Embrace who you really are. Authenticity, what the fuck does it even mean? You're like me, you get confused by these trendy words. This will be the episode for you. Welcome to The Meaningful Shit Show with your host Vincent. In a world full of selfishness, blaming and scapegoating, Vincent aims to inspire inner work with deep topics and insights on emotion regulation. Personal development, psychology, philosophy, and the trauma growth healing process.

Let me start with a quote. To be an interesting actor, you must be authentic. For you to ever be authentic, you must embrace who you really are. Do you have any idea how liberating it is to not care about what people think about you? Well, that's what we're here to do. And this is by Sanford Meisner of the Meisner Technique Studio. Before I get started, and I'll tell you guys a little bit more about Sanford Meisner later, I just wanted to check in on the word authenticity.

And I checked on Google Trends. It's actually never been as trendy as it is now, which is a little surprising to me. I thought we were like sort of over the hump. But we get told to be authentic, think authentic, act authentic, all these things. But as I started this episode with, what the fuck does that even mean? If you know what it means, likely you are not watching this episode.

Maybe you have a very strong internal compass and you know what is authentically yours and there's not a shadow of doubt ever. But I think there's a lot of me who require tools and techniques to figure out what we are feeling authentically. It doesn't automatically appear in our awareness. We have to do some mindfulness exercises. We have to train ourselves to listen what our mind and body is saying, and not immediately jump to the next step ahead.

We're going to explore that in this episode. I will tell you what authenticity means to me without having done a lot of theoretical research behind it, what the latest psychologist's journal says about that. But to me, it means first and foremost that you feel authentic. In other words, that you experience your feelings in an authentic way. So you feel how you feel. You're not denying your feels.

You're not trying to feel feels that you're not feeling. Very straightforward. Or feel guilty about feeling them or not feeling them or etc. Just being real with yourself and being aware what's coming up for you. Sounds pretty simple, right? But I can't stress enough how it seems simple, but that is actually very hard for most of us because we skip a step. We so much so quickly go from the emotion to an action urge doing something, especially when it comes to interacting with another individual into personal effectiveness.

Especially if I talk or think about men, oftentimes men have two emotions. They're okay or they're upset, you know, and there's not a lot of resolution there, and that doesn't really help for you to know what you're authentically feeling. There's many shades of upset, and oftentimes upset is not really what you feel. There's something underneath. So you've jumped ahead to upset or you've just labeled it upset because you don't know exactly what's going on.

Actually, I see that a lot in my episode. I talked about addiction, the people that I've worked with in context of addiction. That's oftentimes the men that I see that are least aware of the spectrum of their emotions. One of the tools that I have come across in my acting career that I have found incredibly important to hone on what is authentically true for me, which again, as I said, step one of acting authentically is first feel how you feel about that.

Like I said, came through an acting technique, which was powered by a technique or an acting exercise that's part of a technique created by Sanford Meisner, who was with us in 1905 and he passed away in 1997. He's an American actor and acting teacher who developed an approach to acting instruction. There's much more to the technique. But we're really focusing on a specific element of that, and that is the repetitions.

So actors use a repetition exercise to help them focus on the emotions over the words themselves. That's a little complicated, or maybe it's not complicated, it's straightforward, but it doesn't describe it in that much detail. So I'm going to go into that in more detail, what that repetition exercise would look like, and what are the rules of engagement. Other things that come up when talking about the Meisner technique is a focus on others.

Actors are encouraged to focus on their scene partners and the immediate environment rather than their own thoughts and their own feelings. So, highly interactive. Improvisation, actors are encouraged to be spontaneous and limit their thinking. And this applies to the repetitions exercise as well. This exercise is oftentimes used both outside of the play and inside of the play as is called, outside of the play to like emotionally ground yourself, to you as a person know what's going on for you.

And in the world of the play, you can do the same repetitions exercise for the character that you're playing. I have much more to say about, in this case, method acting, a specific type of acting, that which is the school that I follow and have experience in. But this episode would be too long if I go into that in this right now. Plus, it's a very experiential thing, so it's really hard to just talk theory about these things, which actually is going to be a challenge for this exercise as well.

I learned this in the acting class I go to at Margie Haber Studios. I've worked with the talented Iman Nazemzadeh, and it took me about four weeks to finally get what this is really about. And that's after knowing the theory, but mainly just experiencing it experientially. It's very uncomfortable. So this is an exercise where you and your scene partner, to people in your class or a random other people, a person, stand across from each other.

Generally, you're pretty locked in, you're looking at each other, and you're having a very direct conversation, or it's not conversation, it's just exchanging feelings. So there's no storytelling. This might be a semi-stranger that you're talking to. Maybe you've seen the person once or twice, but you don't really know that much about them. You're keeping eye contact throughout. You're trying to not filter whatever is going on for you.

So that means that you would say things to that person that in normal parlance is not really accepted. And they do that to you. So you have to deal with that, of someone doing something to you. That's very uncomfortable to maintain. Don't have to, but generally, you maintain eye contact. You observe, right? So an example is, we have two people standing across from each other, an A and a B.

Let's get started. Let's see what we can do with this. So, person A, I am happy to see. Person B, you are happy to see me. Person A, I am happy to see. B, I am annoyed with you. Something changed, so now I'm going into meta-communication here. So, what we've seen is normally would you just, whatever came up, person A was happy to see the other person.

You repeat that a number of times. Something else might come up. For person B in this case is annoyed with person A. So, person A, you are annoyed with me. B, I am annoyed with you. A, I don't like that. B, you don't like that. A, I don't like that. B, you don't like that. A, I don't like that. B, you don't like that. A, I don't like that.

B, I feel guilty. A, you feel guilty. B, I feel guilty. A, you feel guilty. B, I feel guilty. I think I messed it up there. A, I feel defensive. B, you feel defensive. A, I'm feeling disconnected. B, you are feeling disconnected. A, I want to connect. B, you want to connect. A, I want to connect. B, I don't believe you. Et cetera. So what I tried to do is, of course, I related this to my experiences, what I've actually seen happen in real life in this exercise, that generally there's some kind of emotional journey that you go through.

You're still two people, so you're still trying generally in these situations, what do you do with the different human that you're staring right into the eyes. Generally, you want to create some kind of vibe or connection. That's what we humans naturally do, and sometimes that connection doesn't come, and then we're uncomfortable, and then we don't really want to do it. And that's exactly the interesting part of this repetitions exercise, because you have to deal with that situation.

That's the situation in real life, we would go and do something else, we would look away, we would think, okay, well, that's rude, or we would leave, or like whatever. In this situation, you get to sit in that. You get to deal with that. You get to be really, really, really, really uncomfortable until the teacher finally tells you that it's time to sit down. Like I said before, you don't go into story form.

So for example, you could say, I don't know what that means, but you don't say, I'm confused because you stay on the primary. You first have to not know what something means before you're confused. Right? So you're trying to stay as basic as possible, which is what we normally don't do, that normally just sort of like flies by. We're interested in the result or we're interested in the action urge that comes from that.

In this case, it's different. So I really see that as an exercise in authenticity. Although this is a setting that is focused on acting, and we are talking about real life, you can of course think about the fact that there are so many parallels between acting and real life. And that requires diving into the different acting techniques that are there, because there are acting techniques that definitely are not like real life.

But the school that I follow and go to focuses a lot on making as much real as possible. You're not showing emotions, you're feeling those emotions. You create a situation where you're creating false memories. But the memories, in a way, all memories are false, right? I mean, they happened, you know, that you have a father, a mother, etc, etc. But the memories are incomplete and like sort of a summary.

So in the process of acting, you can create memories that are sufficiently vibrant to pass as real memories so that it evokes emotions, which is one of the greatest things of our brains. If we're really detailed about a situation, we imagine how we feel. And if you look at the neuroscience, there's no distinction between imagining it and being in that situation. It's the same.

We run in the same type of, like, simulation mode. But it's a little bit too deep for this episode right now. So, so this repetitions exercise is an exercise in authenticity, but it's more authentic than you could get away with in real life. Because it's without any filter, directly putting words to the feelings that arise to you. So this is something that we do very rarely.

Maybe when you have a meditation practice, that you really focus on being aware of thoughts and feelings, naming them and then letting them go. And in a way, this is very similar, right? Because you're not just overloading your brain with reasoning, a thing and a thing, the next thing and the next thing, but you're trying to slow everything down. Although the repetition exercise can be really fast, but relatively speaking, slowing things down and not going into story mode, into explaining mode, etc., etc.

Some of the key sentences that I hear coming by in such an exercise that are quite different from real life, they would be offensive in real life. The example that I gave of I didn't believe that, right? In real life, if you don't believe something that someone tells you, you approach that in a different way. Instead of just saying the first thing that pops into your head, like a toddler or something like that, you think about who am I talking to?

What's the relationship that I have with that person? Do they have a precedent of lying? Like why do I think that they're lying? Or maybe they're not lying, but they're mistaken or something like that. Why is that? And then, what is polite? What is proper to say? Again, in relation to the relationship that you have with that person. So, there's like all this stuff going on before that pre-processing, in a way, before you say the next thing.

You don't believe something you could decide to not really do that much with that. You might not believe that the Starbucks barista wants you to have a great day or something like that. But there's no point in that context of saying that. That would be rude and against our societal norms. Another sentence that I hear a lot is, I didn't like that. You generally don't say, I didn't like that in reaction to something that someone did directly.

Why is that? It can feel to that person like they did something wrong. Although what all they could do is maybe mirror some of the things that you said. And maybe if you hear them reflected back to you, you decide, I didn't like that. But usually when that thought comes up, we generally, when I imagine that I feel it somewhere in my body, this like twinge of like, hey, this is, I don't like that.

And then I go to the next step, because then I analyze, why didn't I like that? What did they say? Does it relate to something that I said earlier? Et cetera, et cetera. So, but it is important to first spot and slow down, more about that later, the fact that you didn't like it and not go to the next thing immediately. I don't know what to say.

That's maybe something that's more acceptable to say in real life. There are situations that that applies. But that isn't said that much. And if you are just silent in certain situations, the person that you're having a conversation with or argument or whatever, they don't really know what's going on for you. Like, is he holding back an anger, like whatever. But sometimes, I don't know what to say can give that person an indication of what's going on.

Right. And it's a very raw primary thing. I don't know what to say. There's not a lot of deeper thinking that comes to that. Usually, what we would say in real life is I'm confused, but that already comes with more connotations. We could also say is I don't understand, which is more similar, or I don't know what that means. That's more similar than what you would do in real life.

In the repetitions exercise, the downside is that the other person can't explain more about that later, because you're staying away from narratives, you're staying away from storytelling. I'm trying to do it right, something that comes up for me a lot, because it's an exercise, right? There's a right way to do it, and there's a wrong way to do it. Sometimes what comes to the forefront for me is that I'm just trying to do it right, which is kind of like not the point, because if I'm trying to do something right, guess what?

I'm in my head, and we don't want that. I want to explain is another one that I often hear, which of course is a response to someone not knowing what that means, et cetera, et cetera. It's interesting in that situation that you do not have the tool of language, or explaining, I should say, to go further than that, which is really interesting as a type of uncomfortableness to sit in as well.

Let's say that you made a comment about a Meisner technique or the repetitions exercise also focuses on saying things about your surroundings or the person in front of you. You have beautiful eyes. I like your hair. I like your outfit, cute shoes, whatever, like an observation. But you can say something that doesn't sit right. A person can be offended. And you can get an I didn't like that or I'm offended.

It's too bad at that moment that you can't explain. But staying with that desire that I want to explain is again very useful because that's the most primary thing. You want to maybe explain, maybe defend yourself, maybe use language to make it all right. And sometimes you can't. And oftentimes a response to a I want to explain, you want to explain, I want to explain, you want to explain isn't, it's okay.

So even just the desire to explain without the actual explanation shows your intent, and that has an effect on the person you're doing the exercise with. Another one is I'm curious, which generally is the polar opposite of I want to explain. If someone just says, I'm sad, you could go in the direction of I don't want you to be sad, which is not really a feeling, or that you're sad about that too.

Or I'm curious, indicating you want to know more. I'm curious, or I want to know more, or I want to help. So this is what I often hear women doing this exercise. There's a lot, you see the caregiving showing up, which is really interesting. It's really interesting to see just that primary reaction again, that the desire to help, regardless of what that help exactly is, that could be comforting, that could be like actual problem-solving, you know, you can just sit in it with someone.

But the root of that stuff is all the same, and that is the desire of I see a human, that fellow human that is suffering or it's going through discomfort, and I want to help. The Dutch say, I'm Dutch, and I grew up in the Netherlands. The Dutch say, shared suffering is half the suffering. So, you know, that's what that reminds me of. And then the final one that's directly from my story line is, I'm so fucking uncomfortable.

The story behind that is that as I was learning this technique, and I'm still very much learning it, my brain still wants to skip steps. My true state is I was in that exercise being fucking uncomfortable, but my brain does a thing of I'm uncomfortable, but I'm here for a reason, as in I'm uncomfortable, but I'm not wanting to run away. I am growing, I'm learning somehow.

Growth learning, that's good. Oh, I like this. I like this. In a sort of mental gymnastics way, it's the same thing as you're hurting when you're working out, or you're sore from working out, or something like that, or you're very uncomfortable under a very heavy back squat. It is, the primary thing is pain or discomfort, but you actually change your relationship to it because you know that it does something for you.

But that's not what we do in this repetitions exercise. It forgoes the fact that you are actually fucking uncomfortable. And in this situation, they encourage you as well to show that with your body. So I was like jumping up and down, yelling that I was so fucking uncomfortable. And then, you know, my poor scene partner has the mirror of that. It was really funny. And of course, it switched from I'm so fucking uncomfortable to like laughing.

Generally, oftentimes, when you're both doing the same thing, you don't really say, I am laughing. You're just saying, you're exchanging laughing, laughing, laughing, laughing, because that explains what's going on. I'm sure that this depends from teacher to teacher. You might say this cool story, bro. I don't get it, or I do get it, or I think I theoretically get it. But I can promise you that you don't get it, unless you've done it before, because you have to do it in order to do it.

And you kind of need two people to do that. And it's great to do that with another person who's never done it and like explore it. But it's of course even better to do it with a teacher. And so the call to action there is what I would say to fault. You can go in YouTube, find some examples of this technique. So Meisner technique, repetitions that are very old from back in the day when Meisner himself was still around.

Not that it's that by long ago. And also newer from newer acting studios that showcase that. I'm going to connect this back to authenticity and handling in an authentic way in a little bit. So, summarizing thing is that we don't stay generally in real life with the first thing that arises, we shortcut to the next thing. And sometimes that's like 10 things down the road, which is in the situation when we want to really feel authentically what our feelings are, it can be really advantageous to slow that process the far down.

I really like this exercise from therapeutic purposes or perspective as well. As humans, we love being mirrored. We feel seen, we can feel seen in these situations. So it's actually something that's quite nice to go through. And I think it's quite interesting to do with someone you have a more direct relationship with as well in real life. Like a romantic partner, someone you're dating, a sibling, parent.

It depends, of course, on the relationship. So especially people that are creative and amenable to something like that. I would try it out. It feels really raw, and that can be really good. In general, just at lunch with an acting friend of mine, and she describes it as acting, we get trained to take everything on. Like just go to the raw basics and communicate the raw basics in whatever way that comes to us.

Where in real life, you put that armor back on. So what's the takeaway here? I've talked about an acting exercise that allows you to be more mindful in the present, see what emotions are rising up. How does that help embrace us who we really are? Part of it is, I think, self-evident. Because we have more resolution, we see ourselves clearer because we're slowing down. So how does it change our behavior?

Well, now, I actually can connect to a couple of episodes that I've already shot. I think that being authentic is acting in accordance to how you truly feel and how you feel about how you feel. So meta-feel, which obviously requires you to know how you feel in the first place, to recognize that feeling, and also how you feel about those feelings. Sometimes that can take a little bit of time and reflection.

And sometimes that really directly connects to your values and beliefs, which I have talked about in the past. Especially values can be really, really important because they guide what you want to do with a thought or a feeling. I've said feeling so far, but you can interchange that for thought here. It's important to make the distinction between not just the thought that you're having or the feeling that you're having, but also your meta feeling.

Because of course, being authentic is not acting on every random thought that you have. I'm sure that this is relatable, but sometimes your brain just comes up with something that's clearly, yes, it's a possibility, but it's really a bad idea. Either from a perspective for yourself, and sometimes your brain, I think, how it works, is that your brain automatically imagines a situation to see how it feels.

Like if you get to a situation where there's a hot stove, stove, or a steep drop or something like that, you get a thought about touching the stove, or jumping in the crafers or something like that. And partially the reason that I think that, I don't know any of this, but my experience is that we do that regardless, constantly in the background, but only the things that create this emotional flair come to our attention.

Like if we are in imagining something that has like a strong emotional reaction, and that's also the reason that those weird ass thoughts, those are the ones that we notice, because then we get an emotional trigger of, oh yeah, that would be a really, really bad idea. So you do have to take that into consideration, and how do you take that into consideration best? I already mentioned it, but it's slowing down.

But before we get there, I think what's also important to underline is that being authentic to yourself is paramount. So all these filters and rationalizations and like whatever, for yourself are not necessary in most situations. Look, you might have some kind of like mental systems in your head that are actually useful and you don't want to say goodbye to them yet. Just like the example that I just gave is that I deal with, I still deal with some uncomfortable situations by focusing on the carrot, that I, you know, from the stick and the carrot to the reward that I get towards the end, which is an effective strategy to get to the end.

This is the way that I can weight lift. This is the way that I can run marathons, right? So there's nothing wrong with that, especially, it depends all on the stage of development. You will hear me saying this over and over again. The stage or like where I am currently with these things was not where I was when I was 30 or when I was 25.

And there's a growth to that. I'm sure 10 years from now, I, you know, there's something else for me will be true. But I still feel like it's really important to acknowledge everything. Honor your sovereignty. Like you are sovereign being with your own perceptual bubble. And whatever you hold as true is, is true in your perception. You're fallible as well, but you're, you're sovereign. And it's important, I think, to keep that in the back of your head.

And like in the quote that I started the episode with, don't care about how others feel if you know it to be right for you. Like, be clear about the why why you're doing something. And that's one of the most important things is that we often get stopped from doing something that we know is true, because we are imagining how it will be to deal with excommunication, or that's very extreme, but like we are afraid to be rejected by the tribe, right?

That's why we have things like guilt and shame, so that we stay connected to the tribe. So if you do something that will disconnect you from the tribe, like your brain is very much focused on warning you, don't do that, because you're going to be alone in the forest, in the cold, and you're going to die. So that's the reason that we don't do that. That doesn't apply in all or most situations, in most situations, I should say, definitely not all.

There's a secondary part, and that is about the others. So being authentic to others is secondary. So that means that you don't always, without filtering, spit everything out that comes to mind, which is very reversed from the technique that I just talked about. So I think that it's very important to, in non-acting settings, in non-exercise settings, to feel those primary things coming up. So the not liking some something, the primary not liking something, even if it's about something you just did yourself, right, to notice that feeling or that thought coming up.

How you relate to others actually comes down to my boundaries episode. Boundaries are inspired by values, so I recommend you check that out. So boundaries, you set boundaries to have consequences if people cross your borders basically. So boundaries are not there for to change people's behaviors, but it's for you to know, okay, when that boundary is crossed, this is going to be the consequence and be clear about that.

You can communicate boundaries, it's recommended to communicate boundaries, but in some situations, boundaries cannot be communicated because that would have an adverse effect. But again, check out the episode on boundaries for more information on that. Also, interpersonal effectiveness. So remember my episode where I go to interpersonal effectiveness, or yeah, is it called interpersonal effectiveness? I believe that's the name of the episode. Where whenever you're interacting with a person, you look at three different pillars or legs of the stool, I believe I called them, which is objectives.

What is the objective that I'm trying to achieve by having this interaction, which is very important to actually think about that, especially if emotions start arising. What is the relationship to the person? How important is that relationship? And am I willing to forgo some of my objectives to preserve the relationship? And self-respect is the third one. So self-respect is something that I have to sacrifice for this relationship.

Does it interfere with my self-respect? Which, you know, can happen. I'm sure that all of us can remember an interaction with a family member, where we got to choose between respecting ourselves and preserving the relationship with that family member. Maybe a racist uncle, maybe, you know, whatever it is, calling them out on the Thanksgiving dinner. So being authentic to others is to be seen through the lens of interpersonal effectiveness.

Because you want to be true to the feeling that arises to you, but also be clear on what you want to achieve in the world with that feeling that arises for you. If it's this gust for your racist uncle, who is cracking some kind of racist joke at Thanksgiving dinner, it can be really important to look at these different legs of the stool. What is your objective here?

Why are you here at this dinner? Maybe an objective that is coming up at that moment is, oh, my uncle is wrong, or he's bad, or he's a racist, and racism is bad, and like all these things, and all these things can be completely valid. Right. Question is, if you can actually meet that objective, meet that objective while preserving the relationship, you might not even be able to meet the specific objective, and you can also question the objective, like why is it my role to correct this right?

If there's something in your values, and then it comes down to the self-respect again, where speaking truth to injustice is very essential to you, relationship be damned, things giving the dinner be damned, you can act on it. There's nothing wrong with creating a stink with the racist uncle, per se. You can do that. Again, if it's effective, is it effective for you? Is it effective for the people around you?

That is the question in a situation like that. Which is quite different from just saying what comes up. And again, you can maybe find different ways of still keeping yourself respect. So for example, in the situation of the racist uncle, you have a boundary, which is once that moment of the night begins, where he's had too many to drink, and that direction, the conversation goes in that direction, you politely get up, excuse yourself, and you go to the other room.

I'm not saying that that's the right thing to do. I'm not recommending you do that. I'm not recommending you call him out. Like that's all neutral, that depends. But all of these scenarios above can all be authentic. It can be along the lines of your value that you're wanting to speak truth to injustice, or to racism, or like whatever. But you can have another value that family is important.

You are at that Thanksgiving dinner after all. Like if you didn't care about family, why would you be there in the first place? So there's different values at play. Those values, your values are all authentic. You've chosen them. So that's more where you approach these decisions from. First is just these random thoughts that come up. Those thoughts are valid. They need to be acknowledged. They're your friends in a way.

You can also relate to them as the thoughts, not your thoughts, because they kind of come to you. They're not really yours, but that depends on how you relate to it. So I think that the second part of what I've explained here is quite different from the first part, where the first part is like super, super inclusive. And even like if I go through that exercise that I was talking about, it's super direct, it's super like expressing everything.

But if it comes to like being authentic, living authentic life in the real world, there's like two things that I would want to add that are very important. So it's the stop skill, where the S stands for stop, the T stands for take a breath, the O stands for observe, and P stands for proceed mindfully. What you're doing there is you're creating a break, you're creating a pause, and that pause is there exactly to go through the process that we've just identified.

It allows us to take stock of what is happening in our body, what is happening, what are thoughts, what are the emotions that are coming up? Am I feeling anger and feeling fear? Like what am I feeling? How does it relate to the situation that I'm in? What can I do with these situations, given the objectives that I have? Given the fact that we want to be effective in life.

I think that being effective is more important than being truthful. Wait before you judge me. Largely because we only know our personal truth. We don't necessarily know the truth. This is a little bit of a metaphysical point. You might relate to truth in a way. It's like, oh no, I know the truth because I read this study, and that is not how the brain works, racist uncle or racist uncle.

That is not how this politician that you're voting for, blah, blah, blah, etc. And from a certain point of view, yes, these are facts, but also see them that they're super-colored by personal perspective. You can deconstruct them in many different ways. So the way that I relate to truth is that I am not the arbiter of truth. I know my personal truth. I need to speak, that's my authenticity.

I need to speak to that. Knowing that I can't possibly know that that is true for everyone. And ultimately, it's also not my job. I have accepted it to not be my job to create, or to correct people that do not buy into my relative truth. What I buy into is acting in a way that is effective to achieve my values. Because if I just go, truth could be one of my values, and then the story is completely different.

The second thing that I want to mention is a quote by Viktor Frankl from his book, Man's Search for Meaning. Between stimulus and response, there is a pause. Within that pause lies our freedom. Exact same thing. So if we go a little bit mad out here, there is feeling your feelings, acknowledging them, being authentic in that way. It's being authentic by knowing your values, knowing your feelings, knowing how you feel about those feelings, and skillfully going through actions.

Then there's also from a meta perspective, the practice of feeding the thoughts that are in line with your values and starving those that don't. How do you know which thoughts you want to feed? How much, which thoughts you want to put time into? And which thoughts you really kind of like want to let go? It's quite interesting, because how do you know if a thought is useful or not?

Let's say that you're worried about the political climate, or you're worried about the stock market, or you're worried about the health of your child. And you can't stop thinking about that. Is that good? Is that bad? Like, who's to say? But oftentimes, there is more of a distinction that you can make. So I think it helps you're living authentically by concentrating your efforts to also influence your thought process, to influence your associations in such a way that you have less of an energy drain, an energy leak.

So that's a meta point, something that you can take away beyond just feeling authentically and being authentically. It's also like the meta process of redefining what your authentic experience of your feelings is. Because although feelings just come to us, we can decide, if we have that random violent thought, how much time we're going to spend obsessing about that, or worried thought, or something like that. To a certain extent.

And if this is something that's really hard for you, or complicated, I do recommend seeking help for that, because working with a therapist for those things can be absolutely great. There's only so much you can get from a person who is unlicensed and just passionate about this stuff. And the second thing I would say as well, is being aware of your own triggers. So in DBT we call them vulnerability factors.

Are you vulnerable to politics? Are you vulnerable to being disrespected? Or do you need to be respected? Do you need to be liked? Are you vulnerable to disappointing people? Are you vulnerable if people are speaking falsehood from your perspective? What is the thing that really gets you going and can allow yourself to blow past that pause that you're trying to take? So it can be actually really, really important to flag those things.

Because especially in those situations, you want to take that break. You want to be able to spot that, to really feel what that is doing to you. And really know that there is no... That action urge that comes with that emotion is optional. The emotion is what the emotion is, the thought or feeling. Don't repress that, don't like whatever, acknowledge that, all important. But the action urge that comes with it is not necessarily something that should be acted upon.

It should be reflected on. That's absolutely true. Again, this comes to the effectiveness. But we are living in a complicated world with like lots of people, and we need to be, like a better word, political in the way that we interact with different people. Which might not feel authentic, but my stance or what my position right now is, is that it is authentic. Because what authenticity is, is living according to your values, ultimately.

Not living according to your random ass thoughts that just pop up in the moment. And that's what I would want to close out with. And I hope that this was as interesting to you as it is to me. I hope this exercise speaks to you. Thanks for tuning in and love to see you next time. And this has been Vincent for The Meaningful Sh!t Show. Catch you later.