Secret #85: The Conversations We Need to Have: A Special Episode Live From Lyon
episode
Life's Dirty Little Secrets Podcast | Breaking Silence Around the Secrets We All Carry
20 min
6 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What conversation are we avoiding that could change how we live and connect?
We're all very human and fallible, and yet we live in a society that rewards pretending we're not fallible, or the range of acceptable fallibility is narrow. We are constantly comparing our insides to other people's outsides and feeling inadequate and guilty, even ashamed. Trying to blend in means parts of ourselves will disappear, and we must then live in fear that we will be found out. Here, together, we will create a space where we can laugh, cry, and carry our suffering and hurts lightly. In the service of being deeply human. This is Life's Dirty Little Secrets.
So welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington, and we're recording from the Association of Contextual Behavioral Sciences conference in Lyon, 2026. And here is our beloved Chris McCurry.
Howdy. Bonjour.
And we decided to do this impromptu recording because it is such a wonderful environment and we thought we'd have lots of big brains. And the question we're going to be asking a few people today is, what do you think is the conversation we should be having on Life's Dirty Little Secrets? So today we are joined, first and foremost... By Tom Sabo. Tom, introduce yourself.
So I'm a professor at McNeese State University and actually leaving McNeese State University to take a clinical director position in Livingston, New Jersey at Ujala Life. And I'm doing this largely as a way of saying yes to life. Like, what has happened is my father has gotten older and my needs to be able to be close to him, to take care of him, to have enough money to support him later on have taken me away from academia and back to my roots in clinical practice. And it is... a bit of a loss and separation experience from doing what I love in academia and a welcoming end of the next phase of a life that I love living, which is caring for my father. So... That was me.
Yay. Well, thank you for being here with us today. So the question we're asking people is, what are the conversations you think we should be having on life's dirty little secrets or in life in general? What are we not talking enough about?
The big conversations that I've been having with my students for many years that I think is very important is, ACT is a very complex model. And one of the things that's very difficult about it is, having a deep intuitive sense of what these six different processes are. Behaviorally, we call them repertoires. And if you take the extended evolutionary meta model, then with the two additional dimensions, what are these eight
How can clinician training move beyond self‑report to observe real behavior?
different things? And if there are repertoires of behavior, how do you define them? And then, okay, now that we've defined them, how do we help clinicians develop interventions that make use of metaphor because we learn very well with metaphors that are precisely matched to the particular repertoire of behavior that at this moment in time is showing up as being a hard place for the person that you're working with. So if a person has said in their conversation, I feel like I'm just a prison of light being shattered in a million different directions, if that's what somebody says to you, and they have given you some information that Leads you to suspect that where they're really at this moment in time is they are folding a very tight identity that is hard for them to see more flexibly.
Okay, so how do you take that? that metaphor that they gave you, and match it directly to that particular area of the hexaflex that at this moment is really deeply problematic for that person? I think this is an important question. I think it's an important question because it's really easy to develop interventions and lose sight of the particular place on the hexaflex that you're trying to target. Okay, that's one thing.
Oh, yeah. Well, I guess there is a skill to that. And that's probably what we also need to talk about. Like, how do you actually do it? Like, that's missing our ability to slow things down and be much more in the moment with the client and listening to what they're telling us. We can get overly preoccupied about perhaps where we think we should be going or where...
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What conversation are we avoiding that could change how we live and connect?
0:02–3:11
2
How can clinician training move beyond self‑report to observe real behavior?
3:11–6:42
3
Why are metaphors crucial for matching therapeutic interventions to a client’s experience?
6:42–8:55
4
How can we foster authenticity and kindness instead of fixing others?
8:55–10:39
5
What does “efficient for what?” mean in our personal and professional lives?
10:39–13:22
6
What can we learn from the fish‑trading story about efficiency and cultural preservation?
13:22–16:24
7
Why should we talk more about vulnerability, crying, and laughing together?
16:24–19:08
8
How can we keep these conversations alive beyond the podcast?
19:08–20:48
Speakers
6 identifiedMore from Life's Dirty Little Secrets Podcast | Breaking Silence Around the Secrets We All Carry
Secret #86: Your Body Is Talking. Are You Listening? with Manuela O'Connell
Secret #84: Parent Anxiety with Jodi Richardson
Secret #83: Sleep Myths with Dr. Sue McCurry
Secret #82: Why We're So Mean to Ourselves with Holly Yates & Shawn Costello Woolley
Secret #81: The Help You Won't Ask For with Dr. Jill Stoddard