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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 440: Breaking the Silence - Understanding and Overcoming Self-Loathing| Dr. Blaise Aguirre
00:52:22
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- [00:01]
Promotional Speaker
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- [01:03]
Jenny Urich
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Urich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I just read the most fascinating book because I never really heard of it at all. It's called I Hate Myself. This is a book about self loathing, a really deep problem that is not currently being addressed super well. And, and the author, Dr. Blaise Aguirre is here and he has all sorts of solutions and background. And this is one of 20 books. Thanks for being here. Welcome.
- [01:36]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Thank you so much, Ginny, who they sometimes call Jenny for having me on your show. And I appreciate so much the attention that you're giving this. And it's the sort of thing that I think like all parents need to just start to tune into a little bit. Because my worry is that by the time I see them in their teens and adolescents, kind of a sense of self disregard has set in for many of the kids I see.
- [02:03]
Jenny Urich
Yeah, it's a big thing. What was really interesting that I got from your book was that, well, there were so many interesting things. I have never read anything about this. And that was kind of your point. You had written about how there's no established protocols for this, that it's almost never addressed in therapy. The therapists aren't trained to ask about self loathing or self hatred, yet there are so many people struggling with it and they say to you, they don't even sometimes remember when it started. Often it's very young in childhood, kindergarten earlier. They don't even remember a clear time when they did love themselves. So what when you say parents need to be tuned in, what should they be looking for or try to be aware of?
- [02:46]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Yeah, and I think one of the tricky things is that, I mean, any parent who has two children might think that, you know, there were two genetically different offspring because you can have one who's a hellion and the other one who's all quiet and vice versa. And you know, I mean, children are so, so different. And how we treat them is, you know, sometimes what we do try to do is treat them exactly the same. But if you think about like if one kid has allergies to peanut butter and the other one doesn't, they giving them both peanut butter is going to have a different impact. And if one child is very, very sensitive and the other one isn't, sending one child to their room for a timeout might have a very different effect than for a child that's not sensitive to a child who is sensitive. Now the group of people that I'm talking about tend to be highly sensitive people. So you know, if you think about your children, you might have one who's just who seems to react to more strongly to seemingly less provocation to your other kids. And maybe when they're upset it takes them longer to settle and you might have another one who brushes things off. And so the group that I started to notice this phenomenon in was the group of highly sensitive kids for whom being called stupid, being called fat, being called, you know, ugly, being called what, whatever it would be, maybe bullies in the school, maybe by their other siblings that those labels would stick. And it's almost as if strong emotions are a super glue to labels so that you have strong emotions and then when you hear these sorts of devaluing statements, they stick to the child. And what happens over time is that they begin to believe that those labels are true. Whereas the other kid who just says, well, you know, you're stupid. No, you're stupid. You know, they're sitting in the backseat and they call each other stupid and you know, and then they get out and start playing soccer or whatever it is, you know, there's that kind, but then there's the kid who's very sensitive. So what are the kinds of things that a parent should be looking for? What I've seen is not only this high sensitivity but self deprecating statements like nobody's ever going to Love me, I don't have any friends. People pleasing behavior has been remarkable in this group of patients. Perfectionism, a lot of self criticism, a lot of parroting the things that they hear. You know, I'm so stupid on an ongoing basis. The other thing is that as a parent, when your child says, I'm stupid and I don't have any friends, we tend to tell them that it's not true, which it probably isn't true. But if the child really believes that it is true, even if it isn't, simply dismissing something, then rejects the child's experience. So rather than immediately dismissing and saying, look, that's not true, you're, you're not stupid. It's like, wait, how did you get there? What's happening? You know, like, listen to the child to understand how they got there.
- [05:57]
Jenny Urich
The book is really interesting in the way that you pull in all of these different people's experience. There's workbook elements to it. It's called I, I Hate Myself Overcoming Self loathing. I. Why did I say that wrong? Overcome self. It's hard to say overcome self. Overcome self loathing and realize why you're wrong about you. And someone had said when people praised me, like my parents, or, you know, like you said, if they dismiss it or they say, oh, no, no, you do have a lot of friends, that type of thing, they felt like they were being lied to.
- [06:28]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Right, Exactly. Well, it would be as if, you know, you tell me you're in Michigan and I'm, you know, believing you, that, you know, you're not in Oklahoma. So what if I said, no, you know, you're not in Michigan, you're not in Michigan, you're not in Michigan, you know, and eventually you were, wait, am I not in Michigan? If you're someone who's susceptible to believing fake news, you might start questioning yourself. Or let's just say you were in Oklahoma and you said, I'm in Michigan. I said, no, you're not. Look, here's this geography, here's a map, and it shows me that you're here. And you think that you're here, but you've learned to believe something that wasn't true to be true. So there's often this messaging that's taking place that gets you to sort of think something about yourself at least that isn't true. And that, so simply telling someone that they firmly believe to be true, it isn't true doesn't change it for these kids. It's like, stop telling me that I'm not lovable. I Know, I'm not, you know, I've had so many experiences that have told me that I'm not. So you're just saying it because you're my parent.
- [07:31]
Guest Speaker
Right, right.
- [07:32]
Jenny Urich
And then that, that can undermine your relationship with your child. So the book is really interesting in that it goes through sort of the history of what's going on here, but then you also go through the solutions. And when you go through the solutions, you talk about what doesn't work as well. So that, that, that may be, that would be the strategy I think anybody would think would be the best strategy. You just disagree with them and you tell them why, you know, they are valuable and all of these different things and that, that's one of the ones that really doesn't work well. But before we get to some of the solutions, can you talk about how self loathing is not the same as depression? Because I think a lot of people, even myself included, you know, this concept of self hatred or self loathing, I probably would have just bundled it up with depression.
- [08:17]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Exactly. And I think that one of the things that, you know, to your point is that if you're depressed and you know, you're not taking care of yourself, you're not hanging out with the people that you love, you're eating less food, you're, you're going to work maybe, and you're not doing a very good job, you can be ultra dissatisfied with your life. You know, you can see that you're not functioning at your best, that you're not giving of your best, that you wish that you were doing it differently. But even very depressed people can say, you know, like, I know that if I change this behavior or if I feel better, I'm not going to treat myself so badly. So they recognize that the depression and the behaviors that come with the depression are almost something that they can change that is outside of them. For people with core self loathing, it is as true to them as your spleen is to you or your bone marrow or your, your DNA or the color of your eyes. They, they feel it's something that is embedded in the fabric of who they are. And then one of the other things that we see is that typically speaking, when there's that dissatisfaction in depression, when you treat the depression, the dissatisfaction lifts. For people with core self loathing, even when you treat the depression, that self loathing remains and persists. And you know, I've had people who, with anxiety or with, you know, maybe substance use disorders and stuff like that, and you treat those underlying conditions and when there's self dissatisfaction in some way, their work starts improving, their relationships start improving, they feel better. But for those who have core self loathing, that doesn't change.
- [10:01]
Jenny Urich
How come this has gotten missed? You know, you talk about people are really hungry for effective mental health solutions. How come this piece has gotten missed?
- [10:09]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
I mean, look, you know, I'm at Harvard and I've been at the McLean Hospital, which is arguably the most famous and likely, in my opinion, best psychiatric hospital, at least in the United States, if not the world. And when somebody comes in for an evaluation, I ask, what brings you in? Are you depressed? Are you anxious? Do you hear voices? How are you eating? Are you having nightmares? Do you have flashbacks? Do you have obsessions, compulsions? You know, lots of standard psychiatric questions. The thought of my asking them how they see themselves, how they feel about themselves, it just never came into my mind. Now, in the same way that a fish doesn't think about water, when it's in water, it's surrounded by water. It's just like, okay, that's where I live. In a person with self hatred. When I've asked him, like, why didn't you bring it up that you hated yourself? They said, well, that was just part of who I am. Like that was never going to change. So therapists weren't asking about it and patients weren't talking about it because they didn't see it as something that was changeable. And the reason I started to think about it is because I use a treatment known as dialectical behavior therapy for young people who cut themselves, who uses substances and dangerous behaviors as self medication for the way that they feel. And using dialectical behavior therapy, we reduce self injury, self destructive behaviors, suicidal behavior, suicidal thinking. But there was a small handful of people who tragically took their lives. People I really cared about, young people who I really cared about. And when I thought about that and when I looked at their records, they all were talking about how much they hated themselves. And I thought, wow, you know, we pay so much attention to like risk factors for suicide, you know, substance use and isolation and all of those sorts of things. And here's something that patients are actually telling us some especially when we ask about it and we haven't been asking about it and we, and we don't have treatments for it and we haven't been measuring it and so what's going on here? And yet these were all, you know, ones who had taken their life. So because of that and because I care so much about their well being, I thought, okay, I'VE got to think about this. I've got to find a way to help people with self hatred. So I did what scientists do and they go to the literature and say, how do you treat self hatred? And there were three papers on the topic and they were theoretical papers and they all concluded that it was difficult, if not impossible to treat. And I said, that just can't be the truth, you know. And so I started working with a group of my most self hating patients and those who'd overcome and we thought, okay, we're going to be scientists about this. What works and what doesn't work. They actually kind of product tested my, the title of the book, one of the original titles was Learn to Love yourself. And they said that they would have just like walked right by it and thrown up right there and then because that was impossible. But then when the publisher said, well, what do your patients tell you? I said that I hate myself. They said, that's what we're going to call the book. And then when I showed it to my patients, I said, yes, that is what the experience is. So, and, and that's when, you know, we started like to put together ideas that would be helpful. So that was the genesis.
- [13:45]
Jenny Urich
Wow. So it is a groundbreaking book because there was only three theoretical papers. And you come out with this book. Talk about the impact that self loathing has on relationships because obviously loneliness is not good for our health, it's not good for longevity. And this type of way that we view ourselves really affects how we relate with other people.
- [14:07]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Well, one of the things that I was finding is here are these people who are coming in for therapy who look, when you're dealing with life and death questions, when you're delving into why somebody would want to die, you really get into the fabric of their lives. I really began to care so deeply about these young people who were coming in. I cared deeply about them and I thought how lovable they were, how awesome they were as human beings. But then they would go out and start dating and they would date the most toxic people. And again, like, I don't want to judge the people that they were dating. I mean, those people had their own problems and it's not about that. But it's just like, why are you dating someone who devalues you, who treats you so poorly? And they would say one of two things. It's all I know. That's the one thing. It's all I know. It's familiar to me. That was the one thing. And then the second thing was it's what I deserve. And then the third thing was like, I don't deserve anything better. And the reason that they felt that they deserved it is they felt that they were so flawed, that they were so broken that people who devalued them, it was the best that they could possibly get and that somehow karma, the universe, God had sent these people to punish them and it was because they were deserving of punishment. They were deserving of unhealthy relationships once they'd continue to put them down. But again, the fish and water doesn't know it's water. And so people in these relationships, even though you know they could tell you, like, yeah, the person doesn't treat me very well, they feel it's deserving. So they don't see it as necessarily problematic until you start to point out, no, you don't deserve it. You don't deserve this. You do not deserve this. You have learned to believe that it is true and it is fake news.
- [16:00]
Jenny Urich
And that's what you talk about is trying to change that core belief. And you have written people with self hate often come to the conclusion they are not worthy of a positive relationship. It creates cognitive dissonance. It's similar. It's similar I guess earlier to when you know, if you say I'm this or that and the parent just says, well, no, you're not right. It's a complete opposite of what you already think. And so the certainty that you are unlikable clashes with the insistence of others telling you that you are likable. So I mean, this is affecting quality of life considerably. It's affecting relationships.
- [16:34]
Guest Speaker
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- [20:33]
Jenny Urich
You had said this earlier, that it can be difficult to tackle, though it's not impossible. And the papers were saying it's difficult and you can hardly change it. You are saying, yes, it's difficult. However, there are multifaceted approaches that you can take and it is not an insurmountable challenge. I would love to talk about this one particular topic and we can go into some others as well, but for this particular audience, I thought this was really an important tie in. So what we're doing is we're trying to get kids outside and off screens. So, you know, it's interesting. I talk to a lot of different authors, read a lot of different books, and almost every time, not every time, but 90 out of 100 interviews, there's something that can relate back to kids being outside or kids having time or that type of thing. And in this book it was about autonomy. And one of the things that someone had said was their parents were always telling them what to do. So this person says, my parents were always telling me what to do. They didn't mean to be mean or anything. So there was no nefarious motives. They were probably doing what they thought was right. But I just could never do things on my own. And it reinforced how flawed I was compared to my friends and siblings. So the concept here is that many people who struggle with self hatred feel that they have very little dominion over their lives. And we're in a very adult directed childhood era. Can you talk about how this maybe could affect our parenting, especially as our kids are getting into those preteen and teen Years.
- [22:10]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Yeah, and, and just one other thing about what you've, what you said and I, I'll get back to the, to the very specifics in a second. But you know that especially in this day and age and when people are on their devices, is that modern social media, you know, how do they make their revenues? How do you know Facebook, Instagram make their revenues? By selling products. And what are those products? Those products are marketing to self hatred. You're not tall enough. You're not pretty enough. You know, your booty isn't curved enough. You know, you don't have a six pack enough. You're not intelligent enough. You're not, you're not enough.
- [22:47]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [22:47]
Jenny Urich
You're not funny enough. You're not creative enough, you're not anything.
- [22:50]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
But by the way, if you buy my product, you know, people will like you. And maybe if you buy my book, you know, people will like you more. But, but, but it's this idea of not enoughness, so in an already vulnerable child that these kinds of messages sort of continue to reinforce that negativity. Now the other thing is, look, we're not going to get rid of social media. It's going to become infinitely more ubiquitous. You know, one of the things that I do with, I did this with my own children and I do this with my patients is I don't tell them to either stay on or not stay on. But what I do with them is, you know, in the same way that you might think about food, foods that you like and foods that you don't like, foods that bloat you, foods that make you sick, et cetera, et cetera, you determine what foods you like through trial and error. And yeah, I like this. I don't like this. I like this. Well done. I don't, you know, whatever it is. And I use social media because it's ingesting a form of energy in the same way. So I say, okay, let's look at all your social media apps. Okay, I want you to open this one one at a time. We spend a few minutes. How does this one make you feel? Neutral. This one's really good because it gets me moving. Dancing. What about this one? You know, every time I'm on this one, it shows my friends having fun and I'm always excluded. So does that one make you feel good? No, not so much. Okay, well, why are you consuming that social media site when it doesn't make you feel good? That's one thing. Now, of course, like, you know, me growing up, I mean, there was obviously no social media at all. And I remember there were times when I would go to my mom and say, mom, I'm bored. And she said this thing, she said, only boring people get bored. And I thought it was so funny. And I hated the idea that I was a boring person. I was very connected to my mom and, you know, my name, Blaze. B, L, A, I, S, E. She was Isabelle, I, S, A, B, E, L. Same letters. And anyway, I was very connected. And she would say, go spend some time outside and see how bored you get. You know, that you can find so many interesting things that are happening outside. Go play with the dog and those kinds of things. And I learned to entertain myself so much by just being outside. But I think in this day and age where social media is so prevalent and devices are so prevalent and access to instant information, entertainment is so prevalent, is that having kids realize that there are other alternatives through, you know, sports, hiking and going for walks and stuff like that, and just the incredible benefit that they can derive from those things is so important. So the idea of saying, you know, get off. Social media just is never going to work. It's getting them to see the impact on them. I mean, I remember going for hikes with my kids, and at the end I would say, how do you feel? Say, I feel pretty good. Okay, remember this? How were you where you were on Snapchat and everybody was, like, tormenting you? I didn't feel that good. Okay, Going for a hike was good. It felt good. Being on Snapchat didn't, but Instagram does. Okay, fine, you know, but you are the one that pays attention to your experience. Not like I, as a parent, I'm telling you what you should do or.
- [26:07]
Jenny Urich
Not, and then they get to own it. Well, it's interesting because that you bring that up because one of the strategies that you said that does work. And then you talked about some strategies that, I mean, maybe they work, maybe they don't. There's just. There's not enough research. There's not been hardly any research on this. But one of the pieces of the puzzle was, do something you love. And what I find interesting is that a lot of kids may not know what they love because they didn't have the experience, like with your mom, when your mom was like, well, go find something, or go find something that you love to do. Go find something that lights you up. And I think that there is the possibility that there are a good portion of children that just don't really know what makes them feel good. I talked to this Woman who said kids should have three to five hobbies. And actually that really challenged me because five hobbies is kind of a lot of hobbies. I think my kids maybe have three. Like even they play guitar. It made me really think I should be intentional about making sure that they have as many things as they love to do as possible because that in and of itself will lessen the amount of time they're on screens.
- [27:09]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
So I would tweak that a tiny little bit. I met this kid who was really struggling with his sense of self. It was an 18 year old boy and he'd been bullied in school and stuff like that. And I said, well, what's going on? He says, you know, like, people tease me because of what, you know, what I'm interested in. I said, what are you interested in? Says, you know, you're just going to laugh. I said, tell me. He says, all right, I, I have been a big collector of My Little Pony for many, many years. And that was the first time, I mean, I remembered, you know, younger girls saying that and, and maybe one or two boys, but I never seen an 18 year old boy who, that was his interest. And by the way, he now had a very expensive collection that was actually worth quite a bit. But when I was a kid, I used to collect stamps. I mean, you know, I wanted to give my kids my stamp collections. He said, what's the stamp? You know, like, you know, so who's to say the joy that whatever something brings you is right or wrong? It's just the thing that brings that person joy. And I think that what happens that parents get so distressed when their children aren't finding something outside of their electronics, that what they do is they start intervening and they sign them up for every single extracurricular class on the planet. So not only is the child stressed out, but the parent should get frequent flyer miles driving them to hockey and then guitar lessons and then, you know, math classes and stuff like that. So one thing is giving them exposure to all of these possibilities. But then, you know, I, and this is why I told my kids, it's like you've got access to all of these possibilities. You've got to pick and sort of commit to them. So it's, it's less about you as a parent intervening and telling them, okay, well I've decided you're going to play basketball. It's exposure to basketball. Okay, how was that? You know. Yeah, it was okay. Or not okay. Okay, which is something else. You have to do something. And there's always Going to be something. But it's much more powerful when the child has made that determination and you don't have to answer the question right away. It doesn't have to be like, wow, everybody else's kid picked basketball, but mine still hasn't decided. It's okay. It's all right. You don't have to. Nothing's going to happen. I'm at Harvard and I'm a psychiatrist, well known. I travel all over the world. I went to Notre Dame, go Irish, and in my first year, I got a D in Psychology of Personality at college. So, you know, was I going to be someone in mental health? Probably not, but here I am, and it's okay. It's okay. You know, it's like no single moment determines what your future is going to be. And that just compelled me to change my study habits and not stay out as late as I was staying out, you know, so it's okay, you know, now, I mean, if the child says, I'm just going to lie in bed all day, no, you got to, you know, prod them a little bit, you know, that that's not an option.
- [30:10]
Guest Speaker
Right.
- [30:11]
Jenny Urich
But it's a shifting perspective, because I think the current perspective is we do activities for the sake of a college resume. So we do them all and we go a whole hog. You know, we're going to do it to the best that we can. And then maybe you're going to get a sports scholarship or this type of thing. This is a completely different perspective. We're dabbling in it for the sake of the protective factors of having something that you love. And so if you get to try a bunch of things when you're young, then as you grow and get older, those are things that you can fall back on and remember. Oh, I really liked to do that. I really liked to garden. I liked to cut flowers and make arrangements. I liked to read books, and I like to swing in a hammock and have a good novel, like those types of things. And I think the exposure to those different, what the world has to offer, it's exciting. It's exciting. I think for the kid, it's exciting for the parent to sort of see. My mom did that. She let me try gymnastics. I was awful. You know, she let me try art lessons. I was awful. You know, and then things stick over time. So I think that's a really important piece of the puzzle is that especially if you have a child that's more sensitive, that finding things that they love can be helpful for them. And as far as the independence piece. So you talked about owning it, like when they're making their decisions about social media. But you wrote, many people who struggle with self hatred feel that they have very little dominion over their lives. It feels as if they are pushed into things or that others are doing things for them whether they want to or not. How can we help our kids have more dominion over their lives?
- [31:39]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
So, so one thing I did with my, my kids is, you know, they would think that whenever I cooked it was the same as intermittent fasting because my food was so terrible. Right, well, you know, what are you going to do? You know, now, you know, they, one of them is studying artificial intelligence and is like a computer guy and everything like that. I said, you don't like what I eat, then what are you going to do about that? Like, what is the solution to this problem? And say, well, you know, like I'm going to have to cook for myself. I said, okay, so then what's that going to do? So I said, okay. And then he's now this guy who's into AI, but he makes like cordon blow meals. Because what he did is he started experimenting with making food because it was either that or eat burnt toast that dad would make. And what was interesting is that those kinds of challenges to the child. When he got to college, all of a sudden he was a really popular guy. But not because he'd been particularly popular or not, but because he would have like little cookouts in his apartment. And then, you know, people would want to come and they'd say, wow, this is like really great cooking. Better than the cafeteria food. Or children don't know how to, you know, wash their clothes because parents have done it or sort of plan a trip to the museum or something like that. And so it's not to say like, you know, a seven year old, you say, okay, kid, you know, figure out the rest of your life. But that as a parent, you know, okay, kid, what do you want to do? You want to not have to starve dad's cooking? Okay, so what do you need to do is like, well, I need to find ways to like, you know, make a meal that I like. Okay, well what do you think you'd like? Oh, you know what? I'd like to have some pizza. All right, well, I can barely make toast, so like, pizza's up. But why don't we look up a pizza recipe and then let's go and buy the ingredients and let's do this together, you know, like stand by their side, you know, that as they're working. But they were the ones who'd made the determination that they wanted pizza. You're just a companion and then you can let them go on their own. But I'm not, I'm not. All right, I'll make the pizza for you. You know, it's that sort of thing. And what about sports? You know, sort of, it's wow. You know, I mean my brother ran track, my other brother ran track, my sister and cross country. But you know, I'm heavier and like I'm not, you know, track hasn't worked out for me and saying okay, well anything else you have to do a sport. That's what I'm saying. Okay, you know, maybe I'll try for the wrestling team. Great. Okay, let's give that a go. Great. Okay. I kind of enjoyed that. What else? Football, whatever, you know. So let them make a decision, but don't judge that decision. I want to collect My little pony. No, no, boys don't do that. No, yeah, be interested in that. Be interested in saying, wow, okay. Be curious about it. And even if it's like some strange to you because what happens is that parents take so much control over their kids lives that by the time they get to college, the children don't know what to do in the absence of the parent. And maybe because the parent was so helpful, they get into a college that they're actually not that interested in going to versus children who are happy when they've entered college because they have agency, they have autonomy. And maybe it wasn't like a top tier college, but so what? You know, I, I'd rather have a happy child at a mediocre school than a really stressed out child at a top school because those are the ones that get admitted to my program.
- [35:18]
Jenny Urich
Wow. My mom always said if you can cook, you'll always have friends.
- [35:21]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Exactly. No, yeah, your mom is like my mom. That's exactly right. It's one of those things and it's fun. And by the way, it also is. I mean, yeah, talk about not only friends but you know, maybe people, you know, romantic partners or whatever it is and like healthy ones and, and it's just like, wow, that's so that you know how to do that and you can, you know, you can program something or you know, you can discuss philosophy or something like that. So cooking like some one of those basic ideas versus you know, I mean I've had parents who say, look, there's no way I'm going to teach my kids to cook because they, you know, they have math tests coming up and they need to start studying for those math tests because if they don't get an A, they're not going to get into their college. But at what cost to the child? There is no agency. And the thing is, it's not about the cooking. It's about their sense that they can do something and they can extrapolate. They can generalize that agency, that dominion over self into so many other aspects of life when they know that they can do it. Because you know what, if I can cook, I can open up a bank account.
- [36:27]
Jenny Urich
Yes, that's right. I love the book so much because it portrayed that here's this major problem, major, major problem. It's not talked about enough and you go through a litany of ways that it can be helped. Even though some people are saying you can't do anything about it. A litany of ways and that some of them are these sort of simpler things. And you don't know. You don't know if your child, you really can't know. Like this is going to be the child that has a bent toward it. You start to observe, but you don't know. So if you are providing your kids with these different tools and this different sense that, you know, the sense of autonomy, that can go a long way. Hey there.
- [37:04]
Guest Speaker
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- [37:44]
Jenny Urich
A pair of squirrels who love sharing.
- [37:46]
Guest Speaker
Lessons they learned firsthand from Jesus's teachings. In their own nutty way, this super fun new show supports Minnow's mission to spark kids imaginations and encourage their curiosity around God in the Bible. Minnow makes faith formation fun for kids and simple for parents so that it's easier to connect daily faith to daily life. If you are looking for a streaming service full of awesome fun shows that kids love like the brand new Dead Sea Squirrels, there is no better place to look than Minnow. Download the Minnow app or visit go minnow.com to become a member. Today. That's G-O M I N N O.com to sign up who doesn't love the good things in life? Even though I enjoy a little luxury, it doesn't mean I can always afford it. Until I discovered Quince. Quince is my go to for luxury essentials at affordable prices. I love the range of high quality items at prices that are within reach like 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50, washable silk tops and dresses, organic cotton sweaters and 14 karat gold jewelry. The best part? All Quince Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I love that the puffer jacket I got from Quince has been a go to companion during these cold Michigan winter days. It is super warm and also super cute. Give yourself the luxury you deserve with quince. Go to quince.com outside for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U I N C E.com outside to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com outside imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life at Capella University. Our game changing flexpath learning format lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace.
- [39:47]
Jenny Urich
That works for you. It's an education you can tailor to your schedule.
- [39:51]
Guest Speaker
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- [40:01]
Jenny Urich
Think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu I read this book recently. I think you probably find it funny. It's called what Time Is Noon? And it's all of these questions that teens text their parents that are just kind of funny and you know they're joking around just laughing about it because they're funny. But then there was a section of ones that are coming from college students. And so someone texted their parents from college and said, how do I get my clothes out of the washing machine? Do I just use my hands?
- [40:34]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Exactly, exactly. You know. So my son had to mail in his health forms to college. So I said, do you have all the forms? And they Are they done? He said, yeah. Anyway, he headed Off. And then we got a letter from college saying, you know, where are the health forms? And I said, dude, did you mail in the health forms? I said, yeah, I did. So what did you do? He says, oh, I went to the mailbox down the road and put the thing in the mail. I said, yeah, but do you put Sam's there? He said, wait, what? But at the same time, why would he know that you know, it is true. Why would you know that? And, and, and so it's so, it's like, you know, it's also a realization like, okay, that makes sense that he wouldn't know that I knew that because that's what I had to do. So it's not a judgment. It's not like it's kind of funny. Yeah, it happened. And at the same time, and we laugh about that. And he, you know, he's now a social worker and so we joke about these, about, you know, my parenting, it's kind of being guides and also when things don't make sense, they don't make sense. And the other things parents tend to do, you know, when I was your age, yeah, but when you were my age there wasn't tick tock. And when you were my age, you know, all of these sorts of things. My son had completed his first year of social work and school and he said, hey, can, can we go for a, like a hike in, in Vegas? You know, in the, in the, in the desert. We were talking and I, I said, you know, like, tell me all the brilliant things I taught you as a parent, like all the tremendous wisdom and everything. He says, I don't remember a thing. To be honest with you, I don't remember a thing. But let me tell you, I remember how you made me feel. I remember feeling safe. I remember feeling heard. And that's what sticks. You know, it's not. Go to bed by 8:30 every night and do five push ups, you know, those sorts of things or not relevant but, but you know, sort of a child feeling listened to and heard. I think a lot of my friends are very surprised by the level of discussion I have with my kids. I mean, they'll tell me about sex problems and about, you know, worry about like drugs and all sorts of things. Work and say, why your kids tell you all these things? I said because they always felt safe. I didn't always agree with what they were doing but, and they would know it. But you know, a child has to not worry that you're going to be so judgmental that they have to take Behavior underground and that they internalize that somehow they're bad people. And, and we tend to forget that we were teens too. And I tormented the heck out of my parents.
- [43:06]
Jenny Urich
So it's interesting because you're seeing the other end of it like you're seeing when it goes awry a bit. And it's not always the parents fault. I know that. But you have these thoughts on what could help or what could at least maybe give a leg up to a child in all these different situations. In that book they talk, when they talk about filling out the forms. In that book about the teens, he said one of the biggest questions they ask is am I a notary? Because they don't know or am I a member of clergy? It's a funny book. Or when I have to put more than one stamp, do I stack them or do I put them?
- [43:39]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Exactly.
- [43:40]
Jenny Urich
But these are all the things that, you know, wouldn't know. And it just, it's kind of funny. It almost reminds me of like the toddler years when they're just learning new things and it's cute.
- [43:49]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Well, but you know what, it's the other, if we, if we flip that around on its, on its head. Whenever I have like some sort of technology question, I'm the one calling my kids, you know, sort of, hey, on Instagram, if I want to add a tag, you know, and they're like, oh.
- [44:08]
Jenny Urich
My God, it does flip around. They could be talking about all of our silly things that we send to them.
- [44:14]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Exactly.
- [44:15]
Jenny Urich
Here is something super interesting. Blaze. I have never heard of this, except I read a book last week about it, Heart rate variability. I'd never heard of it. And the person who I talked to about it was saying that is like the core factor of health. Like if you can get that right, it's going to fix a lot of things. And if you can get your variability score to go up that a lot of times, like if you're overweight, it might solve the problem. If you're having skin issues, it might solve the problem. And so I had never heard of it. I learned so much from this guy. His name's Justin. And then it was in your book that this can be helping with self loathing. Tell us about that.
- [44:50]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
You know, and by the way, I mean, and so my heart rate variability is 102.
- [44:57]
Jenny Urich
Wow.
- [44:58]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
And you know, and I'm old, I'm decrepit and old. And my children remind me this. What we know about stress and what we know about mental health is that your ability to regulate and to Bring yourself to centeredness. That the way to measure that is through heart rate variability. And what this means is that, say, a person experiences fear and what happens is that their heart rate goes up. And what happens is typically for people who don't have an ability to control their emotional state and their level of distress, that heart rate stays up and it doesn't come down for a very long time. People with very high heart rate variability are able to regulate their heart rate moment to moment. And if you think about someone like a biathlete who's skiing and then shooting at targets in the Olympics, their ability to control that is extremely high. If you're very, very distressed, you're going to miss the target every single time. What's interesting is that as mental health improves in people with mental illness, depression, ptsd, personality disorders, emotional dysregulation, their heart rate variability increases. So it's a wonderful measure of improvement. And people who've got a lot of trauma and distress and stress have very low heart rate variabilities. But people think that that's something that you cannot change. But you can change it. You can change it through yoga, meditation, ice plunges, which I don't know how cold it is right now in Michigan, but you can do a lot of, you know, cold weather training, being, you know, at peace with, with, with the cold so that you can do things in the moment that's going to improve your heart rate variability. And when you improve your heart rate variability, your ability to regulate your emotional experience improves.
- [46:58]
Jenny Urich
So, yeah, this guy, like he had a whole company that does coaching and that was one of their main markers. He's like, these people come in, you know, it's at a 25, we get it to a 60 in eight weeks, or, you know, these different types of things. And you wrote the reason I include heart rate, and I had never heard of it, but you wrote the reason I include heart rate variability is that many of the conditions tied to self hatred are ones where people have low heart rate variability. The research on heart rate variability and mental health is compelling. As it goes up, psychiatric distress symptoms reduce. And then it has to do with a lot of other things. Shorter lifespan, obesity, heart disease, inflammation, and lower immune response to viruses. You have a ton of other ideas in here of things that can work. You have ideas about things that, you know, might work, but the research is still out. So there's so much to learn and so much content in here that someone will relate to, especially if they're struggling with this. Because you included what all these different people said, I have to ask about Jewel. Yeah, I was a huge fan, especially in high school. I'm still a huge fan. But like. And so you wrote the forward is by Jewel. I didn't catch it on the COVID I just opened and started reading, and it's this forward. And then I get to the last sentence, and it says jewel, Grammy nominated singer, songwriter, humanitarian, activist, and mental health advocate. We had watched that, Alaska, the Last Frontier, which is kind of. It's about her family. And I have to know. Yeah, Jewel, a kindred spirit and dear friend.
- [48:26]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Yeah. So many years ago, I got a phone call from a guy called Ryan Wolfington, and he was president of her foundation. And it was so funny. So I grew up in South Africa. I didn't know who she was, to be honest. And so what happens is he calls and he says, hi, this is Ryan Wolfington. I'm the CEO of juul. And I honestly, I thought they were talking about the vape cigarettes and the jewels. And I said, what? Like, why would you want to speak to me? You know? And she said, the singer and. And one of my colleagues was just a massive Jewel fanatic. And so you've got to listen to her music and everything. And I thought it was so compelling. Anyway, well, she was having a wellness festival, and I had. I had been part of a documentary. It's called Mindfulness Be Happy Now. And it was with Thich Nhat Hanh and Sharon Stone, Oliver Stone, and other people. And in the documentary, I say, I prescribe being present. I prescribe mindfulness. That in many circumstances, we don't need medication for mental wellness. We just need to learn how to be outdoors, be connected. And when they saw that, they said, wow, that's really similar to what they're doing in the foundation. So in 2019, early 2019, we went and we met for the first time in Denver, and we've just been, you know, we just, like, hit it off, and we've been really, really close since that time. I've spent quite a lot of time with her, you know, practicing meditation with her. She is such a powerful and wonderful mental health advocate, as well as just like a stunning human being and obviously a great musician. But I know her through her humanity. You know, I don't. I didn't know her through her music, and so I, you know, I just know her through this different way, and she's just such a connected soul who'd been through a lot of her own stuff, you know.
- [50:19]
Jenny Urich
So, yeah, I loved seeing that. I thought that was so cool. Dr. Blaze Aguirre, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a trainer in and specialized. And I didn't read the sentence right.
- [50:34]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
But dialectical behavior therapy.
- [50:35]
Jenny Urich
Yes, dialectical behavior therapy. And you're training people all over the world. You're heading to India soon to train people in this. You've gone to all of these different countries. Founding medical director of 3 East Continuum of Care, an array of programs for teens and young adults. It uses DBT, which I talked to this Dr. Jenny Tates, and she came on the show and talked about it. I never heard of it until I learned about it from her. A staff psychiatrist at McLean Hospital since 2000. Nationally and internationally recognized for extensive work in the treatment of mood and personality disorders. This is your 20th book, but you say it is your most important. What an honor. What an honor to have you on. I just think this is so fantastic. I'm so glad to know about it and to be made aware. Like you said, parents need to be tuned into this and to sort of be watchful for the warning signs. And there's a lot that we can do to help set our kids up in a way that gives them some buffers toward some of the things that you're seeing. I mean, you say the hunger for effective mental health is so large, it's such a struggle, including our kids in our teens. And so I'm so thankful that you came on to talk about this and people can read more in your other 19 books. So many options there. We always end our show with the same question. The question is, what's a favorite memory from your childhood? That was outside.
- [51:51]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Oh, that was outside. I was very, very, very close with my mom. And I remember in the months before she passed, sadly to breast cancer, we would. There was this path in Cape Town, South Africa, that we would leave the house and we would go down this path, and it was. It was into this, like, parkland area, and I would always be there. So the South Africa, the US Winter is the South African summer because it's in the southern hemisphere. And the flowers would be in. In bloom, and the dogs and the kids would be playing. And, you know, she would just say, isn't there so much joy in this moment? You know, she just found that, you know, and she just found it. So it was just. Not only was it outside, it was outside connected to the most special person.
- [52:41]
Jenny Urich
In my life being present. Isn't there so much joy in this? What a mob. So much joy in this moment. Plays this has been such an honor. You are an international superstar in this world of mental health. It's, it's such a big deal helping so, so, so many people. Thank you so much for coming on today.
- [53:02]
Dr. Blaise Aguirre
Well, I really appreciate it. I mean, I think that the superstars are the people who like look at their lives and just do something that is so contrary to their nature in a way to feel better. And I just, I thank you for being a kind of a conduit for that, for like getting the message out. And, and you know, there's, it's not so important to be famous or not famous. You know, the cemeteries of the world are filled with very important and famous people. It's our destiny. So it's what we do in the present moment to take care of each other and love your energy and your, your messaging to parents. So thank you so much, Ginny.
- [53:38]
Jenny Urich
Thank you, Vi.