotiating with is actually now starting to be heard. And if they feel heard rather than we're like, no, this is just how it is, let me convince me how this should be different. Let me hear. And then you can say, does this fit? Can I adjust? Or maybe it doesn't. But it's really nice for in a negotiation that we're kind enough to each other that, even if we completely disagree, you can see this in politics all over the place, is to stop and listen to what they have to say and hear it from their perspective. Who knows? Maybe they're right. Maybe we can learn something. Yeah, that is true. Because like, it's kind of in life, you do need to listen to others so that because of that they can give you a different perspective, which is indirectly kind of like a constant brainstorming experience that you're having with others. You know, it's just whenever you're talking to people, you're sharing your thoughts, and then they respond to it from how they look at it. You might learn a new idea. You might spark a new thought in your head that you didn't have before, just because you shared it with someone else. And I find that very interesting because you don't expect it. You know, you think that, okay, what's happening in your head, that's what's good for you, no matter what. But talking to others might just actually trigger something that would be good for you or maybe even better for you that you weren't thinking about. Yeah. And being kind that everyone that's coming to the table is coming from a different background and we don't necessarily know what that is. So the background that you can bring to the table that's not my experience, I can learn so much from that. And that's showing a lot of like compassion and respect to the other person is to really think that, wow, they're coming from a completely different background on a different perspective. And if I'm going to be really open to that and I want to learn more of, then that shows that I'm really, even if I'm saying no to something, but it doesn't mean that I'm not generally interested in you as a human being. It's connecting from a human being to a human being rather than, you know, your ego getting in the way of how things should be. Again, it doesn't mean that you don't have what in place, what you're okay with in some things you don't want to budge on, I get that. But it's certainly nice to walk away from a meeting or a discussion with a loved one that maybe didn't quite go the way you wanted to, but not having any hard feelings in the other person saying, yeah, well, they're not a bad person. They really, they kind of heard me, they listened to me. Yeah, very true. Ali, when was the last time you said no to someone? Oh my God, especially someone that you care about? Yeah. So last night, I was trying to go to sleep and let's say for example, like, my partner was playing really loud music, you know, when I'm trying to fall asleep. I'm trying to fall asleep and they're listening to the new Kendrick Lamar album. I'm like, I need to be falling asleep right now. Sleep is so important to me. I have a podcast early in the morning. And then my partner, let's say, is like, oh, why can't you fall asleep with the music on? And so I was like, no, turn off the music. Okay. And then I just fell asleep. Okay. So what am I supposed to do in this situation? So I'm like, hey, you know, I'm really trying to sleep right now. I really value my sleep, you know. Okay, but you're playing loud rap music. And so I'm not really able to fall asleep. I really care about my sleep. You know, it's not the kind of situation where you're gonna break up with someone over playing, you know, some rap music, you know, in the middle of the night, but because you love the person, but it's definitely a boundary that's been crossed. So I'm trying to figure out how to how to communicate that. And what are the what are what should I do? Should I just let it slide? Or is there some kind of consequences or should I have a conversation or is that just love in life? Well, it's up to you. That's when we go back to what am I okay with and what am I not okay with? And maybe it's in that moment, but it looking at the bigger picture is really important. Is this something that I'm going to have to deal with? What does this mean to me? You know, that this person is playing loud music and that and they know that I have to sleep. So this is where you come back again. And you know, maybe in that moment, you don't want to have that conversation because you need to get to sleep and you don't want to get that energy going. And they shut it off, but there's all sorts of things where you can talk about it like, you know, could you wear the headsets or this is my my boundary is I go to bed every night at 10 o'clock and that's important to me to not have the music on what are your thoughts and then see what the reaction is before you really need to set a boundary. But then you go from there. I mean, obviously, we don't know exactly what this everyone's situation is going to be different. And then the boundary has to have down the road as a consequence. So what is that consequence? Well, I don't really know. It depends on you and what your values are. So for me, if I'm living in a home where my partner is got loud music on every time I'm going to bed and they're not going to respect that, then the consequence might be, well, we if you can't turn it off and I have to hear it, maybe we can't live together. That might be too extreme for some people. But again, this is what's the beauty is of this is that looking at the bigger picture is the boundary is actually for you. Okay. And if you if you don't, you have a consequence with that. And then if you say, okay, the consequence is, if you keep doing this, I know this is very extreme, but if you keep disrupting my sleep and my sleep is very important to me, I don't know if we can live together anymore. And then you they keep living with you and they keep doing it, who's crossing the boundary, you are them. But it's you because it's your boundary. It's your values. It's your boundary. And so that means we're not we're not putting in the consequences. Again, it doesn't have to be that extreme, because most people, like if you love this person, they're usually just going to say, Oh, I'm sorry, you know, or let me put the headsets on or I'll go in a different part of the house. You can't hear me. So if you got someone that doesn't care about your sleep, you've got a different problem. You know, if they're disrupting something that's very important to you. So that's so it's up to you. What do you think the consequences should be? You know, if but first you have the conversation and the conversation is really important. The way you have it, you can say the exact same thing two ways. One is coming from a place of kindness and the other one might sound like an attack or you can say, Hey, you know, my my sleep is very important to me. We have loud music on it disrupts my sleep and I was hoping that we could talk about this. So that doesn't happen again. You know, what do you think? And and they'll be like, Oh, yeah, I'm really sorry. What have you, I won't do that again. I know you've got about a 10 o'clock. But the other one you can go up and say, Why do you always have to play that loud music? You know how important this is you, you, you, you, versus you start with the eye, you know, I'm okay. So when you're doing the you, I'm saying the exact same thing. But one seems like an attack. Like there's something wrong. Why are you, you know, under the tone changes. So the conversation that you want to have with the person that you want to set the boundary with and not everybody's receptive to your boundaries. And then you have to decide where to go with that is like, Hey, you know, this is really important to me. So you start there and tell them why that's important to you and then see where it goes. Well, that no, that's a great address it. And then talk about it and not try to be so pointing fingers fingers out yourself. Yeah, about that. This is important to me. Yeah. Has there ever been a time in your life where you had to set boundaries and then how, how was that taken? Yeah, a lot of times so many times, I'm really trying to think of a specific example. I think, you know, for me at my age, as I get older, it's easier for older women to set boundaries because we've just, if we've been really kind or people pleasers or, you know, you know, behave yourself and just be nice that as you get older, you just like, Oh, God, it's so hard. It's exhausting to always be nice all the time and always be the people pleaser and always taking care of everybody else, especially a lot of kids. And so there comes a time as you get older where all of a sudden that the kids are all grown up or you may not, you may be single or what's ever going, you're just like, Oh, God, I just need to just stop caring so much about things, you know. So it's easier for me to say no, because when I say no to something in a boundary, like, I am not okay with this. I do have that sleep rule, it's like, you know, I have a 10 o'clock sleep roll because sometimes they get up at four 35 o'clock in the morning. And, you know, I the consequence I've been doing is like shutting my phone off. You know, if it's somebody that's calling me or disrupting me, even though it could be like a family member that it lived dearly, you know, I don't have a problem blocking them. I'm not bringing them back on. That's my consequences. I love you. And I don't want to fight with you. So black, you know, luckily with allergy, you know, and then I get up in the morning and I'll actually back for so it's really important that whatever boundary that you put in place that the consequence matches it. So that's kind of like, okay, you're calling me, I'm going to, when I'm asking you not to, so I'm just going to clock from 10 o'clock on. Here's another example. You might have like with your partner or is that if you cheat on me, I'm going to end the relationship. Okay, that's that's it. That's a matching consequence. Not everybody's going to do that, but that's one for me. So if you cheat on me, I I'm going to end the relationship. Now, let's say that you cheat on me and I don't end the relationship. Okay, what am I going to do? I'm going to be mad at you. And I'm going to take it out on you and I'm going to like look at your phone and I'm not going to trust you anymore. So that was my boundary. Those are my values. That's my consequence. But then I crossed it and then you're paying for it. Because that was the consequence. So it's really important that if you cross your boundary and you don't follow through that consequence, you're going to be angry. And then I'm not going to be happy because I don't trust you. And I'm just frustrated all the time. And I really in my life, the most boundary people are the most or the happiest people that that's based in Brene Brown's research, you know, for people that are the most successful in life where they're happy and contentment is kind of what we look at are the ones that are the most boundary because if you don't have those boundaries up, you're angry all the time. And I don't want to be angry. I want to enjoy my life. So the consequences are, again, match the boundary in there for me. And I do. I put those in place. Now, don't get me wrong. It's taken me years of practice to do this. And then when you set some of these boundaries and put these consequences on because you are a loving person. Oh my God, you feel so guilty. That's one of the biggest things that gets in the way is the emotions that come in. When you do this, it's just not that easy to say no sometimes. Yeah, that is the scary thing about having boundaries is that you put up a line and you say if you cross the line, that's it, you know, but then you have to maintain it. You have to actually withhold what you said because if you don't, then all the boundaries are destroyed in some sense, because they know that oh, they can they can skirt past whatever your boundaries are without any repercussion or anything. And that's when you become, you know, a victim. I don't know how to say it, but there are tons of people that are in abusive relationships that are in relationships where, you know, narcissistic abuse or people are cheating on him and such, and they're still in the relationship and they've crossed all the lines and broken all the boundaries. And so and how happy are they? Probably not at all. Yeah, if you're busy managing a relationship or managing your partner, what are you doing with your life? You know, think of all the things that we want to do to accomplish. I mean, it could be anything. You know, if you want to start like, you know, a project of any kind or work on moving up in your career or, you know, saving money or just going on vacations and everything that you want to do that you have plans for your life is getting disrupted because you're not doing that. You're managing somebody else's life. Yeah, that's true. It's it's just like emotionally wrecking and so exhausting to be doing that all the time. I wanted to move to a different topic, slightly having to do with the neurological aspect. So there is this one one point. I forgot where I read it. I don't know if it was in your book or your biography or something like it says, how does so you were talking about this changing the structure of the neurons or changing the neurological structure in your brain, something like that. I'm not sure how to phrase it. But the question I wrote was, how does one change the structure of their neurons? And I don't know if you can help me find my question or if this is, if this makes sense. Well, that's a great question because we can just keep it really basic is that if you notice like when you're when you were in the gym and you may have said something really cruel to yourself and then you switch, you noticed it and then you switched it. That starts to change. It rewires. It starts to rewire your brain. Self observation starts to rewire your brain because you're taking that pause, that space right there is what every time we do something different than our regular pattern of behavior is when we start to rewire the brain. And we can't do that without self observation like what am I doing in this moment? Here's a good one that I work a lot and one of the most important things is people are not aware of when they're really anxious or really upset that their breathing is super shallow. And I'll see someone that will come in my office and they're sitting there and they're you can see they're they're talking about something that's really, really troublesome or very traumatic. And I'll say, do you notice that you're not breathing very well? You know, it's very shallow or they're actually holding their breath and they people just look at me. And I said, did you notice that? And they're going, no, I didn't know that. And some people might say, yeah, I breathe very shallow. But do you notice that you're not? And then I'll say that as they're telling me the story, I said, let's take a breath. So that right there is a great place to start is to really pay attention to the physical aspect of your body when you're not feeling well, when you're angry, when you're scared, when your anxiety is really hard. And in our, in our at least, yeah, in our culture is that we avoid ourselves like crazy. So once we start seeing ourselves kindly without judgment, and we start tuning in to anything that's going on in that present moment, that's what starts to rewire the brain. Interesting. And what kind of, can you give us an example of like, sustainable changes that you can do in your everyday life that would help with this restructuring of your rewiring of your brain? Yeah, the number one thing is being okay with with the discomfort of like when we're feeling really uncomfortable, let's say our anxiety is really high or we're really scared or super nervous, or we're really afraid of something like public speaking, you know, is to really start to tune into the physical aspect of it. And what we try to do is when we're upset or whatever discomfort, discomfort feeling that we're having, we try to like get away from it, like we can scroll on our phones, we can, we will, you know, have a drink, you know, we'll light up a cigarette, we'll go shopping, whatever we do, we're always trying to run from that, because it just doesn't feel good, who wants to sit with that? But that's the opposite what we want to do, we want to sit with it, we want to tune in, we want to pay attention to it, we want to be kind to it, because once we start to feel, that's when things start to go away, and that's when we start to heal. The more we run and avoid and medicate, then the work, it doesn't go anywhere, we just get worse and worse and worse and more stressed out. So it's, it's, and again, I don't expect people to figure this out on their own, that's why counseling, if you have a really good counselor, they teach you these skills, we don't expect you just to know how to do this, you can read like books, you can, all sorts of things, but it's really helpful to have someone that can guide you through this, to really get this to tune in, and how to do that. Yeah, I completely agree there. The guidance part is very important because you aren't born with these, with these things in your head, it's not like you, you already know what's going on throughout your life, you just, you don't have that information, so guidance from a counselor, from your family, people with experience in general, it's definitely, you know, beneficial. I mean, that's the whole point of this podcast. I'm, I definitely use everything I learned from this podcast and I applied to real life and try to improve as much as I can, and I can see as, I can see quite a few benefits coming out of it, like a lot of things have definitely improved in my lifestyle, and I can't say that, you know, I should, like these changes are not useful because it's not an easy thing to just like wait for the results as well, it's not a change that happens over a short period of time, and then you're like, why isn't anything happening? It's something that you have to do over and over and over again, just doing the things that you don't like, and until eventually they become something that you actually do like. I remember maybe, if I go back maybe a year ago, going to the gym with a bit, with like sucked ass, sorry for my language, but it was just been, it's terrible. And now for some reason, I'm doing a challenge for myself for the first time, and I'm going five times a week. Sometimes I'm going at like 7 a.m. Sometimes I'm going at like 8 p.m. just so that I can, you know, complete the challenge. I'm doing it for like next three months, and I'm enjoying the gym way more than I used to. It's, it's completely different. Also, same thing with eating healthy, you know, it's just, you start off obviously eating just a few new things, just add a few things just to change, like you said, to rewire your neurological structure to just like slowly integrate the good things, the healthy habits and the healthy foods to help you change your lifestyle. And then by the end of it, you notice this massive like after maybe a year or two years work, you start noticing like your life has drastically changed, really changed. I like the way you say that, because it's like, it's like training, you know, thinking like we're just like, if you've been watching, you know, this summer watch the Olympics, and how much work did they have to put into that? It wasn't just like, even if you are a very gifted athlete, you still have to put an effort into it. And when it, when you're talking about like, you know, the mental health aspect of your life, why would that be any different than like what you have to do with your, you know, your diet and in your body? And if we take on too much, it's overwhelming. You know, if you take on too much than your training, you're going to burn out, or you're going to injure yourself. And even with like making changes for ourselves and our own mental well-being, we can overdo it, you know, we want to start out a little bit at a time, small bites. And I do, I like to think of it as ongoing training. And then the results are just amazing, as you say, like right now, you really like it. And it's worthwhile. It really is worthwhile because everyone who will come in and say, what is your goal? And they'll say, I just want to be happier. Well, happiness comes from within, so the work has to be done. So absolutely. It is a slow process. And a lot of times people really don't want to put the effort into it, because it's just, they don't really, maybe not quite believe it. 100%. And I think that's, like, this is the perfect time to just say the, that cliche term training makes, what, no, I was it, training makes perfect. I don't know why. That's the one that was perfect. Perfect practice makes, or practice makes perfect or something. Practice makes perfect. Yes, that's the one. Oh my God, I can't believe I forgot. Oh my God. Anyway, Katherine, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Can you please let everyone know where they can connect with you? How can they get in touch with you? And where can they find your books? Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on your show. You can find me at Catherine G Cleveland dot com. That's my website. All my books are on there. All of my books are on Amazon. Anywhere that you buy books, you can find them. And all of my social media accounts are Catherine G Cleveland, any Facebook, Twitter, starting to build up those accounts. But yeah, it's pretty easy to access me just by Catherine G Cleveland, and everything will come right up for you. It's amazing. And any last piece of advice for our listeners? Well, I guess the best advice I'm going to give to everyone out there that's listening is remember to be your authentic self. You know, this isn't about like our boundaries. It's about what is it that you need? What is it that you want from your perspective? And try to be as authentic as you can. Listen to that intuition into that gut. And in the process, you know, ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask for help. And be really kind to yourself. Come from a very kind perspective. Those are very nice words. Thank you, Catherine for sharing. Guys, thank you so much for watching another episode of A to the show. Catherine, this is how we ended. We. Oh.