Anna Lembke

And then after sharing it in a brief way, don't say more.

Just be quiet and let them hear and process that.

And they may not want to discuss further, and that's okay.

If they do want to discuss further, the key there is to not keep repeating what you've

not repeating it more emphatically, but to just then listen and ask questions and be curious.

And of course, this is a simulation of what we do in the early stages of psychotherapy.

We are just compassionate and we're curious.

And one of my colleagues kind of likened it to being a journalist.

Just imagine that you're a journalist trying to get the story.

And so you would ask a lot of questions about what that person's subjective experience is like.

And again, this is potentially very therapeutic for people because when we say out loud what we're doing, how much, how often, why, etc., etc.,

We see it for the first time, and I cannot emphasize it enough, the ways in which we only become aware of certain types of behaviors when we put them into narrative form and express them with another human being.

Oh, you're welcome.

I'm just overjoyed that people want to learn about this.

I still marvel at the gap between how people present outwardly and the truth of their inner experience.

We see people every day who seem to have everything you could ever want, wealth, beauty, meaningful work, and yet when you look under the hood, they're miserably unhappy.

Delightful young man, handsome, kind, thoughtful, considerate.

He came to me, in fact, because he got a DUI.

He was driving under the influence.

But as it turned out, alcohol was not his primary problem.