Counterfeit Emotions with Curtis Morley

Welcome to Yes Women’s Network podcast. We’re happy to have you with us today. And I’m honored to have with me today Curtis Morley, who is going to be talking to us about counterfeit emotions. As an introduction, Curtis Morley is the world’s first emotionologist. And founder of Counterfeit Emotions.

He is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author and is currently working on a new book called Counterfeit Emotions. He speaks around the world and shares a message of hope with people who are looking to find one emotion that cannot be counterfeited, which is peace. Thank you for being with us today. I’m so glad to be here. Thanks, Michele?

Oh, I love it. We had a conversation a couple months ago at an event and as we were talking, I just, the wheels were spinning as we spoke and you were telling me about counterfeit emotions. I mean you didn’t only talk about peace, you were talking about love and lust and kind and nice and different emotions that I don’t think people think about and how it impacts their daily relationships even whether professional or personal and and that’s that’s actually why one of the reasons I’m doing what I’m doing is because it took me till I was over 40 before I started to discover these principles and I’m thinking why has no one told me there’s a counterfeit to every authentic emotion.

Why did I not learn this in church or home or school or anywhere? Scouts like that. These are so important. And having to reframe this. One of the most dangerous lies are the ones that we believe.

And that’s what the counterfeits are. We believe that I want to be a virtuous human. I want to be a good person, and therefore I’m going to be nice. But nice is actually the counterfeit of kind. Nice isn’t the virtue.

It’s a defense mechanism to say I’m going to avoid conflict. That’s the motive behind nice. Kind says I am going to have kindness here first, kindness for me, and as much kindness as I can have for me that’s how much I can have for you and so it kind of starts here kind of starts with boundaries kind of starts inside and so excuse me time to get some of that water so understanding these principles that there is a counterfeit for each authentic emotion and understanding that that if I can break out of the counterfeits and live authentically, then it’s going to change my life completely. Because so many people feel stuck, and this was me for sure, feel stuck in life where it’s, I’m doing the things I think are supposed to bring me happiness and I think that are supposed to bring me success.

And we don’t realize that these counterfeits, they put on the clothes, they wear the mask, they look and act and feel like an authentic emotion, or they create cycles of disconnection in our lives. Interesting. So in your own personal, let’s pull back. What got you to this point in, you know, whether personal or professional, that made you want to look into how your emotions impact your life? God gave me just the right amount of pain.

Okay. He, yeah, my entire career I’d been a tech entrepreneur, CEO, and I thought that’s where I was headed. That was my direction in life. And I found out that God had a much bigger plan, a much brighter plan, and there was nothing wrong with being an entrepreneur. I loved it.

It was great. But God needed me to shift. And so he blessed me with some really good pain, some pain I’m really grateful for. And yeah, that got me into that shift. And to be more specific, I went through a really hard divorce and some really hard family things, and it brought me to my knees.

Actually, it brought me a little lower, and I’m grateful. I’m grateful for that pain. If it hadn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation today. So how has acknowledging that helped your relationship going forward? It’s been amazing.

The very first emotion that I discovered was pain versus misery. Pain versus? Misery. Okay. And my previous thinking, my previous thoughts was that there’s a big steel wall.

And on one side of the wall is pain. And on the other side of the wall is joy and love. And and my thought was that this is an impenetrable wall you either have pain or you have joy you have pain or you have love and and when I was going through my personal what I call my job moment I experienced both pain and joy together and it broke my brain it was this aporia that I was like wait, I don’t understand. Pain is on this side of the wall. It’s not over here.

You get pain, and then after you can have joy. Afterwards, you can have love, but not together. And I was feeling the most pain I’d felt in my life. And it was so painful. I was begging for a mountain to fall on me.

I wanted to end the pain so badly and I pleaded with God. I said, God, please, please take away this pain. And Michele, he didn’t. He didn’t take the pain away. Instead, he He wrapped me in his arms and he said, I’m here while you go through this pain.

You’re going to go through it, but while you do, I’m going to be here. And I realized that the side of the wall that I was calling pain was mislabeled my whole life. This side of the wall wasn’t pain. This side of the wall was misery. But I get to choose where I put my pain.

I can bury it under the sludge and tar of misery, or I can elevate it and honor it and transform it from pain into sacred sorrow. And it’s up to me where I put it. And by definition, misery is the absence of joy. That’s this side of the wall. It’s not pain.

Pain is inevitable. Pain has to happen. But I get to choose if I’m going to add misery to it. I get to choose if I’m going to bury it under the sludge and tar of misery or if I’m going to turn it into something sacred. And it’s still sorrow, but it can be sacred sorrow.

It can be sorrow that refines, sorrow that changes our hearts, sorrow that elevates us to a place we may not have even known we could go. So that’s, as I think about what you’re saying and feeling that emotion, I can feel it right now too, is when you talk about misery and pain, I think often people are afraid to face the pain because it’s scary. It hurts. I’m certain, yes. It hurts.

It hurts, and they don’t know how long it’s going to last. And so that’s scary. But facing pain, how do you help an individual recognize that facing pain is what will get you through? You know what I’m saying? What helps you get through to facing it and going, okay, I face it, and I’m going to transform.

How do you help people see that? Yeah. This year, they came out with a study, and they said that the number one indicator of emotional intelligence is the ability to witness an emotion without acting on it. And this is a skill I definitely didn’t have prior, and I find most humans don’t have this skill. The ability to just witness the emotion.

And we can do this with any of the emotions. Like one of the pairs of emotions, or what I call dyads of emotions, is awareness and anxiety. Okay. And similar to your question about pain and misery, when we feel an emotion immediately we think I need to act on this if I’m feeling anxiety I’ve got to be anxious if I’m feeling pain I’ve got to act out in painful ways if I’m feeling anger I have to be angry the number one skill in emotional intelligence is to be able to say hey pain we’ve had a long journey we’ve been together for a while I know who you are come on in I’ll sit with you for a minute I’m not going to act I’m not going to stuff my emotions down I’m not going to act in anger or rage I’m not going to run away I’m just going to sit with you I’m just going to be here and you know what it’s going to hurt it’s going to probably hurt a lot I’m okay with that let’s go through this together and one thing that is a huge misconception in life is that pain is meant to be held.

No, pain is not meant to be held. Okay. Pain is meant to be felt, not held. It’s meant to come into our bodies. The purpose of pain is to get us to move to action, to do something, to change, to make our lives better and pain is actually a very connecting emotion.

If you cut your finger, you are intimately connected with that finger at that moment. Like it’s so connecting. But also with others. When you feel pain, you can connect. You can’t ever say I know how you feel if you haven’t felt it.

And it’s a connecting, it’s an emotion. It’s meant to move us to action. And pain hurts. And when it comes in and we trap it in this, I imagine like pain being this beautiful diamond, this gorgeous diamond, but it’s sharp and it’s pointed and it’s brilliant and it demands attention, right? You see it and little rainbow sparkles are shooting off and it demands attention.

And we’re like, whoa, this is too big of a diamond. I’m just going to pour this tar, this black goopy tar over it. And it’s slowly. Yeah. So I don’t have to actually look at it.

I don’t have to pick it up. Instead, I’m just going to cover it and it’s going to drip and it’s going to ooze and I’m going to keep putting the misery back on top. And when the pain comes in, it hurts. The misery traps the hurt. And misery has two base emotions, blame and shame.

You want to get into misery, start blaming people. You want to get into misery, start shaming yourself or others. And when we sludge this beautiful diamond, we’re like, okay, now I don’t have to look at it. Now I don’t have any responsibility in the pain. I can now just pretend it not there but it keeps cutting It keeps hurting And it not meant to be held It meant to be felt It meant to drip out your eyes It meant to be heard in sobs It’s meant to be transcribed in journals.

It’s meant to get us to move to action. And so if we can just witness it, if we can just say, Hey, Payne, I recognize we’re going to spend some time today. And you know what it hurts but I’m ready for the hurt let’s do it and just witness not do anything but just witness and then move to action after you witness that’s the key is after you witness then move to action so being able to feel the pain and to be able to sit with it is the process to healing. Yeah. Is that right?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I love to say if you’re going through pain, keep going. Don’t stop.

So how do you know when you’ve really felt it? And like you said, you said sit in it and feel it. And you know how people will say you know when somebody loses a family member or a divorce or how do you know when you’ve felt enough of it that you’re healing without because at the same time do you find individuals that sit and that’s I know it’s not our place to say you’re grieving you’re done yeah you know that’s not our place I understand that but as an individual how do we know when it’s time to be able to pick up our feet and move forward. Yeah. Oftentimes that misery will trap us, will trap the pain inside.

And the way when we can know for ourselves, like, okay, it’s time, is that we feel it move through us. You can feel the pain move through you. And as long as we’re not willing to pick it up to hold it to look at it and say what message are you bringing me how do I need to change what do I need to do then it will it will stay as soon as we address it as soon as we address it it moves through us and most emotions they actually did a phenomenal study out of Harvard or excuse me no this was out of Stanford they did a phenomenal study out Stanford that they said how long do emotions last and on average an emotional last 90 seconds really yeah and so it goes deeper than that though I mean you feel the initial emotion but it only lasts that long and then what and and if if someone is experiencing the loss of a loved one or other things you’re going to fill a whole bunch of those 90 second segments right and and so as you go through that grieving process like this is so important to understand that yes it’s going to be 90 seconds and at the end of the 90 seconds is what’s called the refractory period is if we truly honor it we surrender to the pain and and i use those words very specifically we surrender to the pain.

We don’t try and fight it. We don’t resist it. We don’t say, no pain, you don’t get to be here. Then what we find is that pain is like God’s chisel. He’s carving the old wood out of our soul so that he can fill us with joy, so that he can fill us with love.

And um and I wish God tried to teach me this at 26 when I was 26 year old and dang it Michele I did not get the lesson I really didn’t but um live and learn though right at least that’s the process yeah in in college we had a really tight beautiful group of friends and um one of those her name was Tacey, Tacey Stewart, and she, she was beautiful, and talented, and everybody loved her, and she was so sweet, and just a truly kind person, and, and she, she got engaged, and all of us were so happy for her, we’re just like, this is amazing, I can’t believe it, and the, the day of her wedding, like, we were a really tight group, I, I called, and she was all excited and and um or skinny the day before her wedding not the day of the day before her wedding we talked and then the next day comes and um my friend um dave we called him big wave dave we actually still do do you it’s that we still call him big wave um he uh he and i were in my car and we drove to the church um where the reception was supposed to be and this is before the days of Google Maps, right?

This is the map quest of the, you know, 17 pages of instructions. You have to print them out. But it was Orem. And so we pull up into the parking lot of this church where the reception was supposed to be. And we looked around and there were no other cars.

There was no lights. There was no lights in the parking lot in the building nothing and we’re like well it’s Orem and we can see three other churches from here so let’s just go you know drive around and so we did we we went to five other churches nothing came back and I was like hold on big wave and I jump out and I run up to up to the glass door and there was an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper that said we’re so sorry the Stuart wedding has been cancelled I had just talked to her the day before and my heart just sunk and I was like this is so heartbreaking so the next day I called and her mom answered the phone and I said is Tacey there and she said yes but it’s too soon she can’t talk right now maybe call back in a couple days.

So a couple days went by and I called again and she said oh she’s not here she’s down at the floral shop they own this cute little flower stand called Stuart Floral it was on not University the one now the one below Freedom Freedom Boulevard yeah it was yeah Freedom Boulevard they had this cute little flower shop called Stewart’s Floral and and so I just got in my car and I went down and I parked in the gravel parking lot and opened the glass door with the little bell above it and heard the ding ding and and that musty aromatic smell of the flowers came out and and Tacey was behind the counter arranging some flowers and and she turned around and she saw me and she just collapsed on the ground and I ran behind the counter and I just held her and she wept it hurt so bad and as she was weeping I was weeping with her and I just helped her and I didn’t know what to say and I said I’m so sorry I’m so so sorry I wish I could take this pain away and she said something that I now know the meaning of she said no sure tears stopped and she looked up at me and she said no Curtis no if you take the pain away you have to take the love away too the reason the pain is there is because the love was there and I realized It was like a balloon.

And we take our Sharpie and we write these great big letters, pain, on this big inflated balloon. And then we’re like, oh, that pain’s too big. I’ve got to let the, what it’s filled with, I’ve got to let the feeling out. And F-E-E-L-I-N-G, as well as the F-I-L-L-I-N-G, the feeling. And so we let the air out and the balloon shrinks and that great big word pain gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

And what we don’t realize is on the other side of the balloon is the word love, is the word joy. And our ability to feel love is directly related to our ability to feel pain. Yeah. And if we try and shrink the pain, we may not realize we’re not just shrinking the pain. We’re shrinking the love.

We’re shrinking the joy. We’re shrinking our ability to feel. We’re saying, I’m going to shrink my ability to feel pain. No, we’re shrinking our ability to feel, period. And so understanding the true nature of pain, that it’s God’s chisel, and it hurts every time he strikes, but he’s digging out that wood so that he can fill it with love.

That’s where it is. That’s beautiful. And I think along with that is it takes away the ability for growth. Yes. So true.

And I think that’s the hard part. It’s being able to accept, okay, with this pain, comes growth, comes healing, and even the magnification of love and joy. Right? Yeah. And the unique thing about pain is it’s meant to hurt.

And I know that’s not a popular sentiment. It’s like, oh boy, you’re saying that life is just going to be full of pain and full of hurt. Like pain is inevitable misery is optional though we can feel pain and joy we can feel pain and love and like tacy said if we want to get rid of the pain guess what we have to get rid of we have to get rid of the love and so truly understanding the nature of pain i always thought pain was bad it meant i’m bad my choices are bad my situation’s bad there’s something bad It’s not true. Yeah. There is no more effective way to grow than through pain.

There’s none. You cannot grow faster, more efficiently, more effectively than through pain. It’s so interesting. And so when you consider that in relationships, especially personal relationships, you know, people say avoid conflict, avoid, you know, but it’s inevitable. But as I look at my own personal relationships with my husband or with my children, those and I even remember back in the day, had girlfriends over for an event at my house, probably a Christmas party.

Anyway, and we were talking and some of the girls were talking about some fights that they had had with their husbands. And I just remember kind of going, I’ve never raised my voice at Jed. Jed has never raised his voice at me. And I had a friend literally look at me and say, then something’s wrong. And I thought that was fascinating because I thought, no, there’s peace, right?

There’s not contention. So what’s your take on that? I love that you brought this up. This is so good. Let’s run with it.

Yes, because people say that all the time. If you’re not fighting, something’s wrong. If there’s not conflict, something’s wrong, that you’re just both faking it. And that can be true. That could be, sure.

Yeah, that very well could be you’re just both suppressing your emotions and not fighting, but you have a whole bunch of negative emotions going on inside, right? You have a whole bunch of these destructive emotions. And let me rephrase. I said negative emotions. There’s no such thing as a bad emotion.

I want to put a little asterisk right there. Good. There’s no such thing as a bad emotion. There are counterfeits, and there’s destructive emotions, but every emotion at its core is just a messenger. Okay.

The trouble is when we let the messenger become the dictator. Okay. I like that. And so just saying, okay, I have an emotion, and I’m going to feel it, and then I’m going to take the message, and I’m going to run with it. But coming back to your question about arguing in marriage and you have to have arguments, you have to have this conflict, one of the dyads is that nice is the counterfeit of kind.

And nice is what they’re talking about. I see conflict. I’m going to do everything I can to avoid that conflict. But this is what you’re talking about. This is how it is for Patty and I.

I look at my marriage, I haven’t met anyone that has a marriage as good as Patty. And I’m not saying there aren’t great marriages. I love her so much, and I feel her love so deeply. And have we ever fought? No.

Have we had disagreements Absolutely And the difference is NICE says conflict avoid conflict avoid And people think kindness says conflict resolve, but it goes beyond that. It goes beyond resolving conflict. Kindness takes conflict and turns conflict into connection. It is alchemy kindness is true alchemy it says i’m going to take you conflict and i’m going to completely rewrite you as connection instead of saying um let’s just take an example you like country music i don’t like country music or whatever it is right that that has to be conflict No, that gets to be understanding. That gets to be curiosity.

That gets to be a different way to approach things. Because we’re different, kindness says, I actually get to become better because of the difference, and so do you. We both get to edify each other. And so instead of, hey, you have to do this or this, you know, we’re going to fight about this. It’s, I just want to see you.

I just want to know who you are. You grew up different than I. You had different experiences. You’ve had all these shaping and developmental experiences that say, you’re this person and I didn’t. And that’s okay.

That’s okay. Hey, I can see you exactly where you’re at. In spite of the fact that we’re different, and actually because of the fact we’re different, that’s where that connection happens through kindness. Nice says, I’m going to put on the smile and pretend I’ve got all these feelings, but I’m going to still be mad at you when we’re done. I’m still going to be angry.

And Nice says, I’ll put on the smile. You’ll never know. But kind says, no, I’m going to spend the time to see you, truly see you. And if I do see a destructive behavior in your life, I’m going to love you enough to make mention of that and invite you, not push you or pull you, invite you into a place of healing, of growth, of strength, and of peace. So it’s like creating, making somebody feel safe.

Is that part of it? Now I use that carefully because the term safe space, you know, I don’t know enough. I’m not an expert on that, but part of me looks at that and go, okay, how do you address creating a safe space per se for someone? But to what you’re saying, what I feel like you’re saying is, I’m going to meet you where you are. I’m going to embrace where you are and create an environment that we both are growing in.

There’s not contention. There’s not animosity. But there’s growth, the potential for, right? Yes. Yes, that’s exactly it.

And another one of the dyads, another one of the pairs of emotion is that suspicion is the counterfeit of curiosity. And my whole life, I thought that love is the antidote to anger. If you want to cure anger, you just add love to it. It’s not. Michele, it is not the antidote.

That is fascinating. I can see where that comes from. Okay. Yeah. What I found, though, was that curiosity is the antidote to anger.

That what I called love was just nice behavior, people-pleasing, being the doormat, being the, okay, I’m the yes man, whatever you want. That’s not real love. Real love, real kindness is being curious. Curiosity is one of the most transcendent emotions we can feel. Truly.

It is one of the highest emotions we can feel as far as transcending into a new realm is understanding the principles of curiosity. Suspicion says, you’re the villain in the story and I’m going to find out everything I can to convict you because you have a different opinion than I. Curiosity says, I’m putting all of me over here on this shelf. Back here I’m going to put, you know, I’m putting all of me on the shelf, and I’m just going to spend time seeing you, knowing you, understanding who you are, without any of my opinions, any of my thoughts. I’m not going to take a side.

I’m just going to see you, and when you can truly get curious, you cannot be angry at the same time. It’s not possible. I will challenge anyone to try and be truly curious and angry at the same time. You can’t do it. So how does that work?

What creates that emotion in that being curious has that kind of benevolence? Does that make sense? Yeah. So what is it about curiosity that makes it so that you can’t feel the suspicion or the anger? Yeah, it’s so easy.

It’s so easy to dive into the suspicion side of things and like okay. I’ve got my argument coming here We go. I’ve just got to get enough pieces together and blah You know we just barf all over instead of just saying Because I love you and because I want to see you I’m gonna I’m gonna hold Everything that I am over here, and it’s kind of like sitting in a movie theater theater. You know, oftentimes we think we’re the actor in the movie. We have the lead role.

But really, to get curious, we just need to take a seat in the theater. Even if we’re in the movie, we need to say, okay, I’m going to step back. I’m just going to watch. Because you think about the movies you love, and you think about these heroes, and you want to find out everything about their past and how did they get their superpowers and you know all of the stuff and you’re so curious yeah yeah and and putting yourself in the theater instead of putting yourself in the movie yeah and just watching and just saying oh there you are there you are i can see you now i don’t have to be part of the conflict i don’t have to be part of I can just watch and see you and step back.

And one thing Patty and I do with each other is we’ll come to each other and we’ll say, would it be okay if I shared a trigger with you? And notice the invitation. That’s part of the kindness model is the invitation. It’s not, hey, I’ve got to talk to you about something. It’s, would it be okay if I shared a trigger with you?

And then the other person will say, yeah. And for me, now it’s just like instance like, oh good, I get to see Patty on a different level. And she’ll share a trigger with me. Sometimes it relates to me. Sometimes it doesn’t.

But regardless, when she says that, my brain instantly clicks on like, oh good, it’s curiosity time. Here we go. I get to see her. I get to understand her. And then when we bring these triggers to each other we say hey I understand that I am responsible for my emotions so this is not yours you do not need to solve it it’s not your fault I am responsible for these emotions but because I’m having this a big emotion and because you’re my human I want you to know me I want to share this with you and notice how there’s no attack there there’s no you did this wrong and you it’s all I want you to see me would it be okay if I shared me with you and and then the other person like I mean like oh one other thing we say is like I realize that this is actually probably coming from my past that these feelings are from my past because one one true principle in life that not a lot of people understand is that you cannot make anyone feel anything.

You cannot make anyone feel anything. And no one can make you feel anything. And you hear it all the time. You made me so mad. You made, you know, or, oh, he makes me joyful.

You know, you’re dating somebody. It’s like, oh, they made me feel. It’s not true. No one can make you feel anything they can influence your decision to feel but we get to choose and so when we come to each other when patty and i come to each other when we say would it be okay if i showed a trigger yes okay i’m ready and then tell me why the word trigger why why was that the words you that’s been chosen yeah like kind of like on a gun right a trigger is a really big emotion that can explode or like is happening inside of you so this triggering event happened and all of a sudden boom now there’s this emotion inside and so sharing that and sharing it in a way that I take full responsibility for me saying you know I realize this is mine and it probably comes from my past and yet it’s still a trigger and I’d love your help working through this trigger and then we share it then we share what we’re feeling and we do it in a way that instead of you did this etc no it’s I feel this and it’s mine it’s mine I am I am going down this path of this journey of life and you’re not responsible for my emotions and I’m not responsible for your emotions but I’d still love your help in navigating what I’m feeling right now I’d love your help in understanding why I’m feeling this and how I can get through it even if it relates with you okay it’s still mine it’s still mine and and we can show we can prove this the fact that that feelings are not universal that and each person has their own feelings you can put two people in the exact same situation the exact same situation and one person might get upset at it another person might laugh at it, you know, and people are like, well, no, what about in violence?

And a great example, have you seen the tortilla slap game on, you know, where they fill their mouth full of water and then they slap each other with a tortilla? That’s a violent act, right? But people laugh their heads off because they’ve changed the meaning of it, right? In that same way, we get to choose we get to choose our emotions that you know if somebody walked up to you on the street and slapped you in the face with a tortilla or their hand you’d be like ah but if you have a mouthful of water and you’re recording it for Instagram all of a sudden now it’s funny it’s different yeah yeah and that says we get to choose we get to choose our emotions and Viktor Frankl.

He was in Auschwitz concentration camp in Germany and he wrote Man’s Search for Meaning which is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read and in it he talks about his… You agree? Yeah. He talks about his experience in the concentration camp how that their entire their entire day’s food was a piece of bread, which was more like a cracker. And if they were lucky, they got soup.

And maybe that soup had AP in it. It was really just water with some salt. And that was their entire rations for the day. They were beaten daily. They slept in bunkers that were full of lice and fleas, like horrible, horrible conditions.

They watched their friends be killed in front of them. And in all of that, he said that this is the last of human freedoms to be able to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. And he saw the worst. He saw the worst. And what he found was that was that those that chose those that chose joy with pain instead of misery.

Those that chose to serve instead of be bitter. Those that chose, those were the ones that lived. Those were the ones that made it day to day. The ones that would break off a little corner of their cracker and give it to someone else that needed it more. They were the ones that survived, not just survived, but thrived in the worst conditions humanly imaginable.

It’s hard to imagine an individual being able to thrive in those conditions, but because of the mindset and the perspective, he was able to do that. I mean, honestly, I look at that and think it’s so powerful and speaks volumes about how we feel and perceive things. Yeah. Incredible. So here’s a question for you.

Based on your studies and your experience and what you teach people, what tools do you think or do you find are the best tools and sometimes that are overlooked in finding purpose and peace? I love that question. Thank you for asking it. What tools are most useful for finding purpose and peace. As part of the Eastern traditions, Buddhism, Daoism, others, they believe that attachment is the root of all suffering And another name for attachment is identity We place our identity, we place our worth on a shelf.

Oftentimes we say, oh, I am blank. For me what that was in the past is I am a tech CEO I am an entrepreneur I put all of these things of that were visibly out there but I also had a whole set inside of I am’s that no one heard no one really knew about things like I am an imposter I’m you know out in the business world is this really cool guy but wait I don’t have a degree and I don’t really know what I’m doing and all these things and so I had this imposter syndrome identity I had this less than identity I had all these I am’s that I was that I was stacking up and putting judgment and weight on those identities and being able to clear the whole shelf.

I now know that there’s only one identity that can’t do harm. Even the ones that we think are positive, even the ones like if we attach too much to being a dad or a mom, guess what? Our kids grow up and then they’re out of the house and then all of a sudden there’s our suffering because wait where did our identity go if we attach too much to be an entrepreneur and then the company goes out of business well where’s our identity if we’re a volleyball player and we say oh no and then all of a sudden we start to get a little older we can’t jump as high and then all of a sudden there’s our suffering. There’s only one identity that can’t produce suffering and that’s being a child of God.

And when we can truly understand that, when we can truly understand our worth in a way that can’t be tarnished, that can’t be changed, that changes everything. That’s powerful. I love that. I remember a time as I was going through some struggles and I remember looking to my husband and just saying, how have you been able to go through something so challenging? And he literally said to me, because I know who I am, I know my worth and I remember just going to have that is so invaluable to know who you are and to know your your worth it set me on a course of okay I’m going to figure this out I’m going to know who I am yeah yeah I love that I love that he said that because there’s so much truth to that and and that that’s where I would start another phenomenal tool is the emotion bus this is an amazing tool I love this is that is it imagine yourself as a bus driver okay it can be a yellow bus it can be a Greyhound I don’t care what kind of bus but you’re driving this bus and you’re driving the bus and you pull over and you open the doors and in walks an emotion that you did not expect let’s say it was anger let’s say it was anxiety let’s say whatever that emotion was this emotion comes on and the counterfeits immediately they’re like get out of the seat i’m going to drive i’m going to be the driver of this bus and and oftentimes we’re like oh okay great here you go yeah and we we step out we go take a seat on the bus and if it’s if it’s anger you know he’s crashing through mailboxes and he’s you know destroying bus benches and like he’s just going crazy through the town if it’s nice if it’s then you know you pull the nice pulls the bus up to the four-way stop or the roundabout and never enters no no you go oh go ahead go no no please after you no no and has no boundaries have no self-worth has no you know kindness for self and and these emotions they try and drive and the first thing is is like we talked about in the beginning just witness just be like hey anger i’ve got a seat for you right in the back i’m gonna hold space for you pain misery everybody that gets on, I’ve got a seat.

But here’s the cool thing. All you have to do when the counterfeit gets on the bus is go to the bus stop where you’ll find its twin, the authentic version of it. If it’s anger, the twin is advocacy. Go to the bus stop where advocacy resides. Because Because if you look at every one of these pairs, there’s a divergence point, right?

Anger will only happen in two cases ever. Number one is danger. If there’s real danger, if you’re being chased by a bear in the woods, your body needs a physiological response of adrenaline, of cortisol, of all these things that says pick up the stick and poke the bear in the eye. You know, save yourself. That’s really important.

The second is injustice. Those are the only two reasons you will ever get angry, ever. And anger gets on the bus when it sees injustice. It’s like, I’ve got to do something about this. Get out of the way.

I’m going to drive. And all you do is say, hey, anger, have a seat. I’ve got, I’m going to hold space for you. But then you drive to the next bus stop because that’s where advocacy is. Advocacy also sees injustice.

It says, I see this injustice and I’m going to act. Anger is powerful. It’s motivating. It says, act right now. Advocacy does the same thing.

And as soon as the twin gets on the bus that looks and, you know, feels and you’re like, wait, who is who? You know, it’s so easy to look at the counterfeit is the real deal. But as soon as advocacy gets on the bus, anger is like, oh, oh, God. OK. Yeah, you’re here.

OK. This is great. You know, I’m going to get off now. Thank you so much. Advocacy, come have my seat.

When anxiety gets on the bus, we give it a seat. But then we go and find awareness. And anxiety is like, oh, OK. Oh, awareness, you’re here. I’m so glad.

OK. I’m getting off. I need a nap. I’m going to go take a nap. And so we do this whenever we recognize that the counterfeit got on the bus.

Don’t try and kick it out. Don’t say, no, you’re not going to be here. No, receive the message that it’s bringing you. And then go find the authentic emotion. Find that authentic emotion to say, okay, anger.

Oh yeah. Advocacy, anxiety, awareness, Shame, guilt, any of those emotions, misery, you know what? I’m going to go find the pain. And it may take me a minute to find the pain, but I’m going to pick up that pain from the bus stop, and then misery can get off. And when we do that, when we say, I’m no longer going to let these emotions drive, and by the way, we don’t let the authentic drive either.

We are the drivers of the bus okay we are the drivers okay the emotions come the emotions go we drive the bus so we’re in control of the emotion we get to pick who’s getting on and who’s getting off and which bus stops yes we drive the bus but when we go find the authentic we don’t even have to ask the counterfeit to get off it just is like oh good you’re here thank you so much i’m done and it walks off and like we talked about with anger and advocacy you know we think oh anger’s gotta motivate me it’s gotta get me to do all these things advocacy does the same thing but it does it in a way that’s constructive instead of destructive And a great example, I’ve literally asked thousands of people this question, and I’ve only had four that knew the answer.

Okay. So can we do a quick quiz? Take note. Can we do a fun quiz? Okay.

So it’s okay if you don’t know the answer. Okay. But who is Bobby Seale and Huey Newton? Do not know. That’s okay.

Nobody does. Nobody. Whew. Let me ask you a different question. Who is Martin Luther King Jr.?

You was an advocate for freedom, right? Freedom and human rights and yes, that’s exactly it. So then we asked the question, why do you know Martin Luther King Jr. But not Bobby Seale or Huey Newton? They saw the exact same injustice that Martin Luther King Jr.

Did. They were the founders of the Black Panthers. Okay. They were the ones that firebombed cars, that killed police officers, that rioted. They saw injustice and they said anger.

Martin Luther King Jr. Saw the exact same injustice and he said advocacy. And now his name is known around the world. Every major city in the United States has a Martin Luther King Jr. Street, the number of statues.

And I was in India and people knew who Martin Luther King Jr. Was because he changed the world but it all started with the same thing it all started with that injustice and one group said we’re going to turn that into violence and hatred and it created what I call the anger danger cycle so so the anger danger cycle is that I see I see danger and so I get angry and like in a husband wife relationship let’s see I saw danger in you and so now I get angry and what happens to you when I get angry you see danger and then you get angry and then I see danger and then I get angry And it’s the anger-danger cycle. And there was a true injustice, for sure.

Racism is an absolute injustice. But they took it and they said, we’re going to turn that into anger, which created danger for the police officers and those buildings that they were riding and smashing and all of the things. And so now there’s danger. And then there’s anger. And then there’s danger.

And Martin Luther King Jr. Said, no. I’m not going to stand for racism. But I will stand at the base of the Lincoln Memorial with one million people. And invite you in to change the world.

And he did. He did. And advocate comes from the Latin word advocare, which means to invite in. You can’t say I’m going to advocate against in English. The English language does not allow for that.

That’s improper grammar. You can’t say I’m going to advocate against. You can say I’m going to fight against. I’m going to be angry against. You can say all of that.

You can’t say I’m going to advocate against. You can only say I’m going to advocate for. Okay. Notice the difference. One is to build up.

The other is to tear down. But they’re twin emotions. One’s the counterfeit, one’s the authentic. And all we have to do is drive to the bus stop where we see advocacy and say, get on. Let’s make a difference.

Let’s change this. Let’s do it in a way where we invite in instead of push out. And that’s how it is with all the emotions. I love so much how you, thank you for your insight in this because there’s so much clarity to what you’re saying as you talk about each of these different emotions it gives me clarity and um i appreciate so much everything that you’ve brought today with those insights and i think it’s helpful for any of the viewers to understand and i feel like there’s so much more and i would love to have you back Wonderful. Yeah, it would be so wonderful to have you back and invite others to even look at their emotions and really determine where it’s coming from and be able to create that peace.

Because as you’re saying, there’s no counterfeit for peace once you’ve reached that, to feel that. And I think that’s what everyone wants. So thank you for being with us today. It’s been such a pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much, Michele.

Okay, and that closes this segment of Yes Women’s Network, and we appreciate you being with us today. You’re so good. That was so good. I loved everything. To be able to tie that in and just to give them insight and understanding of the inner importance of emotions and understanding.

They are perfect. Would you be willing to get some photos? Of course. I would love that. Like in the discussion like we’re just talking and we just be you know oh there we go like it’s all legit and talking and using our hands hands are great do you love hands?

I love hands too hands are so great hands are amazing make it look so great