Jerry Henderson: The Journey from Shame to Self-Love

In this episode of the Reframeable Podcast, Kevin Bellack and Jerry Henderson explore the gap between how we present ourselves to the world and how we feel internally, emphasizing the importance of self-love and understanding shame. Jerry shares his personal story of overcoming addiction and the transformative power of radical self-acceptance. The conversation delves into practical strategies for addressing shame, creating space for healing, and the role of mindfulness in recovery.

Jerry is the creator of The Personal Mastery Framework™, author, speaker, transformational coach, and host of the Personal Mastery Podcast. Trained at Harvard University in human behavior, the psychology of happiness, resilience, and habit formation, he works with high achievers to help them create a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.

IG: @JerryAHenderson

JerryHenderson.org

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Transcript

Jerry Henderson: The Journey from Shame to Self-Love

riverside_jerry_& kevin _ may 1, 2025 001_kevin_bellack's stu
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​[00:00:00] 

Kevin: Welcome everyone to another episode of the Reframeable podcast. The podcast that brings you people's stories and ideas about how we can work to reframe our relationship, not just with alcohol, but with stress, anxiety, relationships, enjoyment, and so much more.

'cause changing our relationship with alcohol is about so much more than changing the contents of our glass. This podcast is brought to you by the Reframe app. Reframe is the number one iOS and Android app to help you cut back or quit drinking alcohol. It uses neuroscience to reframe your relationship with alcohol and unlock the healthiest, happiest you.

My name is Kevin Bellack. I'm a certified professional recovery coach and the head of coaching at the Reframe app. Today's guest is Jerry Henderson. Jerry is the creator of the Personal Mastery Framework author, speaker, transformational coach, and the host of the Personal Mastery Podcast, trained at Harvard University in human behavior, the psychology of happiness, resilience, and habit formation.

He works with high achievers to help them [00:01:00] create a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside. Please welcome to the podcast Jerry Henderson. Jerry, how's it going today? 

Jerry: Yeah, it's going great Kevin, and thank you so much for letting me be here with you today to have this conversation and thank you for what you guys do at The Reframe app and here on this podcast at Re frameable.

Man, it's important work. Just honored to be here. 

Kevin: No, I appreciate it. And I appreciate, everything you're doing out there the work you put in specifically around things like shame and as it said in there, in your bio feels as good on the inside, as it looks on the outside.

Yeah. You, we, I was just in a men's meeting today and there was a lot of talk around about how like we, we project, this persona out to everyone else about how we're showing up and I can handle everything. I'm gonna say yes to everything, and I'm, with whether it's people pleasing or things like that, but even though on the inside it's like we are struggling and [00:02:00] we are not happy but sometimes we feel we can't say that to other people.

Jerry: Absolutely. That's so common, man. And it's something that I struggled with for so many years of my life, and I do the work that I do because of that story of feeling like I had to hide behind this image. Get into image management of what I present to the world. And that gap, the wider that gap, the greater the suffering, right?

Between how I feel internally and what I feel like I have to present to be loved, to be accepted, to feel valuable. And that gap gets pretty wide, man. And when it does, a lot of hairy, scary stuff starts to happen in our lives. And so it is about how do I find that alignment? How do I give myself permission to restructure my outer world if I want?

And then how do I do the work internally? So it does actually feel good to be in here, our relationship with ourselves. 

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. It's that twofold. It's restructuring the outer Yeah. And dealing with the inner, because Yeah, you [00:03:00] could say I just need to, maybe sometimes it feels like I just need to, I just need to do more.

I just need to do better. Yeah. With internally to catch up to the external. But really it's, we can get so far out of alignment because we just are doing things that, we aren't happy with. We aren't, we don't want to, we're just feel stuck sometimes with the world that we've created.

And it's not like the way I see that is, we don't just get there in a day. Things slowly build over time and grow and change and we can stop, years down the road and be like, wait, how did I get here? This isn't how I want to be. Be presenting myself or the things I wanna be doing with my life.

Jerry: Yeah. 

Yeah. I find that so true, Kevin. And a lot of the people that I work with, those high achievers, high performers, professionals that have created a life, they're not even sure they wanna live. Yeah. And they've created it because of [00:04:00] these external press pressures. Not giving themselves permission to redefine what success truly means to them.

Yeah. And being able to slow down to do that work, to really begin to examine what's true and authentic to you is important work. And allowing ourselves the space to do that and for, many of the high achieve, I work with the idea of just slowing down to do that. Feels they're gonna lose traction.

But then we start to ask the question like, lose traction towards what you know. Is it about losing traction to becoming the person that you wanna be? Because a lot of people think that success is gonna make you the person that you wanna be, that it's gonna heal you and talk about how your achievements will never heal you.

You're not designed to, you have to do that work of internal healing and alignment and give yourself the space to do that. 

Kevin: Yeah. The quote that always jumps out at me is from [00:05:00] Man's Search for Meaning about, happiness is something that we can't pursue.

It's something that must ensue it. It's, it ensues the work that you are talking about here. We can't chase it. It's not behind that next thing that we do, that next that next promotion or that next job or that next relationship or vacation or whatever. Yeah, it's doing that inner work that that is difficult.

And how do you even know where sometimes it's like, how do you, where do you start? Yeah. I'm guessing we'll get into that a little bit here. But if you want to, share a little bit about yourself Yeah. For our listeners and let us know a little bit about your story.

Jerry: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for the space to be able to do that. And as I said earlier, I do the work I do because of my story. I'm a kid who grew up in, us poverty on the welfare system, in an abusive home. All the types of abuse that you could think of I experienced by the time I was [00:06:00] five was my first introduction to alcohol and my relationship with it as my parents would give me a beer to, reward me for doing chores. And so that was my first introduction to it. And it became something that was a part of my life. My dad was an alcoholic, my grandmother, my uncles. I mean, there's a long lineage in my past in my, ancestral line of people who enjoyed their beverages quite a bit. And then I got into that world.

By the time I was nine, I was smoking weed with other family members. And by the age of 14 I was in rehab and I went to 17 different schools growing up, I. Because dad was moving around all the time trying to find a job, keep a job. And what all of that did to me was it did what trauma often does. I love what Gabor Mate says that trauma's not what happens to you, but it's what happens in you.

And so one of the things that happens in us is we make decisions. We make decisions about life, we make decisions about people. [00:07:00] Most importantly, we make decisions about ourselves. And the decision I made about myself was that there was something wrong with me. I was broken. And in today's language we would call that shame.

I didn't know I had shame. I just knew I was walking around on this planet like I was a problem. And the difference between guilt and shame, of course guilt, I did something. I don't feel so good about shame I don't feel good about me. There's something wrong with me. So I carried that for decades and i, started to be a high achiever to try to prove myself or to try to prove to others.

I often say that, my journey to becoming a high achiever was trying to stack enough wins so that everybody else would see those achievements. I could hide behind them. And then if I got enough people to accept me, maybe I'd have the permission to accept myself. That didn't happen, right? Because I had a broken relationship with myself.

Trauma separates us from ourselves. I [00:08:00] was separated from myself, didn't know it, man. And so many people that I work with, and I know a lot of people that are in recovery, right? We don't know this back narrative that's playing out this nervous system stuff that's going on with us. We're just trying to figure out the best way to cope and survive.

And for me, that was high achievement. And when that wasn't doing it, then drinking and was, repeating patterns of generation after generation. And from that I had a 18 month period with my life imploded and it was in my middle forties. I had a heart attack, open heart surgery, then started going through a second divorce.

'cause my relationship with myself was so broken I couldn't figure out even have to have healthy relationships with other people. So then through that went into rehab and in those 30 days in rehab, it was my third time in rehab. Something profound happened where I [00:09:00] understood finally that the trauma, the shame, everything that I was carrying.

How that got wired in me. And one of the interesting things about shame is it's one of those key emotions that makes you think that you are it right? Like I can feel an emotion, but I don't think I'm it. Yeah. Shame's so devious. Yeah. You go, I am shame. There's nothing wrong. I am the problem. Yeah.

Versus saying, no, that's what shame is. That's how it manifests. And so understanding that then gave me the permission to change my relationship with myself. And it was in rehab where I, for the first time in my life, gave myself what I call the permission to love myself and begin to go on that journey of exploring what does that mean?

How do, what does it look like to heal shame? What does it look like to address trauma and move forward in a sobriety journey coming up on five years [00:10:00] now and that whole journey. Of understanding those core root issues was the beginning for me and realizing I had to deal with the relationship that I had with myself.

I tell people one of the reasons I drank was to tolerate my own presence. And we all know that, right? Is people who you know are in recovery or who are still in that space of struggling, suffering, trying to escape ourselves. What once was take the edge off or, yeah. Whatever becomes something to quiet the noise of us towards ourselves.

So yeah, 

Kevin: it becomes that 

vicious circle too of Yeah. Yeah, to quiet the noise of ourself, but also it adds to the shame and that feeling so when we get up the next day, we feel even worse and then need to go back to it again. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Congrat, congratulations on coming up on five years here.

I believe you said next month too. Yeah. What would you say that the, that third stint in [00:11:00] rehab, you mentioned, there was something that changed or was it different? What was it about that, tripped that feeling or that change?

Jerry: Yeah. For me, the other times, and of course I'd gone through all the self detoxing at home multiple times. All the things that we do. And one of the challenges was for me that it was always about somebody else or about trying to clean up my act so that I could sustain the life that I was building.

'cause on the outside it looked like everything was okay. Yeah. For the most part. And I kept thinking, I need to get sober because if I don't, I'm gonna blow all of this and I need to get sober because, people in my life who care about me want me to get sober. When I went that last time, it was out of pure desperation.

I told the therapist, I told everybody, I said, if you want me to stand in the corner on my head, I will stand on the corner on my head to get sober. I don't know what it is. I was, I don't know what it is you think I need to do to get sober, but whatever it is you tell me. [00:12:00] So I went in with this whole different posture, very open to really find out what were some of the core things.

I, I stopped trying to manage my drinking in some sense, right? Because it's a great obsession of every alcoholic to try to manage their drinking. And when I decided that. I didn't wanna get in the ring anymore. Somebody asked, you said isn't like stopping trying to manage your drinking?

Isn't that losing isn't that failure? I said, no, I just realized I can't get back in the ring. I win by not getting back in the ring. And that is okay with me because no matter how I play it out, I always lose in the equation of trying to manage my drinking. And I think what happened in rehab that last time was I stopped asking the question, how do I manage my drinking?

And I started asking the question, what is my drinking trying to help me manage? Totally different question. And then that began to open me up to myself to get inside and go, [00:13:00] what are those sources of pain and suffering that you've been avoiding and drowning yourself, 

To distract yourself from? And started doing that work and then entered into the work of what I didn't even know existed but some of the most powerful work of learning radical self-love, radical self-compassion and acceptance. Yeah, I say pain got me sober. Love has kept me sober. 

Kevin: I love that., I mean, people talk about oh yeah, once you getting out of our comfort zone or things like that, and, I know towards the end of my drinking, like I, it wasn't a comfort zone, but it was the known, it was the familiar zone, and I needed to get to a point where I was so uncomfortable that, or I had that point where I was like, okay, with, without any other kind of external, ramifications happening. I need to get to the point where I was so uncomfortable that I'm like, you know what? I'm willing to venture out into the unfamiliar yeah. [00:14:00] Finally to do something. But part, but a lot of that was the last straw was a lot of shame around what I was doing behind closed doors that, I was trying to keep that, like you said, that persona of everything's good, and it wasn't.

I love how you said too, the, I stopped trying to manage my drinking and flipped it to asking the question like, what is my drinking trying to manage? Yeah. Yeah. And that's just it, right? It's not about it's, yes, it's an addictive substance and we can become dependent on it.

But ultimately what is the reason why I'm reaching for that? Part of it could just be, Hey, I got home from work and it's a habit that I have, but it started out as something else. It started out as a coping mechanism for something. And it usually is, try helping us in some area, or at least that's the idea of it.

Jerry: Yeah. Totally agree. [00:15:00] Yeah. That coping mechanism that, starts to become a little bit more, we know our relationship with alcohol and some people, I obviously haven't gone to some of the, extent I went to in my drinking. Went beyond a coping mechanism and the habit to full on addiction.

Yeah. And it became my life. My life was structured around it in so many ways, and when I started to look at it, reframe it, yeah. Totally different perspective on it. That's when things really began to break open. And I stopped judging myself and about the drinking. And I remember when a therapist first said to me, good on you, that you figured out how to survive by drinking and what once served you.

It just isn't serving you anymore. 

And let's stop the shame because as you talked about, when we shame ourselves for, drinking because we're trying to remove shame, we drink more, we just get stuck in that loop. Yeah. And we just keep trying to relieve ourselves of that shame. And the beautiful thing is [00:16:00] how shame can be healed and we can let go of that belief that we carry about ourselves.

Yeah. 

Kevin: Where do we start with that even? I always look, I always reference like it's probably Brene Brown, I think, where it's like guilt is I did something wrong or I did something bad or versus shame, whereas I am bad.

Yeah. Whenever we're, especially when we're trying to do something that's, that can be so important and so necessary of whether it's cutting back or quitting and removing alcohol. Totally. There's going to be slips, there's gonna be relapses, there's going to be bumps along the road, and the shame can like pile on those as well.

Where do we start? 

Jerry: Yeah. And I think everybody's journey's different. Yeah. Where they're at and where they start. And I'll just share some of my experience and share some stories with people that I've worked with and what I've found. Yeah. Even through the research that I think really helps people and it really is about changing not our relationship with [00:17:00] just alcohol or just substances, but changing our relationship with ourselves.

And. I realized that one of the things I was trying to do was to shame myself out of drinking, to beat myself up enough that I would stop, I became my own abuser. And I have a quote that I've shared in my book about you cannot heal the voice of an inner critic with the voice of another inner critic.

And we keep thinking that we're gonna use a tough approach on ourselves or all of these things, and tough approaches needed at times, right? Yeah. But this approach of kindness and gentleness to towards ourselves. Accessing and understanding the part of us that carries the shame. One of the work that I, one of the things I really love is the work of Internal Family Systems, Dr.

Richard Schwartz, and how we can find that part that carries shame, which is usually a much younger part of us. That it got transferred to, [00:18:00] we didn't come on this planet born with shame. It got handed to us by people who are often trying to relieve their own sense of shame. Yeah. And it gets translated to us.

We begin to carry it. We begin to identify with it. We begin to get it as a core belief. We begin to then reinforce that core belief with the patterns, the behavior, the self-talk, the choices, and we make those choices and we think, yeah, see I am the person who deserves these things and understanding that it's things that got wired in us.

And so when we understand that we're carrying this sense that we got handed to us at a very young age, often, and that younger part of us that we can meet with gentleness and kindness and compassion, it relaxes the energy that we have towards ourselves. Because we're in here, at a war with ourselves when we're in shame or we're trying to recover and we have these slips and setbacks, 

Kevin: yeah, 

Jerry: we're gonna war on ourselves.

Research will tell us that keeps the limbic system [00:19:00] the, amygdala, that whole system up in the state of fight or flight. It's releasing lower levels of cortisol, stress hormones by the way that we treat ourselves, by the way that we talk about ourselves. And then that is, once again, the body, the brain, all of it's then saying, I wanna escape from that.

I wanna relax my nervous system with another drink. I'm so stressed, I'm so tense. But one of the things that's keeping us there is that internal relationship. So if we can start to work on changing the way we view ourselves by changing the way we think about ourselves, talk to ourselves, see ourselves, and allow others to, that's a journey, right?

Allow others to treat us. It doesn't happen overnight. 

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. 

Jerry: But we begin to work in that space. And one of the things that I think is really foundational, one is understand that you weren't born with it. It's not who you are. I know that's hard because it feels like it's you. It feels normal. And when you try to change, [00:20:00] it is almost like there's this bungee cord pulling you back.

And when we understand that's nervous system stuff, it's core belief stuff beyond identity. It's just how our brain has gotten addicted to shame. Just like we've gotten addicted to alcohol, you can get addicted to shame. I. You can get addicted to not negative thought loops because when you think a negative thought, it releases a chemical in your body that then activates emotions.

And of course we have trauma stored in the body and the body can, kick up those sensations as well and then produce the thought. But we get into that space. Negative thinking releases the chemical that when feel the emotion then makes us feel another or activate another thought.

And then all of that's happening and we're releasing all these chemicals that feels like home to us. As terrible as it feels, it can feel like home to us. So understand you're not born with it becomes an addiction. And then going through a process of de-identified or disidentifying from the shame, [00:21:00] understanding how it works in that cycle.

We just need to create a little bit of space between us and the shame if we can create that crack where the light will in our end. 

Kevin: Yeah. 

Jerry: And we can just give ourselves that space. It will then start to change everything. If we'll edit. We just gotta, the stickiness of shame, we just gotta give it some space from us so that we can see it and start working on it.

Once again, that's things like therapy, coaching, internal family systems work, et cetera. 

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. And it can feel like it is something we're born with, right? Because maybe it's been there for as long as we can remember in some way, shape or form. Like in a, it's whatever, we identify that as but yeah like creating that space is, that's difficult, right?

It's when you don't, when you've never done that before and when you don't even know how to do [00:22:00] it. We talk about the pause a lot and we talk about how okay, I get it. I have a craving for a drink. It's how can I insert a pause to even think about it?

Obviously sometimes whenever I that starts, it's not like I'm going to immediately grab a drink or I'm in a position to do that. But once the ball starts rolling, it can be difficult to pull that back. So it's like, how can we even create that wedge, that pause right then to be like, alright what just happened?

Where did that come from? And that takes practice. That takes, finding ways that we can do that. So how do we create that crack to let that light in, as you mentioned. 

What are some things that we can do either to create that crack or once we to create the crack what's something that can be done next. 

Jerry: Yeah. Yeah. Love that question because it gets into the kind of the practical nuts and bolts, right? Yeah. Because we can move from theory and stay stuck in theory, but we need those practical steps that we can start to take.[00:23:00] 

One thing I think that is so important is we're real familiar with the feeling of shame, but we're not always familiar with what activates that shame. We're not always familiar with the language of the shame because it's gotten so, so much a part of us that it just feels like that's what we do.

And if that makes sense. And so one of the things I do with clients is I actually act, ask them to write out what the voice of shame is. Okay. What does it sound like? What are the words that it uses? How does it make you feel in your body? And we want people to become, and I know this sounds counterintuitive because there's some approach which is just like, shove it and shove it and get away from it and don't ever come back to it.

But I want people to become so familiar with it in some sense that it gets less likely to just fall into it. That we start to recognize what some of the triggers are, what were the thoughts, the words, the experience, the [00:24:00] things that happened maybe that somebody else did or said towards us that started to activate that.

So I can often work with people to have them keep a little bit of a journal in the evening. Not a lot of work, but just a journal to say, did I feel shame today? Did I feel like I was the problem? There's something wrong with me. And if I did, what was it around? I. What was I thinking? What was I experiencing?

And that's work so that we know when it starts to show up, and it doesn't just pull us into the mindlessness. Now, once that thing starts to show up, and the other trick behind this is that it's putting you into the observer mode, right? Yeah. Which is creating the space, which is such an important part of my journey, is things like mindfulness and meditation, that it allowed me to become more self-aware.

So the more self-aware I can become, the more I notice when that shows up. So that observer mode in itself creates a little bit of space between me and the shame I get to witness it, I get to see it. I. [00:25:00] It doesn't happen to me all day long. There's other times during the day where I don't feel that. So if there's times I'm feeling it and times I'm not feeling, it can't just be me.

It's an emotion. It's things that happen. It's a belief system, it's wiring. So from there, when we can do that, then there are techniques, and I've done everything from asking people to put a bracelet on their wrists that remind them to kick into a mantra that they might have. And we can talk about mantras and why sometimes they're not effective and they feel like we've faking it until we're making it.

And yeah, the actual neuroscience, there is a science of mantras and affirmations. The other thing is that we pick this thing up, our cell phones two to 300 times a day, right? And so in picking that thing up, we can put something on our screensaver that is a phrase that we want to have at the ready. When that gap shows up when we when we feel the shame and we create that little bit of space, and the space can come from.

Seeing the [00:26:00] affirmation on the cell phone, looking at the bracelet. I've had clients that I've worked with, I've said, stick sticky notes on your refrigerator, on your mirror, in your car, wherever you're at, so that you have that visual. 'cause we get a cue. The cues, the thought, the cues, the emotion drags us into the shame.

We need to disrupt it. And visuals are one of the best ways that we can use to disrupt that to pull us back up out of it. Now the other thing is that when we get that space created and we have that visual to kick into. An affirmation, an action, or something that's gonna reinforce positive self worth.

There's the a, b, C model, in psychology that we have this activating event and we have our beliefs, and then we have consequences to see. But we often think it's the activating event that causes consequence. It's not consequence comes from our belief, what we think about it that then drives our behavior.

And so [00:27:00] what we wanna do is then do the D of the model goes on to dispute that thought pattern or that belief. We want to challenge it, that's what the affirmations are for. And then we want to e you know, begin to effectively install a new belief. And that's where we have these things that we can go to.

Now the challenge and interrupt me anywhere along the way, Kevin, I can go on this, path here for a little bit. The challenge becomes, we often try to practice affirmations when things are going bad or when it's tough and all of a sudden we feel bad. Yeah. About ourselves. Lemme kick to my affirmation or my positive intent, or my positive action, or whatever it I'm choosing because the brain wants to see us doing, we can believe, we say we believe something, but when our brain sees us doing it, it reinforces to our nervous system and it's releasing chemicals of action as well.

It's activating the approach part of our brain where we start to [00:28:00] move towards something that we say that we believe. And when we wait until we're in a negative state or whatever the case is, it's like trying to go lift 500 pounds when you've never even done any reps before. 

Kevin: Yeah, yeah. I don't know why, for some reason, as soon, right before you said that, I was like thinking about wrestling a gorilla or something like that.

Something just yeah, that's. Yeah, you're, 'cause you're putting yourself behind the eight ball, already because you're already in that negative state. Yep. And now I'm just supposed to magically pull out this thing that I don't ever practice or use except trying to do it in this negative state.

Yeah. Versus warming up practicing it, getting up to working up to the 500 pounds Yeah. Over time I, I, I'm guessing that, you know, that you're getting to the mindfulness and meditations and affirmations that you're talking [00:29:00] about. Putting those as part of my daily practice, like my daily Absolutely.

Rituals that I do so that I can pull them out when I. That 500 pounds is sitting there and I need to lift it or whatever. 

Jerry: Yeah. 

Kevin: The gor knock to my door. 

Jerry: Yeah, exactly. I probably should have chosen a less weight, 200 pounds on. Yeah. But when you think about, adjust accordingly. 

Kevin: Yeah, exactly.

Jerry: Yeah. Whatever your personal best is adjust 

Kevin: according. 

Jerry: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's totally true because when we wait until the negative state, like you said, we're behind the eight ball, we're already getting flooded with chemicals, we're already getting back into our own pattern, and it's a lot harder to disrupt it at that point versus a practice of it because we are trying to rewire our nervous system.

We're trying to make the familiar shame start to feel unfamiliar, and we're trying to make the unfamiliar self-love, acceptance, and compassion start to feel familiar. And when we wait, [00:30:00] it does bounce off of our nervous system. And that's what I try to tell people. It's not that it's not true, it's your nervous system isn't used to it yet.

Your nervous system doesn't believe it yet because you've been telling yourself everything of the opposite for so many years. Yeah. 

Kevin: Yeah. And you had mentioned in your book about loving yourself even if you don't feel you deserve it. That was one of the quotes I I copied down because my, my, my next question is how 'cause we can feel like we don't deserve it when we're in that negative space. We're in that state. Or I just woke up, I'm feeling good today. It's a good day. It, and I could still say that those things and feel awkward and uncomfortable and that, and to that I say, just keep doing it.

Everything we've ever done in our lives for the first time probably has felt uncomfortable or awkward or, but how do you. 

How do you start off on that road? 

Jerry: Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:00] It's really, I don't know how we did this to ourselves as humans, where we made hating ourselves feel more comfortable than loving ourselves, where it doesn't feel awkward to hate, or, when we're in that state to hate or to, self loath, but starts to feel really uncomfortable saying, I love myself, or even I like myself.

And that just feels like a bridge too far to cross. And we have to realize, as you said it we just start, and I like to use the analogy, it's like trying to switch. I'm right-handed. And if I wanted to switch from my right hand to my left hand and start writing sentences, it is not gonna be pretty.

It's gonna feel uncomfortable, it's gonna feel awkward, it's gonna be sloppy, it's gonna be frustrating to the point where I'm just gonna switch back to using my right hand. And I like to think about core beliefs like that. Your core belief that you're not worthy of love, that you carry shame, that there's something wrong with you, is your right hand.

If you're right-handed, that's your right-handed work. If you're left-handed, that's your left-handed [00:32:00] work. Switching is doing the work of wiring new neural pathways, making new connections in your brain, creating new habits. Learning to be compassionate, loving towards yourself is a skill that anybody likes, anybody would have to learn to put effort into where anybody can learn.

It's like learning a new language. I'm not gonna learn it day one. I gotta learn the structure of it, I gotta practice it. It's gotta become something that's familiar to me. And all of that learning and stuff is that brain work that then our nervous system starts to align with. And so what I like to do with people is say, let's just start.

And we're know. We're gonna know that it's going to bounce off of you in the beginning. That's normal. And just knowing that's normal for some people is so freeing because they're like, no, there's something wrong with me. 'cause I'm the only one in the world who's not gonna be able to do this. 

Kevin: Yeah. 

Jerry: Yeah. And so working [00:33:00] with that shift of the mindset to go, you've learned a way of living. We're now gonna try to learn a new way of living. We're gonna switch from right to left or left to right, and we're gonna start with that baseline. And then what we're gonna do, we're. It's like you said, we're gonna practice when we're in a good state.

We're gonna practice when we're in a good state, neutral state. And then of course, we're gonna have the tool when we get into those states that we don't feel so good about. But rewiring work is about lifestyle. It's about what you said, daily practices. It is a habit. It is a skill. We want to take the mystery away from it.

It's no, it's not something that some people have and some people don't have. Some people just grew up in an environment maybe where that was reinforced or they learned it later on in the way. And so as we think about how could I make an affirmation work for me? How could I start to believe it and not just have it be like.

So we wanna take advantage of how our brains and our bodies work. [00:34:00] When we wake up in the morning, cortisol is at its highest point, usually throughout our day, unless we're experiencing some, stress later on. And we're not designed to live in acute stress. We're designed to live, I mean, we're not, we're designed for acute stress.

That moment when the bear jumps out and we've gotta respond, we're not designed for chronic stress. And many of us live in chronic stress and shame will keep you in chronic stress. So cortisol high in the morning, and it's also associated with, coping mechanisms and stress and all of that. But cortisol also can help us build habits because when it's in our system and we do something, that's why when you cope with stress by eating junk food or smoking a cigarette or having a drink, it gets even more wired because the cortisol's in your system and now you're doing something to relieve that stress.

So in the morning, cortisol wakes us up. We want to take advantage of that higher level. Going into the mirror, or as soon as we get up in the morning we're sitting there in the bed even and we start to [00:35:00] repeat internally and then verbally that affirmation that we wanna believe about ourselves.

I love it when people take that to the mirror work and go in front of the mirror. And so that's one way that's gonna help it. But another way that can help it is we attach emotion to it. We wanna get ourselves in a state emotionally where we're firing our thoughts, our words, our ears, all together with emotion.

So getting ourselves in an positive emotional state and then practicing those nervous system or those affirmations help it in the nervous system. Because if you think about, and I'll pause after this. You think about when we feel shame or we think about something we regretted in the past or we're worried about in the future.

It doesn't just stay as a thought. We feel it in the body. We get the pit in the gut why emotion's happening. And when emotion is happening, chemicals are getting released and it's firing and wiring. We have to use the [00:36:00] biology of the body to install self-love, self-worth, self-acceptance by getting ourselves into a positive emotional state versus I love myself, I'm a great person, so anyway, but yeah, and there's techniques to do that, to get yourself in a positive state as well.

So yeah, 

Kevin: I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and gosh darn it, people like me. People like me. Exactly. 

Jerry: Who knew he was such a, profound philosopher of love. 

Kevin: Yes. But yeah, looking in the mirror, doing that. And that goes along, that goes back to, talking about that feeling of shame. And you mentioned before about like, where is this in my body?

Point out the journal at night or, and I used to, people I talk about journaling a lot, and that's helped me a ton. And, I carry around my paper journal here now more than I ever have before, but I always did it digitally starting out on my own journey related to alcohol, because I [00:37:00] always had it with me.

Yeah. And so I liked to pull that out in the moment of Oof. I just got a feeling at work of I just said to myself like, Ugh, I need a drink tonight. Yeah. And I stopped. I was like, okay, where did that just come from? And it could have been something that happened right then and there, but it could have been something from earlier in the day that just set in motion something.

So getting curious about it and like looking at that and asking like, okay, why did I just, how did I just notice this? Why did I say that? What did I say? But identifying it there. You can, then the next time it happens, you can maybe remember a little bit quicker. Okay, I'm feeling this now.

Whereas sometimes we just skate past all that and ignore it and just say I need a drink, and we don't acknowledge it. And, we keep pushing and pushing along and then we get to the point where, okay, I don't know any, I don't remember anything that happened. And [00:38:00] it's not about going back to my journal and looking at it.

It's about the fact that I paused and wrote it down. It's gonna help me remember. But in the same way, I like how you're bringing in all of our senses into the opposite too, that, I dunno if it's the opposite, but that, bringing in those positive emotions, looking in the mirror. I don't know if you're, you talked about expressions that, am I smiling?

Am I like, what is the proper, I mean, I guess it could be different. It doesn't have to be a full on smile. Yeah, it could be awkward, but there is science behind that too. Smiling in the mirror for 30 seconds. We'll put you in a better mood. Try it. Yeah, I've actually done that on community meetings where I'm like, all right, you don't have to turn your camera off.

But everybody at the end of this meeting we're looking in and we're let's smile. I'm gonna set a timer and let's do it. And it's usually fun. To do that. But you know it, I've done it once or twice. It's not like I do it all the time. Don't worry. But that's awesome. But no, recognizing the voice too, that you [00:39:00] mentioned that shame presents.

Yeah. Identifying it. What does it sound like? I like putting names to things or characters or something like that. So it helps as you mentioned before too, separate that feeling or thought or emotion. From myself a little bit, because it is just something that, it's not who I am, it's something I'm feeling right now.

Whatever ways that we can use to identify it and separate it can be very helpful. 

Jerry: So helpful. And I love the fact you're mentioning the journaling. The pausing. The reflecting. Was it Carl Jung who said, until you make the subconscious conscious, it'll continue to, control your life and you'll blame it on fate. And this is part of the work, right? Yeah. Or in the case of shame, you'll blame it on that's who you are. And so as we think about, no it's not who I am. It's wiring. It's happened as a part of my [00:40:00] life. And as I think about shame and when that voice comes up, maybe it's the voice of dad.

Maybe it's the voice of mom. Maybe it's the voice of a coach. Maybe it's the voice of a toxic relationship that comes up and we play it enough to where it feels like it's us now. And I always invite people, and there's different schools of thought on this. One, is, tell it to shut up and go away and, whatever.

That's an option. I like to go the option of gentleness towards it because shame is trying to serve you as crazy as it sounds. Yeah. It's a coping mechanism that kept you safe at one point. And you might be thinking how the heck is it doing that? It's, for example, if you're a kid and you're living in a toxic environment of a lot of trauma and you've got some decisions to make about life at the subconscious level, I'm five years old, I'm not trying to figure out, consciously, who's the wrong person in this equation? It's subconscious survival. 

Kevin: Yeah. [00:41:00] 

Jerry: And as we think about, for me, for example, with an abusive dad, if I made the decision at the age of 5, 6, 7 that my dad was incapable, I. Of loving me and capable of caring for me and capable of being a parent, that's a pretty scary decision for my con, my subconscious brain to make.

'cause I'm in this person's care, it's that's my survival. So instead, maybe I'll make the decision there's something wrong with me. Because what that'll allow me to do is it'll allow me to take back some control, and go, maybe I can change something about myself. Yeah. Maybe if I don't piss dad off, I'll be safe.

What's wrong with me? How do I keep adjusting myself, changing myself? I must be broken. So let me just keep trying to figure out how to not, piss the world off and get hurt so then I adopt something wrong with me. Shame now I can try to figure out how to fix myself. Coping mechanism that later gets super messed up.

Kevin: That control, right? Okay, what can I [00:42:00] do to make myself either smaller or 

focusing on pleasing other people or, do all of that that can then show up all throughout our lives in ways and we don't even and again it's taking a look back at what you said earlier related to alcohol. What is my drinking trying to manage?

Yeah. And looking at it from that perspective. And you start to turn over a rock and you see something, then you turn over another and it can. Yeah. Lead us to a lot of places that, aren't comfortable to go. But perhaps necessary. And that's where, like you said, working with a therapist, working with a professional, working, working through these things and exploring ways that are I'll say safe right.

For us is so important. 

Jerry: Yeah. Immensely important. 

Kevin: So do [00:43:00] I, how do I act like I just love myself or how do I act like I love myself? How do I love myself? Those are two potentially different questions, right? Yeah. Where do I, I probably have to act how I probably have to act as if in order to actually get to the point where I might love myself.

Where do I start with that? 

Jerry: Yeah. And once again, I wanna reinforce to folks it, it's not what we would typically think of. Just fake it until you make it. 

Kevin: Yeah. 

Jerry: It is about realizing it's nervous system work, it's habits, it's skills, it's just part of the wiring that's happened with us.

I love the work on the how of happiness Sonya Lebr Minsky's work on, when we think about what creates happiness, 50% of it she says is biological set point. That's what the research shows us. And some people are just born with a little bit happier disposition and others have a little less happy disposition.

And we go around judging ourselves for something we have no control over. Like, [00:44:00] why am I not as happy as Bob or Sarah? Sorry Bob. Sorry Sarah. But why am I not as happy as they are? And you go, it's not something wrong with, you might have just been, born with a different set point. And then she talks about how only 10% of happiness is based off of our circumstances.

The job we have, the house we live in, what's going on. But man, we spend 90% of our work trying to figure out that 10%. Yeah. And then she then goes into, there's a 40% of her happiness that's fully in our control. It is on our practices. Practices of gratitude. You mentioned earlier the smiling piece.

There's real research that when you smile, it activates nerves that then sends a message to your brain to go, oh, let's release some feel good chemicals. And so it is taking advantage of all of that. And she talks about how acts of service and other things like that can help us be happier people.

And so a part of it is acting like a happy person, and that [00:45:00] 40% can help the 10% feel a lot better if we're in some not so fun circumstances. Yeah, it can help that. And then it can also help mitigate the 50% our set point. It can help that balance. It can help even do some rewiring work in the brain, act, things like mindfulness meditation been shown to increase gray matter in the prefrontal cortex.

And so there's so many things. And so I take that same type of language that people might be familiar with and I translate it to learning how to love yourself. If we can do actions backed by research to create a happier life, we can do actions that will create a more self-loving life. I talk about there's five key areas that we wanna look at to understand if we have a healthy relationship with ourselves.

One is how we think about ourselves. Two, how we talk about ourselves. Three, how we see ourselves when I look in the mirror, when I visualize myself, that overall [00:46:00] seeing of who I am. Number four is how I act towards myself or don't act towards myself if I'm not doing anything to care for myself. Those are key indicators.

And then number five, how I allow other people to treat me. And so as we start to think about this, we really wanna get into some of those. Thinking, speaking, and seeing. That's where those affirmations. And then using visualization work and then acting. I do wanna start acting like I love myself and I wanna start identifying areas that I can start demonstrating love towards myself.

And once again, I can't repeat this enough. It's gonna feel awkward, it's gonna feel clunky, and it's supposed to, and it's okay. Yeah. That's how we all started with it. And as you allow yourself to know that's gonna be the journey that this is work. And I also say treat yourself like somebody that you love and it won't be too long until you actually do, because you are going to start firing and wiring, training your nervous system, [00:47:00] rewiring your core beliefs in order to then be a person that does love yourself.

And I know sometimes people are uncomfortable with their language, even of self-love, right? Yeah. It doesn't feel, it feels weak or it feels like I love myself and I let off the gas of, pushing myself that I'm gonna derail. I would encourage you to visit the thought that loving yourself can be a much more powerful, effective way for change to happen than anything else in your life.

And there's a whole process even of how core beliefs can get changed. And we often try to deal with the action, and that, that's part of what we're trying to do here is the action. And it's important 'cause the action gives us what is new experiences. Okay, because core beliefs, we have an experience.

We make meaning from the experience we make decisions from the meaning that we assign to that experience. Then we repeat that meaning in our self-talk and in our words, and then those things drive another action that give us another [00:48:00] experience that reinforce the whole loop. So let's start in giving ourselves new experiences by new actions.

A new action. A new experience would be to tell yourself that you love yourself if you've never done that before, to do something for yourself that is loving and that action towards loving yourself is going to start convincing your system. Give it time or some core beliefs. Took me six months to a year to figure out how to rewire for myself.

Yeah. So yeah, it's work. 

Kevin: Yeah, because if I'm telling myself like, let's just say I'm a piece of crap for making a mistake or whatever, like it's, I'm so quick with that, or I'm so quick to beat myself up when and this is how I kind of view this whole thought of like self-love and do, thinking of things this way is I might have done that method of beating myself up, telling myself I'm a piece of shit, [00:49:00] whatever.

Yeah. Because I did something wrong, or because I was something, something that I didn't like. And I reinforced that over a long period of time that stuck. So if I'm reinforcing that, if I'm using that and that worked, why wouldn't the opposite me telling myself, you know what? I am deserving of love.

I am, you know what? Whatever those affirmations are, whatever those things are that we tell ourselves in the positive way, why wouldn't that help us to rewire our brain in a very similar way? Yeah. Because, the opposites worked well thus far. So why not give it another voice another, another uh, a vote?

In my head of, you know what, let's look at this from a different angle. Yeah, absolutely. So I do think that is I think coming to turn and that's part of like my I know in the past coming to terms with it, 'cause when I started, working with my therapist, one of the [00:50:00] first things I started doing was she gave me some affirmations.

Yeah. And yeah, I repeated those and I just went through 'em. First I was just reading them every day on my phone and, I would go in and I would write my three things. I was grateful for every day. And I'd be like, ah, I'm grateful for my wife, my job, my daughter, my coffee in my hand right now, whatever.

And then I'd read the affirmations real quick and go through it. But I showed up and I did that. And then I, I after a while I got bored writing the same things down that I was grateful for. I. I the more I read those affirmations that she gave me, the more, maybe one day, one part of that one caught me in particular and I stopped and I reread it and I said it out loud and I just, so by doing it and by coming back to it and repeating it, then I started saying okay, you're not writing the same three things down that you're grateful for.

You're gonna come up with something new every day. Yeah. And then imagine that [00:51:00] I started coming up with new things and just, I was like, whoa, I wasn't even, didn't even think about that before. And that's part of, I think, the practice that we just give ourselves a chance to show up for some of these actions, in just a little way, in some small way.

We can have huge impacts down the road, but give it time. Like, hear, hear are the people who are saying like, in, when you're on social media, when you're in a meeting, when you're, reading something that are touting some of these things, don't just blow it off. Yeah, 

Jerry: absolutely. And I gotta tell you, before I got on this work and this, space that's been so transformative for me and other people that I work with, I would blow some of that stuff off as well because what I was doing subconsciously that was then being expressed consciously, was I was protecting myself by blowing it off.

Because I would say, oh, of course they could do it because of [00:52:00] X, Y, and Z, but I certainly can't because. A, B, C, and we all have those things, right? Yeah. It's if I tell you, love yourself, forgive yourself, you're gonna come up with eh, five reasons why you can't, then you're gonna boil it down to two.

You're probably gonna boil it down to one. It's no, I am not allowed to give myself permission to love myself because of these one or two things. I did them. I feel terrible about them. And in our brains, we then were so familiar with us that we're so familiar with our struggles, but we can then give grace and understanding to other people and go of course, Kevin can do all this amazing work with helping people and the Reframe app and the, community he's building and all of the things that they're doing that's helping, hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, you go, of course he could do that because it's Kevin.

And rewind, right? Yeah. Your story, where you're at and you go. No it's not that. We gotta understand. It's a protection mechanism, even to say that, and to [00:53:00] look at somebody and go, they can do it, but I can't because I'm afraid that if I let go of those one or two things right, and give myself permission to move beyond those, maybe I'll screw up again.

Maybe I'll repeat 'em. And maybe me beating the hell outta myself is a way to keep me from repeating that. If I keep punishing myself, I won't do it again. And I wanna stay safe and I don't wanna do that stuff. And you go, no, loving yourself. Punishment is not corrective, we think it is. Punishment is punitive, and it keeps repeating patterns.

Love is corrective. Love is healing. We wanna give ourselves a corrective experience by learning to love ourselves. And we're afraid that if I let go of that stuff, I'm gonna let myself off the hook. I haven't punished myself long enough, or I might repeat it. And then the other thing, sometimes people is self-love is narcissistic.

And, doing that kind of stuff, I, I know this person who did that, and all of a sudden they started, dismissing the responsibilities, acting like [00:54:00] this person, yeah. Being super selfish. It's not selfish, it's not narcissistic. Actually, narcissism and research says it's one of the deepest expressions of shame and it, and according to the research by Dr. Brene Brown. And so as you look at that, you go, wow, what if you started to just inch towards an affirmation and it's, it also gets stored in the body, right? It, the trauma is, I love you. The work of the, body keeps the score. Somatic therapy can help us release that stuff as well. Breath work can help us release those feelings and telling ourselves that we're worthy of love as we're doing breath work that's releasing all of those chemicals in our brain that are also allowing us to wire that belief into our nervous system.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Powerful work. 

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned about how, oh, I know that person who Yeah, they're, who does that and they, yeah, they're all about themselves now and they're very [00:55:00] selfish and, or whatever it is. We all know someone who did something who can be a reason why we look negatively upon that, but challenge that oh, if, if you see that and you have a negative view on something that you hear, let's say in this podcast, right? Okay, why, dig into that. Why is that, and is it something just because you're like, no. I can't, I don't wanna do that because I'm stuck in this, maybe cycle of shame.

And so it's almost like a protective measure there on shame's part to steer us away from that. But challenge yourself to try some of these things regardless of what somebody else said about affirmations or gratitude or yoga or whatever it is and find a way that works for you, because I mean, there's so many, like the things that I mentioned that I did, the things that [00:56:00] you're mentioning here, like those are just a few examples.

Yeah. I've been using, actually, like for something like this, I would go to now I'm all chat GPT or something like that, and just type in give me a hundred different ways I can practice self-love for it. And you can even tailor it and be like, don't make it too cheesy or, whatever.

Just say whatever you want. But and see what it spit out. And then be, you might read through those a hundred things. Something's gonna stand out, right? That, oh, maybe I'll try that. That sounds interesting. But, give things a fair. Shot. Is, and I say that as somebody who would shut things down very quickly if I didn't feel if I heard something or if I was like, no, that's not gonna work.

'cause I had a different belief. It's almost, have that beginner's mind of, letting go of any preconceived notions I have of the thing and just trying it. Yeah. And see where it can lead. What could it hurt to read an affirmation every day or have it on your phone, like you said.

I like [00:57:00] that tip for having that on your lock screen. Yeah, I shared that recently in a journaling meeting where we were talking about identifying emotions, identifying feelings, and we broke out the feelings wheel and I was like, put that as your lock screen put, hanging it up in your office or in, at home somewhere as a reminder 

whenever you feel a certain way, dig in oh, I'm so mad right now. It's okay, what am I actually, yeah. Getting a little bit more clarity on it can be very helpful to diffuse or, maybe give me a little bit better path to go on than, oh, I'm mad. Okay. Yeah. Why?

And, what can I do about that? It's not that I'm mad necessarily. Maybe I'm just a little bit annoyed at what happened today at work, or, that's a very different than angry. And yeah. Yeah. But a little tangent there, but, 

Jerry: yeah. I love the thought where you said, when we look at other people who've [00:58:00] done those things and then, the yoga or the affirmations, we've been told that, and we wanna dismiss.

I've started trying to look at myself and go, usually my first reaction. It's like that is a protective reaction. Yeah. Yeah. It's something that is protecting me from some place space I don't want to go into with it myself. And if that, my auto response of judgment or dismissing is usually that first queue that, or that first response that comes up after that queue is usually protective.

And then, as you said, asking the next question behind it. Get curious. I love the energy of curiosity and applying that towards ourselves. Transformational. 

Kevin: Yeah. And yeah the only other thing that I wanted to touch on as well as I have a post-it note there somewhere where it's buried right now, but it says I change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad.

And that's from BJ Fog g from Tiny Habits. [00:59:00] And, it's. When we feel good, but when we feel good about what we're doing, when we feel good about those things that we're trying to incorporate, that's gonna go a lot farther than beating ourselves up, or being negative. And feelings that shame feeling that come on, you got, you have to shape up and do better and, suck it up.

Do this, do that. All those negative kind of thought patterns. Yeah, they can work, at times, but is it really, to make longer lasting change, I'm going to change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad. Yeah. Is ultimately how I think we, a lot of what we talked about here, is focused on incorporating.

These new practices, if they're new to our, to us and allowing ourselves time to have it happen. I was just talking with [01:00:00] somebody yesterday and it was about something related to habits about something else, and they were like how long does it take to form a habit? Two weeks? And I had to pause myself and just hold my hold back from like it was a friend and I and I'm like I usually am not this definitive, but No.

Yeah. It doesn't take two weeks. It doesn't take 21 days. If you said 66, there's research behind that. I'll give you that. Yeah. But I'm like, it takes as long as it takes is my typical answer with it. I never want to hear typically, and I know other people don't, but, giving ourself time.

And 'cause that's what I hear a lot too, is when did you start feeling this? When did this start to change? And all that. And it's what's the quote that's often used is don't stop before the magic happens. Yeah. So 

Jerry: true. 

Kevin: And that's things people don't want to hear because it's okay then if the magic hasn't happened yet and it's been how long?

Like how long do I have to wait? But to the extent that I'm doing, I'm writing down some gratitude. I'm practicing some [01:01:00] affirmations. I'm saying them in a mirror. Like those things, if I'm doing those and they don't feel like they're working yet, is it still, is it that much of a hassle? I would say to keep doing it, to keep writing that down every day.

So why not just try and do it even if I'm not necessarily feeling it yet? 

Jerry: Yeah. I love that because here's the truth, people are worthy of however long it takes. 

Kevin: Yeah. 

Jerry: To make the change. If you're listening, I mean, you are worthy of however long it takes for the change to happen. If it takes two years, if it takes three years, I don't know.

Everybody's different. Yeah. But how long have you been living in the other space? And Yeah. The advantages or the thought here is, I lived that way for 40 plus years of shame and self-hatred and self-loathing. So if it took me five years to stop living that way, I. It's worth the investment.

And when you're worthy of that investment, we think that healing is something to be achieved. It needs to happen fast, it needs [01:02:00] to, and if it doesn't hit certain metrics, then ah, there's something wrong with me. All of that is, once again, shame manifesting in a different way. It didn't work, fast enough, so it was wrong.

Something wrong with me. Yeah. When you catch that, there's something wrong with me. It's that sneaky shame thing coming back and it just, it takes, as you said, as long as it takes. Yeah. And you're worthy of it. So 

Kevin: I love that you're worthy of as long as it takes. Yep. Absolutely true. Yeah. Thank you for that.

Yep. Yeah. Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on or mention before we wrap it up? 

Jerry: I don't know. I think I'm okay. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that might serve people as they're in this journey about, healing and a journey of sobriety. Getting rid of shame.

Oh, I think I'm okay. Anything else that you could think of? 

Kevin: No, I mean, I think we covered [01:03:00] a lot of good ground there and a lot of takeaways that I know I'm going to you might even have me getting back into my affirmations again uh, because yeah I, I, I, I haven't practice, I'll use that word, those in a while.

I I look at those usually on a I'll say a monthly there's like a monthly review that I go through. Yeah. That I end up seeing those, but I don't practice those, like I do some other things. So I think I'm going to pull those out and dust those off and actually rework them because, my affirmations that my therapist gave me were specific for how, what the things I was going through six years ago.

Yeah. And I added some on along the way. But yeah, to really look at what is that, that I [01:04:00] want to affirm right now that's been stuck in my head the past, I don't know, past hour essentially of what is, what are my new affirmations. I think I need a reboot there. So take a look at that.

Jerry: Yeah, so true, isn't it? 'cause we're like going, I always say we're on this upward spiral in growth, right? Yeah. And and what worked here, even though sometimes we're going around to some of the same issues and it feels like the same issues, we're just in a different place with it and different affirmations for different types of life and I don't think affirmations are a fix all, but I think they're a fantastically powerful thing.

That self-talk research just so clear how incredibly powerful it is to transform us. Yeah. Or to pull us into, I like to say it's one of the things in my book that when I realized I was a source of my own suffering, I also realized I could be the source of my own healing. Yeah. Oh, that's one thing I did want to say is not that phrase, but you said something earlier about how some of these [01:05:00] things that we do to ourselves, negative self-talk or, trying to just grind ourselves or whatever can work and they can they can help work, try to keep us in line, but we, I'll just invite people to ask maybe a different question, but besides, is it working?

Is it healing you? Because we can find things that work to keep us, from behaviors that we don't want or keep us in line or whatever our story is that negative self-talk or shame is doing for us. But it's not always about does it work, does it heal? 'cause we want to get to the place where healing happens.

And for me, in my journey and I struggled even with it as a guy, I'll do the whole, guy thing. Right now it was for me, like self, whatever man. I need to, beat myself into, change. And when I realized that loving myself was the bravest, most courageous thing that I could do when there was zero shame.

And being a person who freely accepts and is trying to [01:06:00] normalize self-love among all people, that loving ourselves should be as normal as breathing because we are worthy of love. And when we understand that shame and all this stuff yep, may keep us in line, it might work to change some behaviors, but does it heal us?

And we want healing and love is the most, once again, healing force that I know of. 

Kevin: Yeah. I pictured a bandaid there. Shame being, or, alcohol is a bandaid, it can help in the moment, right? It can help then, but is it fixing what's underneath or is it just covering it up and letting it fester and yeah.

Yeah. And so ripping that bandaid off and exposing it and not exposing it, that sounds dramatic, but, just shining that, allowing the light to shine on it, that opening, that crack that you mentioned earlier. Yeah. And actually doing the things that can heal it. [01:07:00] I mean, I don't think anybody, I'm sure any people can, I was gonna say, I don't think anybody can argue with that, but yeah, everybody can.

We, somebody can argue about anything. So that's I'll pull, I'll retract that statement, but yeah, it is just like the, like you mentioned as a guy, like the, I always think of the strong, oh, the strong silent type. That's a good thing. Yeah. If that's so strong to be silent why was it so easy to be silent?

Like when it was so difficult to like, raise my hand and say the things that I was scared to say that I was ashamed to say that I was, worried about that I was so that's the strength is allowing ourselves to love our ourself. Not sucking it up and just moving on to the next thing.

Yeah. I love that. Is it healing you? 

Jerry: Yeah. Self-love isn't about avoiding, it's not just about pretending. It's allowing us to witness ourselves. Because you said like exposing take the band off. Yeah. Bandaid off and [01:08:00] expose. It's take the bandaid off and witness pain, holds space for it. Show empathy.

Empathy's one of the most healing things for shame when people show us empathy. But we can also practice empathy towards ourselves and witnessing. 'cause we can bury our pain under the shame and get so focused in on how we feel, but never let ourselves witness that pain that's there so that love can enter in and bring healing to it.

And it's so radically different sometimes than what people's approaches. 

Kevin: Yeah, I know. It was for me. Yeah. 

Jerry: Absolutely. 

Kevin: I appreciate you sharing this with us here. This is such a great conversation. And yeah, I like doing what I do because , I'm working on myself and, along the way

So, I mean, learning is one of my biggest tools that I have on my own journey. It's [01:09:00] just okay, how can I learn about my body, my mind, my relationships, myself, all of those things, whatever. And keep that going. So I love this and I appreciate your time here with us. We do typically at the end of these episodes, do a little just a little lighthearted a nugget of the week type of thing.

But we call it just, what did you learn this week? And it could be completely off topic or, not, it doesn't have to be sobriety related or shame or, anything like that. Just a little nugget for the listeners. And I should have, Emma wasn't able to join us today for today's episode.

But I should have got, I should have made her gimme a nugget still. I actually thought I wanted in advance. Usually I'm sitting here off the cuff and be like, oh, I thought I had one and I lost it. But my nugget for this week is, I learned, I was just on vacation last week and I learned on vacation that I need to bring vacation home with me more.

[01:10:00] It hit me as I, I was sitting there, in a lounge chair in the shade, of course. 'cause I don't like the sun or heat. So I'm in the shade. And, yeah, I had a beautiful view in front of me. The weather was nice, all of that. As somebody who lives in Cleveland, that's not always the case, although we're getting into a good season here.

But I realized that what I enjoyed doing to relax, was , I was sitting in the shade. I had a book, or I'm writing in my journal, or I just shut my eyes for a few minutes. I it hit me with one of my prompts that I had that I was like, I need to bring this home with me more.

Like, why don't I do this more? And usually, and I was thinking more about the summertime it can be so easy to get sucked up and everything we're doing that I was like, no, you need to. Bring that those parts home with you. And maybe, that's easy for me to do, whether the weather's nice or not.

Like I typically will, morning with a cup of coffee, sit and read and do my [01:11:00] journaling and all that, but to do it outside and sit and, break out I have a little hammock that I can hang between two trees that's that folds up into a little pouch, but I can break that up anytime I want or whatever.

It's, but how can I bring that practice? See, I'll use that word home with me, if I'm on vacation, I like, if you're somebody who likes to explore, how can you explore in your own town? I know for me, I could probably do a hundred different things that I've never done before in this area. As a, as part of an exploration, that could be fun too.

So I, I'm, that's my new thought process for at least this summer coming up, is how can I bring a little bit of vacation home and even if it's just, I'm not saying every day, maybe on the weekends. That's my nugget for, that's my nugget that I learned this week. Yeah. But I don't know if you have anything that you'd like to share, but 

Jerry: Yeah.

No, it's so interesting. Thank you for sharing that, Kevin, because it's so [01:12:00] true, right? That why do we not give ourselves permission to be Yeah. Living in a state where it's yeah, I love these things when I go on vacation. Why can't I bring them here? And it's crazy that you're mentioning that. 'cause it reminded me I like to do these little walks that I take to clear my head.

Get in a different frame of mind. And a year ago, right now, I was on the Camino de Santiago walking 500 miles from France to Spain and going into, the cathedral and all that, fun stuff, that historic pilgrimage. And I just needed some space to super clear my bearing, evidently, because I did 500 miles of that.

And it was fantastic. But there was this like crazy sense of beautiful solitude. Connecting with a lot of emotions. And it was one of the most incredible experiences that I had. The other day I was going for a walk and I thought, man, I'd like to go back and walk the Camino again. And I thought why can't I just feel now what I felt then?

Because I [01:13:00] made a choice in my brain to have a certain presence when I was walking the Camino. Why can't I do that now? And I took the music, I had this little playlist that I listened to a number of times while I was walking the Camino. I said, lemme just play that and see what happens. And I took the walk and it wasn't, and I started getting intentional about, okay, what if I was in Spain right now?

I'm just gonna act like I'm in Spain in my neighborhood here, and I. The music with that intention started releasing all that emotion. I actually got choked up and it was a choking up from remember the experiencing of the experience, but it was also choking up and going, holy crap, we have incredible power to change our state.

And I got so emotional about how incredible it was to be able to just listen to that music, set an intention and get in a totally different state of being. And like you talked about, bringing vacation home, I was able to [01:14:00] bring the Camino to my neighborhood and it was fantastic. So thanks for sharing that.

'cause it made me remember that walk I took this week and really reinforcing that lesson about how much power we have to change state. 

Kevin: Yeah. I love that. Thanks for sharing that. That's music. I love that you brought that into it too like, yeah, okay. What was I listening to when I was doing that? Or, that's, music's been so powerful for me on my journey to just get me into different moods, different states, different, but it is, it's also those reminders, it's those feelings, it's the words, it's the lyrics, it's all of the stuff that can come from, it has been such a huge thing for me as well.

And that's, yeah, that's a great reminder of how can I bring myself, how can I bring that state here? That can be a powerful way to do it. So Sure can. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. And yeah, 500 miles that's a hike. Aha, that's a lot. How long does that take? 

Jerry: Took me [01:15:00] 30 days.

I was, my high achiever kicked in and I wanted to, and it was anywhere from 15 to 25 miles plus some days, but it was yeah, I just was going through some transitions in my life and really wanted to give myself some space to breathe and yeah, 30 days, it was fantastic. 

Kevin: Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. That's great. Thank you for sharing that. Would you as we close out here would you like to share where, where people can find you, what you're working on? We'll include, this in the show notes too, but if you'd.

Go ahead. 

Jerry: Yeah, absolutely. If you have any interest of connecting, learning a little bit more about what I do, you can go to my website, jerry henderson.org. And if you're interested in setting up a free strategy call there so we can connect, we can do that. But also on Instagram, you can find me there. My handle is at Jerry A.

Henderson. Send me a message. We'd love to engage with you if you have any questions about what we shared today. 

Kevin: Awesome. Thank you. And thank you all for [01:16:00] listening to this week's episode with our special guest, Jerry Henderson. The Re frameable podcast is brought to you by the Reframe app. Reframe is the number one iOS and Android app to help you cut back or quit drinking alcohol. It uses neuroscience to reframe your relationship with alcohol and unlock the healthiest, happiest you. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe and share with those that you feel may benefit from it.

And I wanna thank you again for listening, and be sure to come back for another episode. Have a great day.

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