Dr. Caroline Fleck
speaker
364 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Caroline Fleck’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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We want to protect our kids so much that we're quick to solve their problems and focus on change and not maybe validate that they're disappointed that they failed their little spelling test. So it's not modeled for us. We don't learn how to validate our emotions. We learn how to problem solve our behavior. All right. And so then as adults, we don't model that for our children.
They don't learn how to do that. I have yet to meet a person, be it someone that I work with as an executive coach, somebody in the corporate space, or a patient who is really good at self-validation. Okay, it just, it's very rare. And so we teach these skills in order to validate others. And then as a therapist, we talk a lot about how do you turn that inward?
Because that's ultimately what I have to have folks do, right? Part of why I'm validating these, my clients, these folks who come from these, you know, horrible experiences is so that they can learn to do the same for themselves. So I validate them and say, hey, yep, that's valid. Now, here's how you do that for yourself.
So when you're lying in bed, or frankly, when I'm lying in bed and I'm sitting there and I'm seeing, oh, my gosh, I feel really anxious about tomorrow. Okay. I immediately start to look for what's the validity. I am... I'm in LA, which is not where I normally live. I'm sleeping in a bed that's not mine. I have to get up tomorrow and do an interview. And I'm worried about how that's going to go.
I'm looking for all of the valid reasons why I'm feeling what I'm feeling. And I do not do the, you're such a wuss. Like, what's wrong with you? Nobody else would be feeling this. Everybody else would be so excited to be in your position. What's wrong with you? So I've learned to challenge that script. but it takes active intention and frankly, skills. You gotta know how to do it.
There's always space for focusing on what you need to do differently, what you could behaviorally change. I don't think you can tough love your way out of your emotions. I think it is a huge mistake to think that you can just bully yourself out of feeling sad, anxious, down, depressed. It just doesn't work. We know that. It compounds negativity.
So while I think there's a time and space to say, you know what? Yes, I'm depressed. But if I stay in my bed another day for 12 hours straight, I'm not going to feel better. I need to do something different. Yeah, I believe in that. I also believe in validating all of the reasons why you got to that place. All right.
And believe me, doing that first step, doing that emotional validation makes the change easier. It's just not something we've been taught to believe. We've been told kind of the opposite. Right. We've got to do this tough love, tough approach. And it's not an either or, it can be both and. It's acceptance and change. The two go hand in hand.
Well, now let me ask, does it need the lazy fuck part? Like you've done it all these years and that's the assumption. If you took the approach of, okay, you worked 12 hours straight, you haven't slept in three days, All right. You are exhausted. There's a valid reason you don't want to go to the gym. I get it. Okay. And it will 100% make you feel better.
And like, I care about you enough to push you to do that. Like, that is how I talk to my clients, right? Like, and that is the voice I want in your head. Not this like, you lazy fuck, get up. Like that's not how I would talk to someone. That's not how I would talk to a client that I was trying to like help change because it doesn't work right now. It's just for us.
We've gotten so used to that negative self-talk to being the self-abuser that we don't even see it as abuse. But Max, there's another way.
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
Yeah, yeah. And yet, I know there are people listening right now who do actually feel the, I'm a lazy fuck. And if I don't keep telling myself that, I will just become...
Yeah, I mean, you want to be you want to be the type of person that you would want to be around. You know, there's this really interesting distinction in my head between like loneliness and solitude. And I think if you are kind to yourself, the times when you're alone become opportunities for solitude rather than like that deep, lonely, I need someone else. I need to be with somebody else.
I like need to escape myself to feel comfortable, to feel safe.
I would say if you are in a situation with someone where you feel like you have tried everything and it's just not changing, you're just not able to get through or the relationship is deteriorating in some way, try validation. It's going to feel really counterintuitive, but just try to look for the validity in some part of the other person's experience.
You don't have to validate the entirety of it. It could just be their emotions, could just be their thoughts, or it could be their behavior. Just pick one thing that makes sense to you and convey that.
But I can see the validity in it. Okay. So that's probably my... Even as a clinician, when I'm feeling stuck with someone, like we're just not making any progress, I often need to go back. I haven't sufficiently validated them. Once I've sufficiently validated them, then we can move on to change. So that would be with regard to others.
If you're in a relationship in which you're feeling, again, as we described earlier, like really kind of lonely, one thing to consider is... whether or not, one, you've been vulnerable, and if you have, two, if it has felt safe, if you have felt accepted in those moments or not. And if not...
I wanna live in a world, I mean, my purpose for writing this book is that I wanna live in a world where we can say to each other like, hey, I need some more validation.
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