How Men & Women Express Emotions | Lori Gottlieb & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.800 | We hear so much about fight or flight and the stress response that I think people forget

00:00:08.080 | that another component of the stress response of drama of, you know, being awash in all

00:00:15.920 | this information and like movies and politics and violence and sex and all that stuff coming

00:00:21.600 | at us at once as we just scroll our thumbs is this thing of brachycardia.

00:00:26.320 | You know, there's this phenomenon where when we're stressed, our heart rate actually slows

00:00:29.920 | down and that's the kind of numbing and you're just kind of blanking out and I think that's

00:00:38.720 | a lot of what people are starting to experience with a lot of high drama input.

00:00:43.200 | Yeah, I see that in couples a lot where they come in and one person is saying, you know,

00:00:48.640 | like, I feel nothing.

00:00:50.480 | I don't know what this other person's so upset about, right?

00:00:53.840 | And then when you really get into it, it's like this person's feeling all kinds of things and

00:00:59.840 | it's really important that we understand, you know, when we are shut down versus when

00:01:05.760 | we are calm.

00:01:06.400 | Those are two very different states.

00:01:08.640 | Could you go into that a little bit further?

00:01:11.440 | Yeah.

00:01:11.760 | Well, here's an example.

00:01:13.200 | So a couple comes in.

00:01:14.320 | Let's say it's a heterosexual couple, but it could be any couple.

00:01:17.280 | Often it is the woman in the couple who will say something to her partner like, I just feel

00:01:24.160 | like I can't reach you.

00:01:25.360 | I feel like we're very disconnected.

00:01:27.360 | I want you to tell me how you feel.

00:01:29.520 | And because of our cultural stigma around men showing emotion, he has told himself like,

00:01:37.200 | yeah, this bothers me or that bothers me or I'm unhappy in this way, but I don't feel anything.

00:01:41.360 | I'm fine.

00:01:41.920 | Our marriage is good.

00:01:43.360 | So he doesn't even understand why he's there.

00:01:46.800 | And he thinks he's there for her because she insisted on it.

00:01:50.800 | And so when we finally get to maybe something that he's feeling and he finally does open

00:01:56.160 | up, it's so interesting because maybe he's sharing something very vulnerable or maybe he

00:02:00.880 | tears up a little bit.

00:02:02.080 | So you can tell like your body will tell you what you're feeling, even if you aren't aware

00:02:05.920 | of it, you see, okay, there's some moisture there in his eyes or maybe a tear falls or maybe

00:02:10.960 | he actually starts crying.

00:02:12.240 | And her reaction and her whole reason for bringing him in was, you know, I need you to open up to

00:02:18.240 | me.

00:02:18.320 | I want to feel connected to you.

00:02:19.680 | I want to understand your inner life more.

00:02:21.520 | Well, he does it.

00:02:23.280 | And she then looks at me like a deer in headlights, like, oh, wow, I don't feel safe when he doesn't

00:02:30.000 | open up to me, but I also don't feel safe when he's being vulnerable in this way.

00:02:35.840 | And these are sort of gender stereotypes that we think we might not fall prey to, but we do.

00:02:42.000 | And so it's so interesting that often men are the ones who seem sort of numb or calm,

00:02:47.840 | right, which are two, again, very different things in the relationship.

00:02:51.040 | But that's not really the case.

00:02:53.360 | It's that there's no room for him to express anything.

00:02:58.320 | So he has to kind of push everything down, probably, again, outside of his awareness.

00:03:02.320 | And then the couple feels disconnected and both of them are unhappy.

00:03:06.240 | This idea that more words means more emotional, I don't buy it.

00:03:13.360 | Yeah, exactly.

00:03:14.480 | You know, it's interesting because men will come in if I'm seeing them alone and they'll

00:03:21.280 | often say something like, I've never told anyone this before.

00:03:24.080 | And they literally mean, I've never told anyone this before.

00:03:27.360 | Because when men hang out, they're not, it's not the same sort of level of let's talk, talk,

00:03:34.160 | talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, right?

00:03:35.680 | Women will come in and say something like, I've never told anyone this before,

00:03:41.040 | except for my mother, my sister, my best friend, right?

00:03:44.480 | So they've told maybe one, two or three people, but they feel like they haven't told anyone.

00:03:49.120 | Because for women, that's kind of not telling anyone.

00:03:52.480 | Well, now you have people concerned.

00:03:53.680 | So if somebody, if a woman says to me, I didn't tell anyone, that means she only told four people.

00:03:59.520 | I don't mean secrets.

00:04:00.400 | I don't mean secrets.

00:04:01.440 | I mean, like something about themselves, where they feel maybe hesitant to share that, or they

00:04:06.560 | feel ashamed about that, or they're not sure about something.

00:04:10.160 | So you can see that difference.

00:04:12.960 | But I also think it happens very early.

00:04:15.440 | So I'm the mom of a boy.

00:04:17.440 | I mean, he's now a teenager.

00:04:18.640 | But it's interesting, because when I didn't notice this till I was raising a boy, and I grew

00:04:24.560 | up with a brother, but I didn't notice it, that when he, let's say he would like fall on

00:04:30.320 | the playground, right, and like at like two or three years old, everybody would say to him

00:04:36.480 | or the boys around him, like, oh, it's fine.

00:04:39.360 | Brush it off.

00:04:40.000 | You're good.

00:04:40.400 | You're good, right?

00:04:41.280 | Even if he was like in pain.

00:04:43.280 | And if a girl falls and she's in pain, they're like, oh, honey, come here.

00:04:47.440 | How are you?

00:04:48.080 | Let's see.

00:04:48.480 | How are you feeling about this?

00:04:49.520 | Are you hurt?

00:04:50.080 | Are you okay?

00:04:51.120 | So very early on, they get these messages.

00:04:53.600 | Like, girls can talk about it.

00:04:56.000 | Boys can't talk about it.

00:04:57.360 | I remember when my son was, he was a basketball player in high school, and he had, or this was

00:05:05.280 | in actually middle school, and in a practice, he got, you know, pushed down, and his arm was

00:05:09.360 | kind of like, not right.

00:05:10.800 | And, you know, everyone was like, get back up.

00:05:13.520 | Just get, it's fine.

00:05:14.640 | Well, his arm is like kind of hanging off, right?

00:05:17.440 | And so, you know, I was like, no, I think he needs to go to the ER.

00:05:20.960 | And of course, he was mortified that I said that.

00:05:24.000 | But in fact, he had broken his arm.

00:05:25.440 | So that's the difference.

00:05:27.920 | If a girl had fallen down and her arm was like that, people would say like, oh, why don't you

00:05:31.680 | get it checked out?

00:05:32.480 | So what happens when these people get into adult relationships, and this was what they were told

00:05:40.000 | about words and talking about things?

00:05:43.440 | You really see those differences.

00:05:45.040 | But the other thing I want to say about words is, women are brought up to think that whenever

00:05:50.480 | you have a feeling, you should share it.

00:05:51.840 | And my response to that is no.

00:05:54.880 | So, and people say, what do you mean you're a therapist?

00:05:58.160 | What do you mean don't share your feelings?

00:05:59.680 | You don't need to share every thought or feeling that crosses your mind unfiltered with your partner.

00:06:06.800 | That is not healthy communication.

00:06:09.120 | Healthy communication means we have filters.

00:06:11.760 | And we get to think about, and we call it mentalizing, how will what I'm about to say

00:06:17.840 | land on the other person?

00:06:19.840 | It's not like you're regurgitating all of your thoughts onto the other person.

00:06:23.440 | They're just supposed to deal with them.

00:06:25.600 | It's about relationally thinking, how will this person respond to that?

00:06:31.440 | Not like you have to take care of their feelings, but is it kind?

00:06:35.040 | Is it true?

00:06:35.840 | Is it useful?

00:06:36.800 | Does it meet those three criteria?

00:06:38.960 | And if it doesn't, why am I talking?

00:06:42.960 | Why am I sharing this?

00:06:44.720 | You said it, not me.

00:06:50.880 | But I'll wager a theory, that I think that some people, when they feel something,

00:06:55.920 | the kind of relief that comes from evacuating that feeling, or trying to evacuate it with words,

00:07:06.640 | feels reflexively better to them than sitting with it internally.

00:07:13.760 | Right.

00:07:14.320 | So I think people, when they feel an emotion, I think sometimes they feel like if they just

00:07:18.400 | talk about it or evacuate it, then it's like they get rid of it, but they forget that it has an impact.

00:07:24.960 | Yes, yes.

00:07:25.840 | And what you're talking about is projective identification.

00:07:29.120 | So projection, right, is when you're feeling angry about something.

00:07:35.200 | Say you had like, your boss did something to you at work, and they upset you in some way,

00:07:40.560 | or they were unkind, and you're angry about, or they're going to make you work all night,

00:07:46.240 | and you're really pissed about that, right?

00:07:47.680 | So you're angry, so you come home, and you end up yelling at your partner, right?

00:07:54.800 | So you're projecting, you're really mad at your boss, but all of a sudden you're like yelling at

00:07:59.920 | your partner, you're angry at your partner.

00:08:01.200 | That's projection, you're projecting one feeling about someone onto a different person

00:08:06.800 | that had nothing to do with the situation.

00:08:08.880 | Projective identification is a psychological process where you actually insert your feeling

00:08:14.240 | into the other person.

00:08:15.680 | So you're angry about something that happened at work.

00:08:18.400 | It's not that you are now angry at your partner, it's that you make your partner angry.

00:08:23.600 | It's like a hot potato.

00:08:24.480 | Like you take your feelings, and you toss them to someone else because you can't tolerate

00:08:29.520 | the discomfort of that feeling.

00:08:31.120 | So I don't want to deal with the feeling, so I'm going to say something to you that's going to make

00:08:35.600 | you angry, right?

00:08:36.960 | And now they have to hold all the anger.

00:08:38.800 | You feel great.

00:08:40.160 | You're fine because you're not holding the anger anymore.

00:08:43.120 | And now they're the ones who can't sleep.

00:08:44.560 | They're the ones who are upset.

00:08:45.680 | They're the ones who have to deal with what you couldn't tolerate.

00:08:48.160 | So, again, we have to think about, you know, do we need to, like, why are we saying what

00:08:54.320 | we're saying?

00:08:55.280 | Can we be more intentional about how we communicate?

00:08:57.840 | Which doesn't mean you have to walk through a minefield.

00:09:00.800 | It just means that you have to be more aware of your feeling state and owning your feeling

00:09:06.400 | state and making sure that you aren't using other people in your environment to release

00:09:11.760 | your feeling state to something else.

00:09:13.680 | that you need to learn how you can shift your own feeling state to one that feels better for you.

00:09:19.120 | I love that.

00:09:20.800 | I realized recently that thinking is something that we can practice.

00:09:28.800 | For all the tools and protocols that, you know, talked about on this podcast and elsewhere, you

00:09:36.160 | know, like physiological size and morning sunlight and working out and zone two cardio and cold.

00:09:43.280 | And, you know, all the things I realized recently, like spending five minutes just

00:09:50.480 | thinking about something and really trying to work through it linearly, like a challenge, like a life

00:09:57.280 | challenge, is so valuable.

00:09:58.880 | And I didn't come up with this on my own.

00:10:02.320 | I now have a practice of, like, when something feels irritating or activating, I'll just, like,

00:10:07.520 | stop, put everything away and just sit and think, like, what's going on here?

00:10:11.600 | And inevitably, there's some, like, some growth in understanding at the end of that.

00:10:16.880 | But it's hard work, like, to think, like, what's going on here?

00:10:20.480 | Am I activated because it's, like, true?

00:10:23.200 | Am I activated because it's false?

00:10:24.560 | Mm-hmm.

00:10:25.040 | Am I, you know, like, having to sort all that, you might think, well, who has the time for this?

00:10:28.800 | But actually, I would argue you don't have the time to not do it.

00:10:31.440 | I think that's the difference between reacting and responding.

00:10:34.400 | So often what we do is we react to something.

00:10:36.880 | And that's not processed, not thought through.

00:10:40.320 | And again, it doesn't have to take, like you're saying, it doesn't have to take a long time to just even count to five and breathe and see, you know, because reacting, reacting means acting again.

00:10:52.800 | So you are normally, when you're reacting, and it's like that zero to 60, you're acting on something that happened in the past, and you're layering it on to whatever's happening in the present.

00:11:03.680 | So you're having a big reaction to something, we like to say if it's historical, if it's hysterical, it's historical, meaning if you're, and by hysterical, I mean if you're having a big reaction, there's probably something from your past, some reaction that is visceral to you that you're having, that is getting layered on to this current situation, experience, problem, and you don't realize it.

00:11:27.200 | So that's reacting, you're acting again, you're acting on something that happened in the past, if it's hysterical, it's historical.

00:11:32.300 | Responding is, I'm going to take a breath, I'm having a big reaction, I'm going to sit for a minute, again, regulating your nervous system, and now I can kind of think about this differently.

00:11:44.680 | So we need space between, you know, there's that famous Viktor Frankl quote of, you know, between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space lies our choice and our freedom, that's a paraphrase of it.

00:11:57.200 | But you need that space between the stimulus, whatever the thing is that activated you, and your response.

00:12:04.420 | So that's the difference between reacting and responding.

00:12:07.320 | So that's the difference between reacting and responding.

How Men & Women Express Emotions | Lori Gottlieb & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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