Understanding Emotional Avoidance and Embracing Vulnerability

0:00 Hello and welcome to Real Men Feel and welcome to 2025. I'm your host, author, coach and healer, Andy Grant. You can visit theandygrant.com to learn more about me. Real Men Feel reminds men that they're human beings and that they have the right to experience and express all of their emotions. We have conversations that most men are not having, but that all men benefit from. My guest today is Doctor Michelle Maidenberg. Doctor Maidenberg maintains a private practice in New York, is on the adjunct faculty of NYU, and is the award-winning author of Ace Your Life. Unleash Your Best Self and Live the Life You Want. Michelle leads us on a master class on emotional avoidance. While we all do it and what we do that makes it even worse. But fear not, she also shares her ACE methodology which is acceptance, compassion and empowerment that allows us to connect with our core values and live our best life. Michelle also tells us what she wishes more men knew. The only thing that New Year's is good for, and two powerful questions to get to the root of any issue. Let's do it.

1:03 Hello, Michelle, and welcome to Room and Feel and welcome to 2025. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you and let's just jump right into it. And I have. Let's start with what is emotional avoidance? Good question. Unfortunately, because of our human nature, we're all victim to it. So if you think about it, our brain, you know, our neurobiology, we're wired to avoid discomfort and our brain is always trying to provide safety. So when we say discomfort, that includes negative emotions. And what are negative emotions? And I don't like to actually call them negative emotions because no emotions, there's a place and a benefit to every single emotion.

1:47 You know, we're not kids in a candy store and we can't decide what emotions we're going to decide to have when, you know, And it, it was so interesting. I was talking just I'll, I'll kind of throw this in because it was, it was so fascinating. I was talking yesterday to a young woman who recently had a breakup and she was devastated because this guy broke up with her was unexpected. She felt, you know, of course, self-confidence, you know, got in the way that it was something she, you know, she was kind of perseverating over like why it happened and was it her fault and is she not good enough? And all the lovely things that happened when there's ruptures in our relationships. And she said to me, she said, you know, I'm thinking back of all these things that happened within our relationship. And I recognize that I think he was a little bit like emotionally abusive and I think like even verbally abusive. And I said, why do you say that?

2:42 And she was giving me examples. She was saying to me, oh, like when we were talking, when I, when I expressed that I was hurt or sad or frustrated or whatever the case is, he would tell me that I had no right to feel that way. And he would tell me to get the thoughts out of my mind and everything. And I said, wow, you know, try to do that right now. Try to get the thoughts out of your minds, you know, 'cause wait, there must be something wrong with you. Because you shouldn't be worried and you shouldn't be frustrated and you shouldn't be angry and disappointed and all those great feelings. And she was like, what do you mean? I said, try to get it out of your mind. I'm going to give you a word, OK, I'm going to give you a word right now. What's your favorite food? And she was like, you know, chocolate.

3:23 And it was like, OK, get the word chocolate out of your mind right now. Get, get the image of chocolate, the smell of chocolate, like getting out of your mind right this minute. And she was like, she started laughing. I said, what's happening in your mind as I'm saying this to you? And I said, as you're trying to forget it, your mind is remembering it in order to forget it. And if I came back to you in two weeks from now and I said to you, what is that food that we talked about? You're going to say chocolate and you'll remember it for months and months and months. So it doesn't work that way. We can't get thoughts out of our mind. And I always tell people every thought and feeling completely OK behavior not so OK.

4:04 So emotional avoidance in general, you know, the crux of it. If we were to summarize, it's avoiding negative emotions because they're. Uncomfortable and is emotional avoidance distancing ourselves from our own emotions and other people's? Both, both, you know, both because if you think about it, you know, when you experience, you know what what happens is we judge our thoughts and feelings. So it's, it's the feelings in and of themselves that we have that are uncomfortable. And then we go into this whole spiral about judging our thoughts and feelings. Why do I still miss him? What's wrong with me? He mistreated me.

4:44 I shouldn't be feeling this way. So it's, it's the fundamental feelings that come up initially. And then it's judging the thoughts and feelings and then having thoughts and feelings about judging the thoughts and feelings. So we go down like this. Yeah. And and it doesn't end. And then what ends up happening, which is also so interesting, is we respond to the thoughts and feelings. Oh, I, yeah, I shouldn't, it's, it's three months already. I shouldn't be feeling that way. Oh, but maybe I have a right to because like, he really hurt me. No, no, no. But I, you know, it's like we have this banter and then when we have the banter, it continues and continues. And I always tell people, you know, this is kind of a skill and a tool is when you have the thought and feeling instead of responding to it because your mind's going to kick in. The reason why it's not forgetting how distressed you are is so that you remember, so that you do not get yourself into a situation like that again. And I said, do you really want for your brain to have such little empathy and compassion and love for you that you forget it and then you get yourself into another relationship? How amazing that this beautiful organ in your mind is helping you and reminding you and it loves you so much that it's so insistent.

6:03 So yes, it's our relationship to ourselves, to others. It spans, you know, all over this universe. And that's, that's what's so powerful about it. If you think about in accordance to other people, right? If you're having a negative emotion, that's valuable 'cause if I'm getting triggered by you, let's say, or I'm getting triggered by something you said or did or whatever the case is, that's valuable information that I need to know. And I appreciate that because then I could communicate to you or decide not to. I could decide whether I want to be in a relationship with you and if it's healthy for me or not. I could decide what my core values are and whether it's aligning while being in this relationship with you. I need to know all that information. So the avoidance is really to avoid the discomfort of of some of our emotions and and the judgement that goes through with it as well.

6:54 Yes. Does it ever service beyond not feeling discomfort? Is is there ever a value to avoiding our emotions? So that's a really good question because it's, it's a little complicated. But what I'm going to say to that is there is a time and a place, OK, to use those like let's say distractions, right? Distractions, avoidance denial, right? Those are all kind of methodologies that we use in order to distance from our emotions and our minds play. I say they play mind tricks on us in order to distance from it because it's too painful. Now I could tell you I've learned about myself in the past number of years, which is fascinating to me. I didn't realize how much when I was a kid that I repressed my feelings.

7:44 I understand why, why I did it. It makes so much sense to me and it protected me and I, I literally like when I have like this distress, I say to myself, like I literally appreciate my mind and I talked to it. I'm like, thank you so much because I don't know how I would have gotten through some of the things I got through if my mind didn't do what it did. It was like an adaptation that like literally protected me in such a fundamental way. And it actually, you know, protected me up till like five years ago, let's say. Like literally, I was like astonished at how much I repressed and how that is so a default for me. Like I just go right there. I'm like an expert at it when I don't want to feel something or think it, you know, and distance from it. But it's also keeps you away from being your best self. That's the problem with it.

8:31 You're not your authentic self. You're you don't show up as your best self when you're doing those different methodologies. So there is a time and a place. So, you know, sometimes, like for example, we have such intense emotions. So I always ask people from zero to 10, how intense are you feeling your whatever emotions right now? When somebody's anxious and they're at A10, they're possessed, they're offline, literally. And I say you're offline, you can't think rationally right now. We don't want to step in when we're at A10. The whole point is we want to learn about ourselves so that we could get connected to ourselves when we're at A2 or A3. Much easier, much easier to transform at a two or three than when you're out of 10.

9:18 So when you're out of 10, you need to give yourself that time and space to get back online. It's sort of, you know, I use this kind of metaphor, but it's an interesting one. You're turning on your PC and you're sitting there and you want it like you're in a rush, right? You want to get to the different programs, right? Word and whatever else, and like you're clicking and clicking, right? But like nothing's going to happen as much as you want it to cause your computer has to warm up and it's going to be ready when it decides it's ready. Same sort of thing. That's our nervous system. Our nervous system is not going to be ready to focus and concentrate and be mindful and thoughtful and productive and problem solve when you're activated, when your nervous system is actually, it's just not going to happen.

10:05 It's literally I, I, I say you're possessed and. When someone's at A10 for any any intense emotion, what are some of the most common ways that that someone acts out in that state? Gosh, so many ways. Anger is a big, big, huge issue for many people. And when I say anger, I'm not talking about like being physically abusive because that's like, you know, to an extreme. I'm talking about yelling. I'm talking about saying, you know, saying things to people that you regret afterwards. Because like, you know, it happened to me this morning. I was possessed this morning, I have to tell you. But I called myself because somebody said that they were going to contact me last night, you know, and they said they were going to text me for us to talk or whatever and never happened.

10:51 OK? So I texted them this morning and I said like, again, so sarcastic, but like, it looked like it was really nice, you know? But I said, are you OK? I just want to find out. Are you OK? And they answered me. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much. Of course I'm great. How's your day? Right. And I'm sitting there like, they don't even remember. Like I gave them a hint and they're still not getting it. What? So then they so then I was like, oh, because, you know, we were supposed to speak last night. You were going to text me. I just thought, you know, maybe, you know, you were caught up or maybe, you know, whatever, you were busy or you forgot and I was waiting to see again. Are they going to redeem themselves? Right?

11:33 It's like a whole trick, right? They still didn't redeem themselves. They actually didn't respond. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, Oh no, I'm coming across as aggressive. And now they're flipping it on me. Like all these like things are streaming through my And I'm sitting there and I'm laughing at myself because I'm like, wow. So I said to myself, I am not being mindful right now. This is coming from an unkind, just compassionate place. Like the world does not revolve around you, OK. And you know, Ray, and not everyone's thinking 24/7 about your needs. And like, that's just not how the universe operates. Just because you're like that, 'cause I am like that, right?

12:17 And my expectation is everybody should be like me, which they're not, you know, and that it's always disappointing, like to find out the, the universe is not like me, you know? And I, and I, I stopped and I said, no, this is your brain, right? Protecting you. And just like you're flawed, so are other people. People forget and that's OK. And guess what? You don't need to be somebody's center of the universe, 'cause that's not realistic, right? And also having those expectations right only feeds into and strengthens the belief that they should be, and that's BS. So right away I caught it and I said to them, no worries.

12:58 Like, you know, I get it. Like, you know, things get in the way sometimes. Like I'm and I'm, I'm seeing them, you know, tomorrow I'm like, I'm so looking forward to us getting together. No big deal. You know, I, I get things get in the way sometimes. And I felt so proud of myself because I, I was like, I'm not strengthening that belief and I don't want to, and I want to be a compassionate person. Like I don't want to come off as aggressive and just compassionate. That's not who I am authentically. And I could have a conversation, you know, with a person if I really felt like they were, I don't know, you know, whatever, doing something egregious, which that person obviously wasn't. And then I also forgot, which is also what happens.

13:40 We get so possessed we forget everything else that they do all. The good things. Yeah, this is a person who literally like, well, like text me a few times a day. How are you thinking of you? What's up? I totally like Boom out of my mind. I forget all of that. How, how do you know when you're in the cycle of, of judging the emotional avoidance and discomfort and continuing the cycle versus, you know, the talking to yourself and thanking your brain and, and being able to laugh at it? What what? How does someone know when they made that difference? It's always about connecting to your values. When you're disconnected, OK, with your authentic self and the person you're meant to be and how you want to be, you're offline.

14:28 Like when I feel that, you know, I feel it in my body and that's what I help people connect to 'cause it's, it's a somatic thing that goes on in our body, right? It's a cognitive thing that goes on in our mind as well. So it misconstrues our thoughts rate, our feelings and our body sensations. And when you connect to that and you recognize that you could really make fundamental change. And it's incredible. It's incredible how that transformation takes place. But when I see that I'm offline and I recognize that I'm, it's coming from a surge. And you also have to know who you are. So I know that when I feel like I'm not heard or I'm my needs are not cared for, right? And it goes right into the neglect. It's like, like it swims right there. Like again, my radars go off and it's like, protect yourself, protect yourself.

15:18 You know, I know what it is because I know myself and I've done the work. And when I, when I connect to that, I automatically, right, I could kind of feel and see the aggression. And then I right away I asked myself a couple of questions. And these questions are magical. So I, I really, you know, I love them because they get us really right to the center of how we want to be. You know, am I asserting myself worse, right? Am I acting on behalf of my values and confidence? Those are questions that get us right to the matter in in an instant. And it really recalibrates us and it grounds us so that we could go to that space.

16:01 The men, Or maybe as a man, I see this more often. The men seem to get the the rap of being emotionally avoidant more so than women. Is is is that the case? Is this more prone for men? So, you know, it's interesting 'cause, you know, unfortunately we live in a culture which just the way it is, where men, it's not, you know, it's not masculine and it's not, you know, accepted that men are emotional. So not only do they have negative reactions to emotion when they see it in their partner or their kids sometime or whoever, they don't know what to do with it and they get like literally avoidant or fearful or etcetera. But they don't know what it is or what to do with it when it's within themselves.

16:48 And it becomes really scary. You know, what is this? Why is this happening to me? And it's also scary because not knowing how to handle it and fearful that they're going to actually, and this happens, I see relative to relationships that they're going to harm other people. Like I'm gonna say the wrong thing, I'm gonna do the wrong thing, I'm gonna act the wrong way. And that comes from actually a really thoughtful place and a caring place, which I love. And when you're. Able that that concern is proving to that man that he does have emotions and feelings. Exactly. It's so if you think about how distorted that is, right? So it's. It's getting to the center of what your core emotion is like where is your go to place, right? So mine tends to be anger and right where what is the foundation foundationally?

17:41 What's underneath that is sadness, right? But I don't feel comfortable with sadness. I feel more comfortable with anger, 'cause I know anger, oh, anger I'm good with, right? Where some other people, and especially men, men tend to be in this way too. Men tend to definitely gravitate more towards anger than sadness, right? And it's funny, 'cause growing up my closest friends were men, were boys, not women, I and I, I jive with guys because I get them in that way. The emotional part 'cause I'm somewhat like that. Yeah, you're wired similarly in that respect at least. Yes, so I get that and I don't like like drama.

18:22 I'm not like, I don't like drama. I don't like BS. I like getting to the core of things, you know, and I find men 10 you know, to be that way, right? It's it's like they're not caught up. They don't get caught up in this whole, but that's also a detriment. That's also a detriment because life is full of adversity, OK, for everyone, men, women alike, and particularly for men, there isn't a space by which to process and problem solve through and connect to. And that leads to like, like I said, just compassionate sometimes and a lack of mindful behavior. I was just talking to a guy yesterday. He said to me he was, he was, you know, talking to me about his divorce and he was telling me that, you know, it's kind of acquiring like, you know, what led to it or what got in the way for him and, and very successful person, etcetera. So he was telling me anger, that anger got in the way. And then he had outbursts and it didn't happen all the time, but it happened, you know, kind of infrequently. But when it did happen, it was out of 10, you know, I don't know exactly the intricacies of it. Like, and he claims there was no physical, you know, was is more verbal.

19:37 But he said that it was really, really intense and really aggressive, so much so that his daughter told him that she felt like so fearful that that she was going to drop at any time. And he said to me, he said, I've been depressed because I take responsibility, you know, I'm in recovery and I take responsibility that I harmed, you know, my ex-wife and my and my kids. And you know, it impacted negatively my relationships, you know, and I get depressed because I sit sometimes in my apartment and I think about like how my life is, you know, we talked about that. And he is having a hard time connecting to his self compassion and forgiving himself.

20:24 Not forgiving and forgetting, OK, but forgiving and making a better life for himself so that he could again heal those parts of him that allowed him to act out in those ways. And I said to him right away, I go, you didn't do that for no reason. I said there was there was some kind of trauma or something beneath that that caused you to get into that space. And he's of course, he said, yes, right. And I said, I am so happy that you're feeling as guilty as you do. And he was like, what, what are you talking about? I said, really, would you want to be like, oh, great, you know, I was aggressive and my family is upset at me and like, look what I did like is it? Would that be OK with you?

21:12 Well, that would say something about you. Your guilt is a wonderful thing because that means that you weren't your authentic self when you were behaving that way. How important is it that you're connecting to that? Because because your guilt is going to allow you to always remember that, and it's going to decrease the chances of recidivism that you will ever do that again. So embrace your guilt, embrace your regret. That is a beautiful thing about you. And he was like, wow, I never thought about it that way. Yeah, that that's powerful. That's a, that's a, a powerful switch for someone to make. What? So what are some other techniques for for managing or coping with those intense, you know, so-called negative emotions? Yeah, so that's what my whole book is about. So let's get into what Yeah, it's getting. It's getting through stuckness.

22:05 You know, my book is about getting through stuckness. And I talk about foundationally how we're wired, you know, our thoughts and feelings and body sensations. Because I, I feel like people do not have an understanding men, especially men because like I said, there isn't an outlet and culturally they're not taught how to have an outlet or what that looks like, you know? So that's really difficult and my heart goes out literally. I, I see so many men in my practice and when I teach them the language and I and they gain confidence around their emotions and how to interrelate with them, it's transformative for them, you know, and I, and when I even say to them, it's OK, you could think how you think and feel how you feel and your body could speak to all of that.

22:51 Like all of that is wonderful and beautiful about you that like literally it's like a brick like gets released from their shoulders. I'm not even kidding. And then we, you know, and then I teach them about their core values. People will argue with me that they know what their core values are and I do these value exercises and fundamentally people don't not their core values and we confuse values and goals by the way, you know, so that's a big thing that kind of comes up. And then I talk about acceptance, compassion and empowerment, which is my ACE method, but I talk about the barriers first and then how to integrate skills so that you could integrate self acceptance, self compassion and empowerment to like live the life you want to be living.

23:36 So there's so many tools, but I see it in three tiers because there's pieces around our self acceptance which are very hard to integrate because of again, there's so many barriers that get in the way of that both on a cognitive level and a social cultural level and on and on. And then our self compassion, we're never taught to be self compassionate ever. Nobody. When I do exercises with people to kind of lean them into their self compassion. If I tell you the discomfort people have, you know, or when I verbalize to somebody how beautiful and wonderful they are, like they literally almost can't look at me, you know, like I'm making eye contact is painful for them because what you're saying something intimate to me and it's like so vulnerable and like, Oh my, what you know, and should I believe you? And then the empowerment is about what actions do we want to take?

24:35 And the, the important part of our actions is the sustainability. I find that people don't talk about sustainability, making change. We learn skills to make change. We learn skills to change habits. There's tons of books on habit changes. I've read all of them. They're wonderful, but not sustainability. We don't talk about sustainability, right? And I don't care what habit or what behavior you're trying to change, whether it's anger, you know, addiction, health and weight management. I could go on and on. What happens? How many times do people fall in the pit, right? They sustain their behavior first time period of time and then right back there. Why 'cause they get triggered and the brain, what does it do?

25:21 It goes right back to those neural pathways and the familiar and comfortable. Here we go, right? Yeah, the the familiar and comfortable for each of us doesn't mean it is comfortable. It's just that the hell that we're used to. Wow, It is comfortable. It is comfortable, but it isn't necessarily productive and helpful. That's the problem. It could be very counterproductive, which it usually is, yeah. So, so I, I love you're talking about sustainability of action. So, you know, at the dawn of, of a new year when, when so many people are making their resolutions. And so do you have any tips to keep that, that growth mindset, that sustainability going instead of just fizzling out in the next couple weeks?

26:03 That's a great question. I love it. First of all, forget about New Year's resolutions. Like literally throw that out the window. I, I think the only thing that, you know, New year, New Year's risk is good for is maybe thinking about, like I always think about, and I, I do this, I do this exercise with my kids. And by the way, my kids are older, they're grown, you know, I have 4 kids, you know, and they're 24, you know, 2119 and 16. So they're, they're big, but I have this, literally this jar. And we do it every, you know, like five years or so. And I, I give them all a little piece of paper. We do this every New Year's. And they write down what was going on in their past year, right, Like reflections and how they want to see the year ahead.

26:48 And then we break open the jar every five years to read our past five years. Yeah. And they're so excited, like, you know, to like, what did I write 'cause we forgot, you know? So it's a good time to recalibrate. That's the only thing it's good for. It's not like, oh, I'm going to like lose weight 10 lbs up. Yeah, no, those again are not, those are not going to be sustained. Forget about it. That's going to last a couple months. That's why the gym, like gym memberships way up high January 1st and then let's like February 1st. Bye bye. Half the gym is empty. We know they, they actually count on that for revenue. They do right. So what it is good for is recalibrating. In other words, it's it's a time to reflect and to say to yourself where, you know, where was my past year, where was I at?

27:40 What was I working towards? Did I accomplish what I want to? How do I want to see the year ahead? So it's reformulating goals, I would say, and objectives for yourself, you know, and it's, it's a good time to do that. It's a wonderful time to do that. And again, when we're talking about goals on number of different levels, it could be personal goals around career, it could be around family, it could be around again, you know, behaviors. So it's vast, you know, depending on like what you're striving for. And, and going back to your, your ACE methodology, when it comes to acceptance and compassion, can some things just be left in the past or do we need to go dig up every trauma and, you know, examine it and experience it to heal it?

28:24 How, How? What do you think about that? It it so every person's different. Yeah, every person's different. I do a treatment called EMDR, which you see that light bar behind me? Yeah, that's called EMDR. That's one of the treatments I do. And it really helps with, you know, formative trauma. It helps with stuckness. It helps with, I use it for so many different things. If you're finding that for whatever reason with your stuckness that you're having a hard time moving through it and really, really changing behavior and you find you keep, you keep slipping and sliding, there's something stuck. There's a barrier there, right? That guy who I just talked about the, you know, the guy who has anger management, you know, challenges, he could not make change because there was a barrier there. And he did peripheral work around his trauma, you know, from what it sounded like.

29:19 But he didn't do deep healing work, which is very, very different, you know, So you have to really think about and not, and by the way, we all universally have little TS and big TS. I don't care who you are, we all do. And whenever I say to somebody, you know, bring bring up memories from your past, you know, from childhood or adolescence or, you know, that kind of stick with you who doesn't have those memories? And it's so fascinating because it could be like this most innocuous memory that they have. I, I just was talking to this woman and she was telling me that she had a memory when she was an adolescent. Her mother said something to her, but she earmarked that as something that changed the trajectory of her life in regards to her self-confidence.

30:08 And it was like 1 little thing that she interpreted in a certain way, her perception and it really changed her path. And I, I always hear that from everybody. Men, it's like amazing. It could be. And it's usually in an interpersonal relationship, whether with a parent or again, friendships growing up that happens. So it really depends. I would say that a healing journey is about being real with yourself. That's what it's really about. And I see that you were trained in a number of different forms of therapy. So I'm glad you mentioned the EMDR because I wanted to ask you as a practitioner, do you have a favorite? So I have to tell you, I do a lot of personal work. I just actually a week ago I went to a retreat, a weekend retreat.

30:58 It was yoga and EMDR, but it was called Healing the Healer. So all the work that I did while I was training in EMDR because I always do, you know, continuing a development and education because I'm a big proponent of education, It was Healing the Healer. So you were using EMDR to work on yourself personally, which I love, love. And it was like 25 practitioners like me and we got into triads and we had to practice on each other, but dealing with a personal issue. And I, I did a piece of work, I have to tell you, in that workshop, which I always feel like EMDR, literally when I do work on myself and others, it's like 5 years of therapy in like a couple of sessions.

31:41 It's mind blowing because it goes so deep and it's so into the subconscious. It's mind blowing. And I have to tell you the work that I did at this workshop. And again, it's because I was ready to do that piece of work. I tried to do that piece of work many times before. I have to tell you, I couldn't get there. I just couldn't. I, I was resistant to it and I had to train myself through emotional avoidance and the work that I teach, I had to incrementally and slowly train and practice to go into those really painful spots so that I could broach into these huge pain, huge painfully spots.

32:21 And I did. I did that work and I could see so many things happened over the course of the week. Like there were like examples in plain sight where I could see that there were changes in the way I was thinking and feeling and acting that I was. I'm blown away. Like literally blown away. It was amazing. So I love EMDR. I, I, I'm such a proponent and I've, I mean, I could get sit here and give you example after example of work that I've done with, with my patients that you would, your mouth would be wide open. Literally. I do unluck twitch is acceptance and commitment therapy, which again, is very value based. Swear by it. You know, I do a lot of CBT. It really, I'm actually doing a certification now in Team CBT, which is David Byrne's work. So I'm always, I'm, you know, I'm doing some work in IFS, which is internal family system, which is parts work again. I, I, yeah, I'm constant.

33:12 I have so many different things I want to do. We will be here all day. Oh, so so did you go into this profession because of your own recognition of need for work for yourself? You know, I, I grew up and my parents divorced when I was 3. A lot of intergenerational trauma. I mean, substantial, my, my four grandparents were Holocaust survivors and they all were in concentration camps. I mean, we're talking about like all of their families were murdered, you know, we're talking about gruesome, horrible trauma that they experienced. I didn't realize when I was younger, my grandmother, one particular, my maternal grandmother used to tell me stories about the war since I was little.

33:54 I didn't realize the impact it had on me. I had no clue. And to me, it was just a story. And we used to laugh at her because she used to repeat the story. Story. You know how it is, right? They keep repeating the same stories. And you're like, oh, to hear this again, right? But I didn't realize what it was doing to my nervous system. The other thing that I, I'm, I'm an empath by nature. Like I literally feel other people's feelings. When somebody experiences pain or distress, I literally feel their pain. So I'm wired in a way where I could deeply, deeply have deep compassion for another person. And one thing that I appreciate about myself is I I get people's experience because I had some of that same adversity in my life. Like I didn't feel safe, you know, in a lot of different ways.

34:39 You know, there was some neglect. You know, I rate it in my introduction of my book, some of it, you know, without getting into the gory details, but yeah, I get pain. I know what that's like. And and I continue to feel pain in many different ways. You know, it comes up all the time for all of us, you know, And if you don't have, you know, kind of a structure or a way to approach it in a healthy, thoughtful, mindful way, we become self-destructive, you know, and it's, it's painful. It, it creates more pain. That's the problem. Like we already fundamentally have pain. We don't need more pain. It's enough, right? It's like, no, Yeah. So like.

35:20 That's not anybody's goal list. More. Pain in my life. That's right, But we already have it because of that's life. Like life is full of human suffering. That's Buddha, right? Buddha says life is full of human suffering. We don't need to tack on more suffering, right? We have enough of it. So like anything that we could do. And life is so short, by the way, life is so short. Michelle, is there anything top of mind that you wish more men knew? I I wish they knew every thought and feeling and body sensation that they had is completely OK and acceptable. That's what I wish they knew and I wish that they gave themselves more self acceptance and self compassion.

36:04 I really do, because I think that's where we get stuck. You know, people don't know what that is and they don't know how to go about integrating that into their lives and it it's a transform. It's really transformative in regards to their relationship with themselves and other people. When I tell people, oh, you know, you could transform relationship with yourself though, I go, who cares, right? What is that like? It sounds hokey and whatever. When I tell them that they could transform their relationship with other people, they perk up that they want I don't care how you do it. I don't care if that's what gets you hooked to drink the kool-aid. Cool, right?

36:45 But that's what's connecting to your values. That's the whole point. I don't care what it is. I don't care. Just like I tell people, you know, we have this idea, you know, good role modeling and we have to learn from our parents and our parents should be like this way and that way. And they should, should, should like no, our parents are who they are and we don't have a choice and who parents us. So I don't care if you learned by not repeating the mistakes generationally or you learned because you had good role modeling, as long as you learn. In honor of your practice of looking over the past year and looking forward to next year, I wonder, I want to know how do you enjoy life? Gosh, that's such a great question. I it being in the present moment, there's no other way. You know, I just yesterday, I have to tell you, I was sitting and I was thinking to myself, like, where am I? Like I just asked myself that question, where am I? And I said to myself, you know what, I think my daughter is going to graduate in a year and a half. I'm going to be an empty nester.

37:55 And I love sunshine and nature. Like that is my happy space. It really is. And I said, if I don't find, you know, partner or somebody that I'm attached to, I'm literally picking myself up and I'm going somewhere. I live in New York. I'm picking myself up and I'm going to sunshine and I will find somebody there. I don't care. But like, because my kids are kind of spread out, I'm like, I don't need to be anywhere, but I need to be in a place where I feel all grounded and I feel light and I feel vibrant and I feel my authentic self and my best self. That's what I need. And even if I don't eventually move to somewhere like that, like that's my goal is to have a space that I could escape to, you know? So like, whatever that is for you, what brings on light? What brings on contentment, you know, that feeds your soul where you feel energy.

38:52 That's what it is. It's energy. And that's how I refer to emotions, by the way, is energy. So if when the anger comes, because it does, I say, wow, I feel so much energy in my body, what do I want to do with this? And it transforms the way I think and feel about it in the moment. And that's kind of my buzzword. That's my cue, so, yeah. So find what that is for you, what that drives your energy and your light, and what makes you content in life. And Michelle, what's the best way for people to find out everything that you're up to and and get in touch with you? Definitely my website, which is my full name. It's Michelle maidenberg.com and it's you know, it's right Below you can see my name.

39:39 I also just to know I I do publish new guided meditations every Thursday morning on my YouTube channel on all different topics. I also blog for Psychology Today and I write an article once about once a month and it's again self help topics. It's all different types of inspirational topics, advocacy, etcetera. And then of course my book. So I do. I'm always trying to give back. Like I really just want people to heal and to feel positive and confident, you know, about themselves. That's really my mission in life. Awesome. Thanks, Michelle, for all the work that you're doing for yourself, for your clients, for the world, and sharing your discoveries with their writings and the blogging and and the meditations. And yeah, I, I knew from the first time we connected it. Yeah, we, I didn't even talk about it, but yeah, I was very much into energy work.

40:35 I grew up. I was an empathic kid, didn't know what that meant. Made for a horrible childhood. So I really resonate with a lot of things that you share and I know a lot of the men do, too. So, Michelle, thanks for joining us today. Thanks for joining us, everyone. Please visit realmenfield.org. See the blog post for this episode, which will have all various links and resources discussed, all the books from Michelle, ways to connect with her, and wherever you're discovering, real and feel. Please subscribe, follow, like, share this episode with someone, post a review or comment. If you want to make 2025 the best year of your life so far, I invite you to book a free Clarity call with me. We'll get you crystal clear on what you want and what's in your way of getting there. You can visit theandygrant.com/talk and until next time, be good to yourself.