Best of 2024- Reclaim Yourself w/ Emma Seppala

Summary

The Psychology Podcast: Best of 2024 - Reclaim Yourself with Emma Seppala

Release Date: January 3, 2025
Host: Scott Barry Kaufman
Guest: Emma Seppala
Duration: Approximately 55 minutes

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Introduction

In this standout episode of The Psychology Podcast, Scott Barry Kaufman welcomes Emma Seppala, a renowned psychologist and author of the book "Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty, and Chaos." The conversation delves deep into the concept of reclaiming one's sovereignty to overcome the bound states that hinder personal growth and well-being.

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Defining Sovereignty vs. Bound State

Emma Seppala introduces the core concepts of her book by contrasting the sovereign state with the bound state.

• Sovereign State: A state where individuals empower themselves, maintain their energy, and positively influence others. It involves reclaiming control over one’s life, emotions, and relationships.

• Bound State: A condition where individuals unknowingly subjugate themselves through draining beliefs, addictive behaviors, and negative interactions.

Notable Quote:
Emma Seppala [05:12]:
"The bound state is everything that drains us of our energy—beliefs we hold, behavior patterns, addictive behaviors, and how we interpret the world."

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Energy and Emotion Regulation

A significant portion of the discussion centers on energy management and emotion regulation. Emma explains how negative self-talk and suppressed emotions drain our energy, keeping us in a bound state. She emphasizes the importance of allowing oneself to fully feel emotions, akin to how children process them, to maintain a sovereign state.

Notable Quote:
Emma Seppala [06:38]:
"Suppression basically increases the negative emotion and it's more likely to come out somatically through health issues or as passive aggression, destroying both ourselves and others."

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Self-Relationship vs. Self-Esteem

Emma challenges the traditional concept of self-esteem, proposing that what’s truly needed is a healthy self-relationship. She argues that fostering a positive relationship with oneself leads to greater self-actualization and personal growth.

Notable Quote:
Emma Seppala [10:26]:
"The only relationship you're guaranteed for the rest of your life is with yourself. Might as well make it a good one, right?"

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Research on Breathing and Trauma

Emma shares her groundbreaking research on how controlled breathing can significantly reduce anxiety and trauma symptoms. Drawing from her personal experience post-9/11 and her work with veterans, she explains how breathing techniques can stabilize the nervous system and normalize anxiety levels.

Notable Quotes:
Emma Seppala [05:12]:
"When we're in a sovereign state, we're filling our own tank, we're maintaining it, but we're also filling others' tanks."

Emma Seppala [12:23]:
"After one week of Sky Breath Meditation, veterans' anxiety had normalized, some no longer qualified as having PTSD, and these effects were maintained even a year later."

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Intuition and Decision Making

The conversation shifts to the importance of intuition and gut feelings in making better decisions. Emma discusses how intuition, when honed and not clouded by trauma or fear, serves as a powerful tool for self-preservation and effective decision-making.

Notable Quote:
Emma Seppala [38:35]:
"Decision making is complex, and you're going to make a better decision if you go with your feelings rather than just thinking through it reasonably."

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Positive Relational Energy in Leadership

Emma introduces the concept of positive relational energy, highlighting how certain individuals can energize and uplift those around them. She shares inspiring stories, including one about Lynn Tilton, a leader who embodies sovereignty by turning around struggling companies through her positive influence and intuition.

Notable Quote:
Emma Seppala [52:05]:
"Positive relational energy is something that can be trained and that anyone can learn to catapult both personal and work relationships."

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Practical Exercise: Breathwork

To provide actionable insights, Emma leads Scott and the listeners through a breathing exercise designed to enhance parasympathetic activation, promoting calmness and emotional regulation.

Notable Quote:
Emma Seppala [25:01]:
"When you breathe in, your heart rate increases, and when you breathe out, it slows down. This simple practice can help gain sovereignty over your nervous system."

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Balancing Trauma and Growth

Emma addresses the current cultural obsession with trauma, advocating for a balance between acknowledging traumatic experiences and focusing on post-traumatic growth. She emphasizes reclaiming sovereignty by viewing oneself as a survivor who grows stronger rather than remaining in a state of victimhood.

Notable Quote:
Emma Seppala [31:03]:
"Holding onto victimhood keeps us in a bound state. Sovereignty is about reclaiming post-traumatic growth and not identifying with a disempowered position."

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In wrapping up, Emma and Scott reflect on the profound impact of cultivating sovereignty in various aspects of life—from personal relationships to professional leadership. Emma reiterates the importance of positive self-relationship and relational energy in achieving one's full potential.

Notable Quote:
Scott Barry Kaufman [55:03]:
"I love the phrase 'positively energizing leaders.' It's powerful and something I’ve noted down."

Emma Seppala [55:33]:
"Positive relational energy can truly transform both personal and work relationships, making a significant difference in how we show up in the world."

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Key Takeaways

1. Sovereignty vs. Bound State: Embracing sovereignty empowers individuals to reclaim control over their lives, unlike a bound state that drains energy and fosters disempowerment.

2. Energy Management: Negative self-talk and emotion suppression deplete energy, whereas allowing oneself to fully experience emotions can replenish it.

3. Healthy Self-Relationship: Fostering a positive relationship with oneself is more crucial than traditional self-esteem for personal growth and self-actualization.

4. Breathing Techniques: Controlled breathing can significantly reduce anxiety and trauma symptoms by stabilizing the nervous system.

5. Intuition in Decision Making: Honing intuition leads to better decision-making, especially in complex situations, by leveraging gut feelings.

6. Positive Relational Energy: Cultivating positive energy in relationships and leadership can uplift and energize both personal and professional environments.

7. Post-Traumatic Growth: Focusing on growth and resilience after trauma fosters sovereignty and prevents remaining in a victimized state.

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For Further Exploration

To delve deeper into the concepts discussed, consider reading Emma Seppala's book, "Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty, and Chaos," which offers comprehensive strategies and insights on achieving personal sovereignty.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Emma Seppala]

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[Radhi Devlukia]

Who's paying for the mattress topper?

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[Radhi Devlukia]

Aren't we getting a fridge?

[Emma Seppala]

Can we create a pool on PayPal? It lets us collect the money before we buy.

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[Emma Seppala]

Pool split and Send Money with PayPal get started in the PayPal app. A PayPal account is required to send and receive money. A balance account is required to create a pool. I've never felt like this before. It's like you just get me. I feel like my true self with you. Does that sound crazy? And it doesn't hurt that you're gorgeous. Okay, that's it. I'm taking you home with me. I mean, you can't find shoes this good just anywhere. Find a shoe for every you from brands you love like Birkenstock, Nike, Adidas and more at your dsw store or dsw.com I think in our society we're given a lot of things to do instead of feel. You know, a lot of things to consume instead of feel. And yet that's how we stay bound and addicted and unhappy.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

On this episode of the psychology podcast, I chat with Emma Sepo about reclaiming yourself and setting yourself free. Sounds good, right? I've known Emma since grad school, and she consistently puts out good vibes and teaches us how to have healthy bodies and minds. In this episode, we discuss what Emma refers to as sovereign, which is designed to emancipate you from the many ways in which you knowingly or unknowingly subjugate yourself at every level of your existence. From yourself to your emotions, to your mind, to your relationships, to your intuition and to your body. Emma shows us how we bind ourselves and how we can reclaim our sovereignty. Emma is a very wise and compassionate human, and I think you'll learn stuff in this episode you can apply in your life right away to reconnect with yourself in a very healthy way. So without further ado, I bring you Emma Seppala. Emma. Emma. Emma.

[Emma Seppala]

Hi, Scott.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

How you doing?

[Emma Seppala]

Good to see you. Good to hear you.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Good to see you, too. Congrats on your new book. Thank you, Sovereign. Reclaim your freedom, energy, and power in a time of distraction, uncertainty, and chaos. Wow. Well, I think a lot of people are really yearning for that right now. So, you know, this major theme of this new book is setting yourself free and its opposite state, which you refer to as the bound state, where through life experiences, fear and trauma, we start to disconnect from ourselves. So we. You're really contrasting these. These things, and hopefully we can help our listeners and viewers, if they're watching the YouTube channel right now, help them. Help them set themselves free. No one could do it by themselves, right? We can't do it for them.

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah. So true. And that's. That's the whole goal of this book.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

I know. I read your book.

[Emma Seppala]

You're awesome, Scotty.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Well, thank you. Go on. Stop. So where do we even start with this? Can you describe to me how you conceive of the concept of energy? I mean, there's so many places to start in this discussion, but I see that word interwoven quite a bit throughout the book. And can you just kind of tell me what you think of that word?

[Emma Seppala]

I love that as a first question, Scott, because in many ways, as I'm contrasting the bound state and the sovereign state, the bound state is really everything that drains us of our energy. It's the beliefs we hold, the behavior patterns we have, the addictive behaviors that we have, the ways we conceive of ourselves and the ways we interpret the world that drain our energy. The way that we interact with people that drain our energy. And when we're in a sovereign state, that's the opposite. We're filling our own tank, we're maintaining it, but we're also filling others tanks. So it's a pattern that goes through all of the different chapters. As one example, just as one belief that drains us is whenever I've asked audiences how many people are self critical, almost every single person raises their hand. And as you, as, you know, self criticism, the psychological definition is that it's a form of self loathing. And when you think about that, just, you know that the majority of people are walking around with this, you could think of it as social conditioning or programming like viral programming that runs in families and runs in societies and does us no favors and drains us of our energy. That's one example.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

How do we get bounded, you know, and disconnected from ourselves and you know, throughout the course of our lives, can our relationship with ourselves change depending on life circumstances?

[Emma Seppala]

Absolutely. And I think that's the journey, right? That's the journey of. And it starts with awareness, like being aware of the many ways that we engage with behaviors or thought patterns that drain our energy. Another example is our emotions. And I know you think about this a lot too and that most people, when you ask, well, what have you learned about what to do with your emotions, your big bad negative ones? People say, well, just suppress them, right? Just suck it up, buttercup. That's, that's pretty much what everyone is up to. I mean there's some, some exceptions, you know, in some, in some Latin cultures in southern Italy. But even then there are certain emotions that are just not acceptable and that are suppressed. And when we look at the research, suppression basically increases the negative emotion and it's more likely to come out somatically through health stuff or it's going to explode or come out as passive aggression and destroying both ourselves and others in the process. So that's just sort of one example of that and how the journey towards becoming more sovereign with regards to our emotions is to learn to actually feel them. Just like a child will feel their emotions 100% and then it moves through them just like so going back to that theme of energy, the child lets the energy of the emotion move through them and then they're done a few minutes later. As opposed to adults who can hold on to an emotion forever. Not to say that I'm encouraging exploding our emotions all over the place, but the ability to feel, and I think in our society we're given a lot of things to do instead of feel a lot of things to Consume instead of feel. And yet that's how we stay bound and addicted and unhappy.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

What does a healthy self esteem look like?

[Emma Seppala]

Well, you know, I always just ask like, you know, what are some of the things that people say to themselves when they make a big mistake? Right. When you ask people that, they usually say words like, you're such an idiot, you don't belong here, not good enough. Those kinds of words. And you know, whenever I hear that, it's just so heartbreaking to hear how people talk to themselves. When we, during the pandemic, I would teach on Zoom and I would ask this question, what do you say to yourself when you make a big mistake? And people would write it in the chat and you'd see one thing after another of these heartbreaking words that people tear themselves up with. And when you think about doesn't make any sense because what would you say to your best friend? What would you say to your best friend? You would say, oh, you're okay, everybody makes mistakes, you're totally fine. We'd be so encouraging and loving to them. And why do we have a self destructive relationship with ourselves? You know, we talk about toxic being in a toxic relationship or toxic workplace. Most people are walking around with a toxic relationship with their own self. What about that makes sense? It doesn't. But it keeps people bound. This one study found that 80% of millennials endorse the belief I am not good enough with with regards to most areas of their life. Can you believe that? It's so heartbreaking. And so I always think, what would happen to this world if every single person had a sovereign relationship with themselves? I mean, how would they show up? They would be able to show up within their full potential, be their freaking best selves. And rock stars like Scott Barry Kaufman.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, you got me thinking that I, I think I might start using the phrase instead of self esteem. What we really need is a healthy self relationship. I like, yeah, just thought of that phrase, self relationship. Yeah, instead of self esteem.

[Emma Seppala]

Totally. Why wouldn't you? I mean, the only relationship you're guaranteed for the rest of your life is with yourself. Might as well make it a good one, right? Or a friendship, a romance. And what happens then? You know, I just, you know, I always think like, how are you going to show up on the battlefield of your life? Are you going to show up, you know, limping because you kicked yourself there, or in brand spanking new shining armor because you loved your way there? You know, where are you? How are you going to be strongest. And yeah, so that's just something I think about. And Maya Angelou has this beautiful quote where she says, I've learned a long time ago that the only thing that forgetting now the exact quotes, I've learned a long time ago that the only thing that makes sense is to be on my own side. Something like that. And then Audre Lorde has another really great quote and she says her self care is not self indulgence, it's an act of political warfare. So powerful. And she was the self described gay black woman in a white straight man's world, you know, so she just was, she was battling a lot of battles as an activist and writer and so forth. But it's so powerful what she said. It's, it's, that's how you're going to show up. You're going to show up powerfully if you show up with that, that self care.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Wow, that's really powerful. Emma, you know, you've done some terrific, groundbreaking research in our field on the neuroscience of emotion regulation. I'd be remiss not to have you review some of your most recent findings or your most, the highlights of some of your findings. You know what, what are some of the highlights of your findings and why as adults. Well, and also why don't children learn this stuff? We're never taught this.

[Emma Seppala]

I know, Scott. It's so weird. I always just think like no matter how many MDs, PhDs, black belts, you know, dish, you know, how to cook, languages, you know how to speak, most people are running around with as much education about how to handle their big bad negative emotions as a five year old, which is basically no formal education. And you're supposed to, you know, like the two hardest things we're supposed to manage in our life, which are emotions and relationships, we never get any training on and they cause so much pain, you know. And so yeah, I mean we were looking specifically I was looking at trauma. So after 9, I was living in New York during 911 and I had a lot of anxiety after, after that day. And I tried a lot of things to help me at the time. I tried mindfulness. I'd go to like hot yoga and I do all this stuff. And I was still shaking, you know, I was still shaking at 8:30 in the morning. And then I walked into a breathing class called, it's called Sky Breath Meditation, which was a breathing class that was offered at Columbia by some fellow students from, through an organization called Art of Living. And I was like, okay, what is this? And I I learned the breathing practices and then I felt, wow, like I feel like I can move on. I regained my sovereignty over my anxiety. So fast forward and you know, did my doctoral program in psychology and I was doing a postdoc and working with veterans with trauma. We're coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq and many of them had gone through traditional therapeutic or pharmaceutical treatments and they hadn't helped them. They were self medicating, like in their basement, smoking weed or drinking, et cetera. And so I thought, you know, this helped me so many years ago, let's see if we can help them with breathing. And that was one of the first studies that we ran with, with a breathing protocol, with doing on the sky breath meditation for a week. And then we looked at their anxiety pre post, one month post and one year post. And we also looked at physiological measures of startle response and so forth. And what we found was that after one week their anxiety had normalized. I mean compared to the control group, they had really. Some of them no longer qualified as having post traumatic stress. And then when we looked at the physiology of it, we saw really strong correlation between their reduction in startle response and their reduction in anxiety. So the correlation was like 0.9. This is something crazy. And then one month later, and yeah, one month later and one year later they had maintained, they had maintained what they had experienced after that first week. So their anxiety was normalized. And it was interesting because many of them hadn't continued their breathing practice. And so that was really cool. It was as if there's a way to sort of stabilize the nervous system even if you have gone through trauma through breathing. And I think to me that makes sense in the. Because a lot of psychological approaches are through the mind, like change your thoughts, change your mind, change your life, you know, And I think that can work to a certain extent. And I think it does work. You know, being grateful and so forth, we know that that works. But when there is a really intense trauma, really intense anxiety, it's lodged in the body, the memory is. I'm just thinking about one veteran, he would, he said, you know, I'll stand in front of the mall. And I'm here in Madison, Wisconsin and I know there's no danger in the mall, but I still have to brace myself for 20 minutes before I can go in because his mind is doing fine. It's just that the trauma in the body, the memory in the body is bringing up so much anxiety. And so what we think is happening is that through breathing there's this combination. You're not just addressing the mind, you're also addressing the nervous system.

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[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Tell me a little, tell me a little more about that because I've been critical of the trauma obsessed culturally living now and also the obsession with the body keeps the score. So I actually would like to hear more about this, please.

[Emma Seppala]

Absolutely. No. And I'm fascinated by myself because we've run a number of other, other studies subsequent to this and found some really interesting stuff. So, yeah, I mean, one thing we think is happening is this, is that as the veterans are doing their breathing practice, they go into this deep parasympathetic state of just calm. And in that moment, it's. Sometimes these memories come up. They can come up in the form of the flashback. They come up in the form of simply a smell, a feeling, a physiological sensation. But they're in a deep parasympathetic state. So when, usually when they're having a flashback or a memory, they're back in sympathetic activation as if they were in the trauma that they experienced. And that's why post traumatic stress doesn't allow you to move on, because it's as if that trauma is still right there in front of you right now or every time it's triggered right, and they're not able to sleep for that reason. They're constantly in high activation. And what happens with the breathing, we believe, is that as they're going into this parasympathetic state and the memory may be coming up, there's like a decoupling that happens between the physiological activation and the memory. And so what they have said to us is, I remember everything that happened, but I can move on. And they, they get off, got off their med, their sleep meds, anxiety meds, you know, and, you know, sometimes I get in touch with them because like a reporter wants to talk to them or something. And some of them are like, I honestly don't remember what that was like. I'm like, I can't believe you don't remember what that was like. Cause you were living in your basement, going through a divorce, and you couldn't even show up at work. You know, so talk about sovereignty. You know, how can we regain sovereignty? I mean, so many people have gone through trauma and, you know, many psychological approaches do work and do help. And exposure therapy does help, you know, in some cases. And in other cases, there are people that fall through the cracks. Many veterans have fallen through the cracks. And there's been a very, very high suicide rate, as you probably know, daily. It's a horrible AM And I wanted to see, is there another way that we can bridge that gap, that we can catch those that are falling? We subsequently ran another study with the Palo Alto va, the larger group of veterans, including both men and women. And it was a design where it was side by side with the gold standard therapeutic treatment, cognitive processing therapy. The design was such that we wanted to see if the breathing intervention was at least as good as that one. I'm forgetting the name of it now off the top of my head, but that's what the statistical, what the stats are that you're conducting on it. That's what was found. That was at least as good as the gold standard therapy then. But then looking at just the physiology too, of emotion regulation, those that had gone through the breathing program as opposed to the therapy, showed better emotion regulation at the physiological level. Again, because I think what's happening with breathing is that you're actually. Something is going on with the nervous system. It's not just cognitive. That's just really fascinating. And then another study we ran here at Yale looking at. So Yale undergraduates tend to have worse and worse mental health as the semester goes on. And they're high, you know, type A and just getting more and more anxious and depressed with the. With time. And so we want.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

What do you say that tracks to my personal experience?

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah, you remember that, Scott, we met at Yale all those years ago. Oh, it was so fun. Yeah. And exactly. So what we wanted to see is can we provide a buffer to prevent this from Happening. We randomly assigned students to. It was about 200 students. I think we randomly assigned them to one of three wellbeing interventions or a control group. It was either this sky breath meditation, the breathing, or it was mindfulness based stress reduction or it was emotional intelligence, which is mostly cognitive skills. Or the control group. We wanted to see which one of these was going to do to help the students most. What we saw was that the breathing group had the most impact of all. I think it's because it probably brings together a lot of the elements from the others, has both the physiological breathing component, but also brings together the mindfulness. Because what we saw was that mindfulness scores increased thanks to the breathing and then it has some cognitive. You're better able to take in any cognitive information when you're. You've addressed the anxiety that's at the level of the body. Yeah.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Can you give our listeners a concrete practice? Can you teach us something?

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah, absolutely. So you know what, you know, what we researched is a program that takes a couple days to learn. It's like a whole protocol, like a 20 minute protocol. But what I can teach you now is something real simple that you can keep in mind.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

You've taught me stuff in the past. You've taught me stuff in the past to help me get through my flying anxiety. You have.

[Emma Seppala]

Oh my gosh. Fantastic. I don't remember that.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

While ago. While ago, yeah.

[Emma Seppala]

Oh, good. Did it help?

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Oh, yeah.

[Emma Seppala]

Okay, I'm glad to hear that. Okay, so real simple thing that people can take away from, from just listening today. So when you breathe in, your heart rate increases and when you breathe out, it slows down. And if you're, you know, if you're in a nurse's office, you can really scare them by exhaling for a really long time and seeing what happens to your heart rate. But what we're going to do today is I can lead us through a real. Should you want me to lead us through an exercise? Yeah, I'll lead us through a short exercise. Okay. What we're just going to do is lengthen our exhales for a while with our eyes closed. So before we start changing our breath, you can just close your eyes and have your palms open on your lap and then you want to breathe in for a count of one. Hold on. Before you start breathing. Sorry? Before you start breathing, I just want you to assess where you are right now. So just assessing your level of energy, noticing, you know, how many thoughts are going on in your own mind. So you could have a lot of traffic A lot of thought traffic or not a lot. Just sort of noticing your own state of mind first. So you can see if there's a shift from before to after. And then for the breathing, you want to breathe in for a count of 1, 2, 3, 4, hold. And then you can breathe out for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8. So you're breathing out for either twice as long or a time and a half. As long as you breathe in, you want to do that for about five minutes and then reassess sort of where you're at. And then. And that's a practice that you can take. Take with you. Do you want me to guide us through it or.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Yeah, I'm doing it right now.

[Emma Seppala]

Okay, so I'll keep guiding us then, for a few minutes. Okay. So breathe in. 2, 3, 4. Hold and breathe out. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Breathe in. 2, 3, 4. Hold and breathe out. 2, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Breathe in. Two, three, four. Hold and breathe out. 2e, 3, 4, 5, six, seven, eight. BREATHE IN. 2, 3, 4. HOLD AND BREATHE OUT. Two, three, four, five, Six, seven, eight. One more time. Deep breath in. One, two, three, four. Hold & breathe out. Two, three, four, Five, six, seven, eight. And then come back to normal breath and just assess any shifts or changes in the state of your mind. And then when you're ready, you can open your eyes and notice how you feel with the eyes open.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

I opened my eyes already, Emma. Gotta admit. Amazing. Yeah. No, it really does help do something to my parasympathetic nervous system.

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Does something.

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah, it's a way to gain sovereignty. Right? I mean, look, all the time, throughout the day, we have so much media coming at us. We have so many things, so many people, so many demands. And sometimes we can just rush through the day and there's all this stuff in our head from everything we've been accumulating. And then you arrive somewhere, either at your office and you want to just be focusing, or at home, and you want to be focusing on your loved ones. But your mind is completely cluttered with everything that's been happening, and you're not able to be present with what you want to do. And having sovereignty of our mind is being able to bring it back into a place where it can be aware and present with what's going on and calmer and able to. We know from research that when you're calmer, you're a better decision maker. You have better emotional intelligence, you're more focused, better attention, better memory, and you're more Creative, right? So all the things.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

That's true, that's true. The emotion regulation and trauma narrative link is really interesting to me because I feel like trauma has exploded in our society where it was once confined to veterans and others with diagnosed post traumatic stress disorder. Now it's every student I teach, it's everyone on TikTok. Everyone and everything is blamed on their trauma as well. So to a certain degree, trauma is a higher level conscious construction of an event. It's a label that we're putting on an event. And of course you are quite right to point out that there are bodily bottom up effects. There's top down, but there's also bottom up effects that can linger, triggering situations that are related, but now everyone's being triggered by everything. You're a very, very compassionate. I mean, I've known you a long time, Emma. You are very, very. You have a very motherly way of being to the work, to the world at large. Just my observation.

[Emma Seppala]

Thank you, Scotty.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Now, I am not you. I think some people need to toug is what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying now. Work with me here. Work with me. Let's meet. Let's meet in the middle. Let's meet in the middle.

[Emma Seppala]

Let's meet in the middle. Because, you know, one thing I talk about also is, you know, yes, things may have happened to, to you, to, to most people. Something's happened. You know, you've had a car accident, you had a tough youth, you had a tough breakup, you've had a, you're mourning, you know, yes, those things happen. And in that sense we are victims of those situations. And yet I do really, from the bottom of my heart, believe that when we hold onto that victimhood, we are keeping ourselves in a bound state because we are not. We are. It kind of keeps us in that place. Like, okay, I'll, I'll share, you know, for myself. I was in an abusive marriage, okay. So like I know what, I know what it's like to be in a situation like that. And yet if I stay in the, I'm a victim of, you know, a domestic violence, I am, I am identifying with a disempowered position as opposed to. I, you know, I lived through that, I learned through that, I grew through that. I'm, you know, I'm stronger for it and I'm more sovereign now. But sovereignty, I think is really reclaiming that post traumatic growth. Not so much focusing on the, the victimhood which can painfully keep us in a place of feeling abused. And, you know, this is. It's a. This is a tricky line to walk because I'm not saying, no, you. You didn't have trauma. Yes, you had trauma. And yet it is in your favor to identify with the fact that you have survived it, you're growing from it, and you're stronger for it, and you're not having that happen to you ever again.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Well, yeah. Well, I love what you're saying. The idea, though, that trauma is something objective as opposed to a subjective thing. Though it's interesting because there's so many different definitions of trauma in the psychological literature. It's not like we all agree in the literature on this term if a student is traumatized that they have homework. Is that a fair use of the word trauma? You know, do you know there's.

[Emma Seppala]

There.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

I just feel like the word trauma is being used now, like everyone's being traumatized as opposed to I'm upset or I'm anxious. It's now I'm traumatized now. Now I think there are things we can all. I mean, there's a list of things we can all agree. I think the ACE checklist is still valid, you know, but there are so many things now that are falling under that purview for young people. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

[Emma Seppala]

Well, they're not by. By going deep into that as a victim, they're disempowering themselves. And that's a problem, you know, because then they're not accessing, you know, their inner core strength and belief in themselves that, yeah, like, this is hard for me and I can get through this and I'm. I'm a freaking warrior. You know, we've all been through hard times. And even just looking back on it, you can be like, wow, I went through that and I can do this. You know, I can do this again. And I could do it with more wisdom. I could do it with more compassion. I can do it. I've gone through suffering and I'll continue to go through suffering because that's human life. And I can do this.

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[California Psychics]

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[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Well, that's lovely. That's a lovely. I mean, you are. You are very forward looking. Which is. Which is. I mean, I'm very much in line with that for sure. Your research has spanned multiple areas. You've also studied intuition and gut feelings. You argue we have an instinct for self preservation that we often ignore. But you do argue that we can make better decisions in our lives if we can gain some sovereignty over that. Could you elaborate a little more on your research relating to that? I'm so curious about that instinct for self preservation because my hero Carl Rogers called it. We have an organismic valuing system in our body, is what he argued. I have renamed that in my coaching program to we have a self actualizing compass in our body. So it's even more than self preservation.

[Emma Seppala]

Yes.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Yeah, Yeah, I love that, Scotty.

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's sovereignty, right? Self actualization is sovereignty. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think when I was a grad student, I was a grad student in James Gross's lab at Stanford, which was the emotion regulation lab.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

He's amazing.

[Emma Seppala]

I love him. He was an amazing mentor. He is an amazing. I mean, to this day, he's my hero. And one of the studies that was really interesting was that in the lab we looked at suppression. What happens when you suppress emotion? Now, when someone is suppressing anger, let's say I were suppressing anger and I'm talking to you and I'm pretending I'm not angry. I'm like, nope, I'm fine. Everything's fine. Right? Let's say that your heart rate would increase. So in your. Cognitively, you wouldn't understand, okay? You wouldn't understand why you're feeling not. So you want to back away or you want to get out of there? You know, sometimes you have that feeling like, I can't explain it, but I just don't have a good vibe. I need to move. I need to get out of here. Well, what happens is that physiologically you've already registered that I'm suppressing emotion. You've registered inauthenticity. And inauthenticity from an instinctual point of view registers as threat. So even animals, I'll give you an example with equine facilitated therapy. So when a therapist uses a horse to work with, let's say a child with anxiety, right? And the child pretends not to be scared of the horse, the child will come up and be like, I'm not scared of that horse. I'm just fine. But if that Child is scared, the horse is moving all over the place and is anxious and the horse doesn't understand English. Right. But the horse is registering inauthenticity and that registers as threat. And so. And we have the same thing and we register inauthenticity as threat whether we realize it cognitively or not. Our heart rate is going up. So I thought that was really fascinating. So we have an instinct, which we can think of intuition as instinct. We can think of it as putting the pieces of information together in the back of our mind. I mean, there are many ways that we can conceive of it. Joseph Michaels, who was my colleague at Stanford, he looked at decision making and he thinks about intuition as your feeling. You say, I have a feeling this is a good idea or not. And what he found was that when decision making is complex, when you're weighing a lot of things, you're going to make a better decision if you go with your feelings rather than just thinking through it reasonably. If the matter is simple, no big deal, but if it's complicated, you're going to make a better decision if you go with your gut feeling. I think that's just really fascinating. That also ties into what you and I. Yeah, what you and I are really interested in with the whole idea of the creativity and where do you get your creative insights. Again, it's from a place of relaxation. Right. So you could think of it as, oh, my brain's putting together a puzzle in the back in the background and I'm not realizing it. Or you could think of it as receptivity. Like Einstein, he would go and play Mozart and then it would come, the ideas would come to him. How does that happen? However we think about it, it's a way of being receptive in a non cognitive way that can really, that can save our lives. Like my friend Kushal was on 9 11, he walked into the second Twin Tower to get to his office and then the building was hit, or I don't remember which tower it was, but anyways, the building was hit and the guards were giving orders to stay in the building. And Kushel hesitated for a moment and he ran out of there and he saved his life by hair. And what would have happened if he hadn't listened to his gut? How many people in that building had the same gut feeling and didn't go with it? Right. So, and this is an area of research that I think is, is going to be going to grow a lot. It's already growing. There's a lot of interest and the military has been researching it for decades under different names. But. And there was a movie that made fun of it called Men who Stare at Goats. Did you see that movie?

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Never heard of that.

[Emma Seppala]

Never heard of that. It was kind of making fun of that. But they're always starting new programs again because so many service members came back from Iraq and Afghanistan having reported using gut feelings to save their lives or save other people's lives. Oh, we didn't go down that road because I had a feeling. So now they're studying it again. It's sort of top secret. Nobody wants to talk about it, but it's happening and I know it. I have some intelligence from that. Yeah.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

So interesting. I. I don't know if you know, but my. My dissertation was on implicit learning.

[Emma Seppala]

No, I didn't know that.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Yes, yes. And its relationship to creativity. So I'm all about harnessing that power. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Emma Seppala]

Tell me about that.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Well, the. The regularities and statistical probabilities that we learn automatically and unconsciously throughout the course of our day. There are individual differences in it. I found some people are better at implicit learning than others, and that was unrelated to their IQ score. So they could do well on IQ tests and see those patterns explicitly and consciously, but not be as good as seeing the tacit areas of life. So. Yeah.

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

I found implicit learning was correlated with openness to experience, the personality trait.

[Emma Seppala]

Makes sense.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

And. Yeah. Which was. Which. That in turn was correlated with creative achievement. But I. So, yeah, no, I think that's really good. And you would argue that it's important to distinguish between just like a blind faith in one's emotions. Right. And. And a more honed expert intuition.

[Emma Seppala]

Absolutely. Because our feelings are always changing. It's not like you can just. I'm just gonna always go with my feelings. That could also make you really wishy washy. Like you. We definitely have logic and reason there. And I like how Joe Michaels says. He says, you know, when I have to make a big decision, of course I use my reason, but I also consider my feeling. And I think just that even. Just that invitation to consult one's feeling has been absent from our discourse. Absence from our education. Pooh, pooh, to sound like magical thinking. But actually, you know, even when you're a parent, like mother's intuition, there's a word for that. Like, we know what's going on with our kid better than, you know, anyone else. And I also think that, you know, making time for those moments. And I know, Scotty, you and I have talked about This a lot about those moments of, you know, the alpha wave moments in our lives where we are in a more relaxed state. You know, whether it's through meditation or contemplation or being out in nature or playing music, listening to music, whatever it is that allows us to go into a more serene space. That's when you're more likely to sort of access those insights. And you also want to make sure that you're not. They're not being colored by your trauma or fear. Right. It's like, oh, I have a gut feeling I shouldn't go on stage. Well, maybe you're just really afraid to go on on stage, but if you went up there, you'd be a rock star and you'd be helping people. So you should do it right. So we, we have to make sure that we're not, you know, we're not. We have to make sure that, that our feeling really is, is, is, is an intuition. Yeah.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Yeah, I love that. You know, you've. You've tied a lot of this stuff to leadership too, right? What do you think, what do you think are like, can you give any examples of any sovereign leaders? People you would say, oh, they're sovereign, they're sovereign. They're not bound. Do you think Trump is bound? Do you think Trump is bound?

[Emma Seppala]

That's hilarious. I can't speak to. I have no idea. He is definitely doing his own thing, but whether he is sovereign, I don't know. Because, you know, a sovereign state is one in which you're not caught up in addictions. Whether that's addiction to fame or addiction to money or pleasure. All those things are bound, Those are bondage. And it sounds like from his history may have some of that, but yes, I, I once met this. I was actually supposed to escort this woman, her name is Lynn Tilton, to a stage. And I hadn't met her before. And within minutes of her sitting next to me, seconds, maybe, tears start rolling down my face. Scott, this is embarrassing. Here I am, her host. I'm supposed to bring her to the station. I'm speak at Stanford Business School. And she looks at me and she's like, I'm making you cry. And I'm like, what is happening to me? And I had this flash of insight at that moment that I had never met a woman who owned her sovereignty so completely in my life. And it almost shot a pang of pain in me, not just for myself, but for all women in particular. This was, this is about 15 years ago, and it was sort of maybe a flash of insight, you know, one of those, wow, you know, and she is an incredible woman. Talk about working with her intuition. She definitely moves with her intuition, but she's also brilliant. But she. And she. In fact, this is an intuition story herself. So she went. She lost her father when she was in her teens and experienced firsthand what it was like to have a main provider pass away in the family. And so she went. She got herself to Yale on a tennis scholarship and then at Yale once she got married at Yale and then was pregnant shortly thereafter and a single mom, so she had to somehow support her child. And she went to Wall street in the 80s as a woman. So she became financially successful, but was sexually harassed by both her colleagues and her. Her clients constantly. So she finally decided to retire in her 30s thinking, that's it, I'm out of here. And she moved to Florida. And then she had an intuition that came to her as a dream. And her father came to her and said, this is not what I had in mind for you. And she realized there was something else she was meant to do. And she decided to make sure that no other families that she could help would ever have to deal with losing a main provider. And so she bought these companies that other people had given up on as, you know, a lost cause and turn them around. So think companies like Styla Makeup, you know, like these are companies that even the. The consulting companies had given up on. She bought them just to make sure that people wouldn't lose their jobs. And she turned around all these companies. She's called the Turnaround Queen. She at one point had 700,000 employees. And this woman is incredible, and she dances to her own drum and has thereby shown up with. At her full potential and made such a difference. So it's just one example. And I do believe, you know, yes, there are extraordinary people, but we all have extraordinary gifts, every one of us, if we allow them through. And that comes through when we are sovereignty as opposed to caught up in ways of thinking and behaving that keep us bound. Yeah.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Yeah. Well, well, I mean, wow.

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah. I mean. And, you know, I was. I was teaching a group of undergrad of Yale undergrads the other day and asking them, what's your definition of success? You know, and they're all like, well, you know, make a lot of money or do this or that. The other. And I said, okay, so I want you to think about the most, most wonderful people in your life. You know, think about the people that were there for you and mentored you and just Saw you for who you were and just helped you along. Then I said, okay, how would you describe those people? And they would say, oh, they were loving and warm and caring. You know, they use those kind of words. And I said, would you say that those people have had a successful impact on your life? And they were like, yeah, so what is success? Isn't it that ability to show up for people and, you know, support them and just be there completely present in that kind of a loving way? I mean, you know, we really have to think about what that is. And Lynn, she has a lot of love in her heart, I can tell you that. And she's showing up as a badass. Like, she's. She's a badass. You know, you don't want to mess with her, but she's making such a difference. You should have her on your podcast.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

I would welcome an intro. I would welcome an intro, absolutely. Well, I've really asked the main questions that I want to ask you today. Is there anything else? Is there anything you would like to add?

[Emma Seppala]

Yeah. Yes, I'd love to talk about relationships. Scott, what do you think?

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Emma Seppala]

You know, relationships is another area of our life where we just don't have. We don't get a manual for. And we want to have good relationships, and we suffer in relationships, you know, and it's really interesting to me because oftentimes relationships are also obviously places where we can kind of project all of our own fears onto other people who they haven't done anything. And here we are creating all the suffering. But anyway, I think a lot of people have talked about that. I'm not going to go into that in so much detail. But there is a new field of research that is really amazing called positive. It's on positive organizational scholarship. You're familiar with it a little bit. I'm sure you are, right, Scott? I am.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Yeah. I love that area. Amy Werness Verneski and Jane Dutton. Jane Dutton and all that, Yes.

[Emma Seppala]

I love this. So I guess I'll share. I'll start with a story. So my friend Ital, she's a environmental activist, and she's often in the African jungle or in the South American jungle doing undercover investigations on deforestation and child labor. And then she'll write to these companies and tell them that what they're doing is illegal. And then, anyway, she does amazing stuff, right? So she was once in an African country in the jungle doing this investigation when her car. Car disappears, right? Her driver is gone, and she's told to get in the car with these two muscle strapped guys in military apparel and weapons. And she knows that the government is in cahoots with the rubber company that she's investigating because they're getting kickbacks. They don't want to tell there. She has, she has three hours. She's three hours away from the airport. So she had no choice but to get in the car with these guys who are her hitmen, right? And in the span of those three hours, not only did she, did they not kill her, but she made friends with them. They even at one point held up a little sheet so she could relieve herself by the side of the road so she wouldn't go into the jungle and get bitten by snakes. Okay, so, and they, and she had got confirmation that they were meant to kill her when they, when she got to the airport. And they said to her, do not ever come back here. You are not safe here at all. But if you do come back, come over a land border under our protection and stay with us.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Wow.

[Emma Seppala]

So what happened here? Itel has something called positive relational energy. She knows how to connect with people in such a way that is life giving. And I think we all know, you know, this concept of energy vampires has been around for, you know, two decades and there's so much talk about it. But what we don't realize is that there's another type of relating which is not one that sucks you dry. It's energy enhancing. And that's the key to positive relational energy. And so Kim Cameron and some of his colleagues did research on larger organizations and saw that there were these pockets within the organizations that were hyper productive, like what was going on here. At the center of each of these was one person. He said there was one person and that person was giving life to everyone around them. He called them positively energizing leaders. And, and that is really incredible. And it's something that can be taught. And Kim does. He trains people in this, he trains leaders and turns them around. You can become a positive. You can have what Itel had. Now, Ital story was extraordinary, by the way. And I'm not saying that, you know, other people who are in hostage situations didn't have this, because that's not true. I mean, she was a very much a particular case and she was in the process of connecting with them, able to explain what she was doing. And they realized also how she was trying to help their villages and so forth. Just want to give that caveat. But positive relational energy is something that can be trained and that anyone can learn and that it can really catapult both personal relationships and work relationships. And it has a lot to do with the values that you have and how you live. But it also has to do with your ability to have fill your own tank and have a have a positively energizing relationship with your own self. So I just wanted to add that.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

That's really cool. I love the phrase positively energizing leaders. I just wrote that in my notes. Good stuff. Well, Emma, thank you so much. Is there anything else you wanted to add?

[Emma Seppala]

No. I'm super grateful to chat with you, Scott. We go way back.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Me too. Me too. Thank you, Emma.

[Emma Seppala]

Thank you, Scott.

[Scott Barry Kaufman]

Good luck with the book.

[Emma Seppala]

Thank you.

[California Psychics]

When you haven't found love, it can feel like everyone else has. It's in every movie, every song, and all the PDA looking for love sucks. Thankfully, California Psychics can give you the guidance you need to find the one we guarantee if your reading isn't life changing, it's free and new customers receive 20 minutes for just $20. Visit California californiapsychics.com and experience the joy of certainty.

[Radhi Devlukia]

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[Emma Seppala]

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