Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. And by the end of this episode, please remember to subscribe, give a rating and a review. Now, a lot of us, especially since the pandemic, we've been feeling stuck. We've had to rethink the trajectory of our lives. And my guest today, Susie Hayes, who is a psychotherapist and an author of the bestselling book, Freed from Stuck, is here to talk to us about how to navigate those waters, to redefine some of the terminology we use that has become so mainstream, and to think things differently. Before I go any further, please help me to welcome Susie. Hello, Susie. Hello, Roberta. So good to meet you. Thank you for this opportunity. I am really looking forward to our conversation. Thank you for being on the show. I'm really excited as well, especially after reading your book and our initial conversation. So I know you're gonna be dropping a lot of gems today. I hope so. That's the intention. We want to share something of value, yes? For sure, definitely. So you understand the assignment. I do. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I help people access internal resources they never knew they had in order to create what they never knew they could. And I do that through counseling, coaching, and hypnosis, writing, and speaking. Very well said. Now, when it comes to internal resources, I was born in the 70s, I grew up in the 80s. It seems like that information of it's all within you just came at a much later stage. It wasn't common knowledge back then. How would you define as the internal resources or that internal voice that we all have? The internal resources are really all of those skills, talents. the accumulation of life experiences, our wisdom, our intellect, everything that we have come to the planet with and experience on the planet that allows us to make the choices and create the life that we want. Those are our internal resources. And it's so important for us to appreciate that in ourselves and... The longer that we live, the more of those resources we accumulate. And our inner world is really a treasure chest. Part of what happens for people is that either by virtue of limitations in their history or experiences that they've had in life. They have not been taught how to use those resources, or to appreciate those or how to cultivate them. And so Part of what is so exciting, I think, in our human journey is the ongoing exploration and development of those resources. And realizing the potential we have, just like you said. Yes. I grew up in a religion, you know, and everybody defines spirituality and tapping into their inner wisdom differently. But looking back, Would my assessment be true if I say that that's one thing they don't necessarily encourage to tap into your inner resources because I feel like that's how they get you to a point where you just listen to the leaders, the prophet, the pastor, and then you sort of ignore that inner voice. Am I right in that assessment? I think in general there has been certainly historically structure in place like that because people were encouraged to experience divinity and God outside of themselves. If you take it back to even the doctrine of original sin where there is the belief that we are separated from God, that becomes problematic. then because it means that we don't have access to that inside of ourselves unless there's some religious process involved in that. I'm talking about religion here, not spirituality. I differentiate that and I think as you would as well. And so then becomes this reliance on, I don't have what I need inside of myself to conduct my life in a positive way. and I need outside guidance. It becomes problematic because it doesn't encourage us to trust those inner resources that I believe are an expression of divinity. They're an expression of our having been created in, if you will, the image of God. So. that external reliance means then that I need to have someone outside of myself who tells me how I ought to live my life. Now, part of what also gets kind of confusing in this, Roberta, is that when we understand God to be like a parent figure, there is a certain limitation in our maturation. And so when we're children, we do need people outside of ourselves to teach us. what it means to grow and develop and become responsible adults. That's what parenting is, right? So when you're a child, it's appropriate that you're going to have external guidance and help and protection. As we mature, hopefully we've been given wisdom and had life experience through which we've been guided. that will allow us to understand what it means to adult, what it means to make decisions and take responsibility for our lives and make choices. The reality is, is that the maturation process is ongoing. We don't just arrive at 21 and then we're mature, right? But it all figured out. Right. I'm certainly still growing and maturing and transforming and developing. That's what our human journey is. But I think the challenge that you're identifying in religion is that there isn't a transition from that external support to an understanding and cultivation of the internal support. I also want to be careful in this conversation to cultivate an appreciation that there is divine power and wisdom intelligence beyond us, because that is what the universe is. Right. You know, it is this incredibly creative intelligence beyond the limitations of our human experience. So I'm not in any way negating that or the importance of it, or the importance of calling upon that and accessing that in my own limitations. I think what you're referring to is, however, we do have a responsibility. or perhaps an opportunity to cultivate as much as possible our own ability to navigate our lives and to trust that in ourselves. And you're right, it really is empowering when we gain an appreciation of how magnificent we really are and how magnificent we have been created to be. Excellently put, because it's the internal resources connecting to the powers of the universe that we are all trying in a sense to figure out how best to use that, how best to connect with that. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I think that's what is the challenge and the opportunity in our own personal journeys. We... are responsible to find that for ourselves, whatever that means. I think that's part of the amazing diversity in the spiritual experience is that even though we are profoundly connected and very much alike as human beings, we are all so different in our journey. And that's the beauty, that's the kaleidoscope of our human experience. Right. Speaking of kaleidoscope, Earlier we were speaking about the kaleidoscope of emotions and how it's so unrealistic to expect to be happy all the time or I'm supposed to be happy all the time. Why am I not happy all the time? I'm doing something wrong. Let me get out of here. Can you please just take us through that? Happiness is a wonderful thing. And I can honestly say that most of my life has been very happy. I tend to be optimistic. I tend to trust that good things happen. So foundationally, I would say that my experience is predominantly happy, but I would say that it's actually more than just the emotion of happiness. It's really about cultivated and connected with a sense of purpose. A sense of contentment and peace. And part of that is in being productive and creative and participative and contributing. All of that is important. I believe that it's about finding joy in life and creating beauty. All of those things are important values to me. I also know that life is kind of messy. Um, and I tend to be a rather orderly organized person, but I also know that the only certainty is uncertainty. We need to be able to have an internal flexibility that allows us to flow with what life brings to us. And sometimes that means then that we're not happy. Sometimes we're sad. Sometimes we're grieving. Sometimes we're angry. we're bitter, sometimes we're afraid. And that's all that kaleidoscope of human emotions that we were talking about earlier. While the foundational emotion is being happy and content and fulfilled. I had a podcast guest a few weeks ago where we spoke about how our generation would introduce ourselves as, hi, I'm Roberta, I'm a transportation engineer. It's the outside stuff, the work title, the CEO, the money, the car, was what was supposed to define your life as, okay, she has this, she's supposed to be happy. Then now there's a shift in redefining what is supposed to make us happy, content and fulfilled. I would agree. And I would say that all of those things have value and all of those things can bring us. happiness, sometimes security, sometimes satisfaction in life, but there is a deepening of awareness that there is so much more to life that can bring us happiness than simply our roles or our accumulation or our possessions. And I think, Roberta, this has happened particularly since the pandemic because it's slowed us down. We had to slow down and it gave us an opportunity to actually go inside and explore some of those internal experiences and resources and to ask questions about what brings me satisfaction. And I don't mean just in a selfish way, but to really get attuned to that in terms of what really at the end of the day brings me a sense of being fulfilled. and feeling that I created and contributed something meaningful. We've had the opportunities now to ask some of those questions. And some people have come through that and said, you know, I need to make changes in my life that are more in alignment with my heart's desires. Right. The opportunity given to us to be able to connect with that in ways that we might not have otherwise had that chance. So the time to reflect during the pandemic was quite an awakening, so to speak. Yes, potentially it was that opportunity. Yes, absolutely. Speaking of that, we also use the term authentic. Be more authentic. I'd like for you to explain to us your version of the word authentic. My version of the word authentic. I would say that being authentic is about being present in this moment with the truth of where I'm at. That it means I'm here right now in this moment having this conversation with you and I am listening, thinking, I am attuned to you, to myself, to our experience. that what's happening right here in our conversation is an experience of authenticity. Authenticity is not about just simply having permission to vomit wherever we want, right? That's not authenticity. It happens a lot especially online. That's where I think the pendulum has swung a bit far around authenticity is that I'm just gonna be me and gonna be real and I'm just speaking my truth. Certainly you can speak your truth. but truth is best received if given with respect and considered in a way to communicate to have a positive result. I mean, what you're about is communication, right? Right. And communication is really about being authentic, but it's also about being respectful, listening. That is so essential. in our being authentic, we can know that this is a safe place for us to explore whatever we need to explore even if it might be difficult or even a little scary. So it doesn't mean just like you said vomit whatever comes to your mind first. You remind me of my mom if she does or says something that hurts my feelings. The first thing on my mind is to just blurt out whatever comes to my brain. But even at age 46, I have to choose my words carefully. My mom is open. Please let her know if you heard this, she will apologize. Choose my words carefully. Be able to say exactly how she hurt me with her actions or words without adding disrespect to the statement. Yes, which means that we can learn how to communicate. about emotions like anger and fear and hurt and disappointment, we can learn how to communicate about those experiences without seeking to harm someone else in our communication. It doesn't mean, Roberta, that we don't have those impulses. Of course. We have those thoughts, we have those ideas, we have those internal fantasies, where we just like to smack someone, and we all have those moments of being snarky, right? Like it just kinda comes out. So I totally have an appreciation for sometimes the internal challenges we face in our communication. But if we understand that communicating well and communicating respectfully will get us much farther in life than being harsh and hurtful and cruel and brutal in our communication. Nothing, nothing is accomplished with verbal warfare. Nothing is accomplished in seeking to be cruel to another human being. All it does is wound. Right. And that doesn't help us in our human experience. Not at all. In your book, you talk about fear versus love. In this very example of being mean, it seems as though we always gravitate towards fear first and act based on fear versus love. Why is the fear more common? I believe that the fear aspect is more common because we've been conditioned that way. We weren't born fearful. We learned to be fearful. And we are in an environment right now For all that I appreciate with our technology and the vast communication on our planet, which I think is absolutely amazing. It allows for you in Chicago and me in Denver to have a conversation we would have never had. To sit and talk, yes, yes. Which I love, I absolutely love. And I value that so much. But what we're aware of is that predominantly in media and communication, the messages are freighted with fear. And so that is constantly being fueled and stirred up on our planet. That's problematic. It takes us away from who we really are, because we are really created in love, and we are an expression of love. And our destiny is the discovery of love. And so We are entrenched with fear because we have been conditioned in fear. And that is, I believe the challenge of the transformation of the planet is that as long as we are going to remain so attached to the value of fear, it's going to be very challenging. I believe it's going to happen for us. I believe that because I, I hope that optimistic. I am. Yes, but we're going to have to let go of that paradigm. to be able to create a different world where we can truly live in peace and live authentically in peace. Right. One of the YouTube videos that I watched where you were on a different podcast, you spoke about your dad and how he encouraged you to question. Yes. Wouldn't anybody listening say to themselves, okay, I understand I need to question. but there's just so much of an overload of information, misinformation, what do I do? Where do I draw the line? Or should I just question when it just pertains to my personal life? Because it seems like a lot, it's overwhelming. We are certainly in an environment of information overload. They used to say information is power, not anymore. Information is not power. The ability to use information well is power. And in order to use information well, we have to be able to ask good questions. So questioning is so essential to who we are as human beings, because we are created with the wonderful attribute of curiosity. And when we lose our capacity to be curious, we really limit the quality of our life. And part of what is so important right now is not to stop asking questions, but to continue to ask questions and to continue to ask good questions. Good questions meaning questions that will allow us to problem solve and to create a quality of life that we really want. Part of what is important in terms of even living with authenticity, is using our curiosity in communication with other people. I was at a gathering last night and we had some meeting and some things to go through for a while. Then after that, everybody just was kind of hanging out and having dinner. And I was listening to the conversation and I have to tell you, Roberta, I was so bored. I sat there and I was listening to what people were talking about. And it was so... shallow and so surface. I was so tired. And I finally excused myself and left. Now if I had more energy, I'd have engaged in some conversation with some curiosity. For example, I was sitting across the table from a man and he was saying that he was involved in doing some knitting of prayer shawls in his church. And I thought, well, that's interesting for lots of reasons, right? He's a man. He's knitting. He's knitting prayer shawls. Not very common. Yes. Not very common. And he's gay. Right. And he goes to church. There you go. So do you hear the depth of potential conversation? This is as far as I went. So what church do you go to? I go to such and such Lutheran church. And I must confess, Roberta, I was so tired. I had no desire to go any further in the conversation. But my point is, we could have gone into any number of really interesting conversations. So many topics from then, yeah. We could have connected in such a more authentic way than your gender, your sexual orientation, your religion, your hobbies, you know, we could have gone so much deeper. I just. not to because I was fatigued. But that's what I'm referring to is that if we really take the time to be curious and we ask questions, we are able to connect at such a deeper, more satisfying level. Much better than thinking somebody being different, whether it's their gender, race, nationality is what I should fear and run away from. Yes. Yeah, I mean, there was a treasure chest of conversation there. Right. Though he might not have wanted to have gone there or if we were in a group of people, maybe they would have been uncomfortable with the conversation. I don't know. But yeah, there was a richness there potentially in that conversation that I did not cultivate, that I could have cultivated simply in my curiosity and asking good questions. Asking good questions. And then what got you started on writing the book Freed from Stuck? I had vowed I was never going to write a book. And I had a colleague who approached me. He was starting a publishing company. And he said to me, I think you have a book in you. And I said, no, I do not. And he said, give me an hour and a half and I'll find that book in you. So we sat down and had the conversation. And what came out of that was that I realized that had really been what I'd been doing. for all of these years and all of the different facets of my work was I was helping people become freed from steps. So that really became foundational then in understanding the platform of my work. When you were starting to become a psychotherapist, is that more medically inclined or do they also mention the internal resources that you mentioned earlier? Do they mention both? It is. both. Psychotherapy is a descriptive term for what I do that finds its origin in medicine, finds its origin of course in Freud, which was a predominantly medical model. However, if you look into that history, for example, that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung worked together closely, Carl Jung was much more oriented to the unconscious mind much more oriented to the mystical, the spiritual. And in some ways they sort of parted ways, but they both made contributions to the field of psychotherapy or psychology. So my training certainly finds its foundation in a medical scientific model, but there is so much more to our psyche. There is so much more to who we are. than simply our behaviors and our cognition. There is the depth of our soul, our spirit, there is the reality of our history. We are incredibly wonderfully complex and endlessly interesting as human beings. I love how you put that and speaking of the unconscious mind. I read Joseph Murphy's the power of the subconscious mind. So I started to want to understand, because they say that's like 87% of your brain, the conscious mind is like 13%. So I started to want to understand that more and how it influences my decisions and my feelings when things happen, when I experience life. Yes, and you know, Roberta, I've always wondered how they get those percentages. like what they do like dissect somebody's brain. You know, you see different, I always kind of smile when I hear that, you know, but there is truth in that the predominance of our experience is what they're now calling non-conscious, which is a combination of the unconscious and subconscious mind. It's out of our awareness. And part of that is, is that in order to function, it would need to be, you know, if we had to think every time we moved a leg or moved a limb, scratched our nose, I mean, we'd be immobilized. So it has to be out of our conscious awareness. What's important to appreciate in what is defined as the unconscious mind, meaning that it's not immediately accessible to us, is that there are all kinds of beliefs about ourselves, about others, about how the world functions, that is out of our awareness and operating out of our awareness. So the more that we do that internal exploration and the more that we get connected with that resource of the unconscious mind, the better it allows us to bring some of that into conscious awareness to shift some of that programming, if you will, if the unconscious mind to come into alignment with really how we want to live our lives. Yes. And is that the work when you do hypnosis? part of the mind. Absolutely. That is the intention of hypnosis. And when people have some misinformation about hypnosis particularly because of how it has been used for entertainment, it's part of what makes people afraid of the process. But what I say to people, I say, they go, I don't know if I could be hypnotized. And I'll say to them, do you watch TV? They go, well, yeah, sure. I go, then you've been hypnotized. There you go. Because hypnosis is really being in an altered state of relaxation with receptivity. And certainly media and marketing, advertising has understood this for decades. That if you send out a message with a strong emotional appeal and you repeat it over and over again, you're likely to make a sale on that product, much more than if you would just simply do a presentation on it one time and hope that somebody buys. But that's why we see, for example, commercials repeated. All the time. It is a very powerful hypnotic process. And we don't even realize that that's what's happening to us, but it is. It's also important to know with regard to hypnosis is that we are not going to be impacted by anything that is contrary to our true value system. Meaning for those people who go up on stage and quack like a duck or walk like a chicken or whatever, they are willingly participating in that entertainment. To be- Not because they've been hypnotized so they're not aware that they're doing that? Well, they've been hypnotized, but they have been willing to be hypnotized. Oh. They've been willing to open themselves up. in that vulnerability to be suggestible. And some people are more suggestible than others. This is true, but you cannot be hypnotized against your will. Like, and do something you were not willing to do. Yeah. If you're not willing to do it, it's not going to happen because that's how the protective system is set up in our internal structure. So that's important for people to keep in mind is that if you're looking at using hypnosis in terms of changing something in your life. you need to understand that you're not going to be vulnerable in a way to do things that are contrary to what you really want to do. That's very key and very important to mention because yes, there's been a lot of misinformation over the decades about hypnosis. Yeah. So when you say it's repetition, is it similar in a sense? Does it incorporate sort of how meditation works and how affirmations work? Yes, it does. The brain is designed that it will take information and apply information that is repeated more over and over again, meaning it adapts to that and incorporates that in. For example, in the experience of habit formation is that those grooves that take place in our mind, most specifically in our brain, they don't go away. which is important to keep in mind is that habits always remain there as a default position by virtue of our survival mechanism. Right. What we need to understand is that if we want to change a behavior or change a habit, what we need to do is have a repetition of that different habit, more intense, repeated more frequently and more emotionally charged. When we do that, it intensifies that habit. And so those other habits kind of move into the background of consciousness. But it's important then to also appreciate that sometimes when we're stressed, we can retreat to a default habit just by virtue of that instinct in us. That's why people can go along and even for a couple of years, they haven't smoked. Something happens and it triggers. and they find themselves picking up a cigarette and they're like, oh my God, I can't believe I did that. That is how we're designed to operate. It's an instinctive survival mechanism. And when the stressors are in place, it can then cause us to default to that behavior, which is why it's important for us to have compassion toward ourselves in the change process. Please, can you say that again? That's why it's important to have compassion for ourselves in the change process. Compassion and self-forgiveness. You know how we talk about forgiveness, forgive others, forgive the person who hurt you. We always forget to forgive ourselves. Yes. Compassion for ourselves. Suzy, before you go, please give us two or three internal tools or resources that we can, after listening, can tap into on a daily basis. so that we know how to go inward. In order to go inward, we have to trust and listen to that inner voice inside of us. So trusting that inner guidance, trusting that intelligence that resides within us is an incredible resource for us. The experience of gratitude is one of the... easiest ways to be able to bring ourselves back into alignment with who we are, how we want to live, and to energize us into being able to move forward in our lives. Sometimes when we're discouraged or we've had a loss or things have not gone well, we can have discouragement and it can distort. how we are seeing ourselves or our lives. And one of the ways to bring us back into clarity is the experience of gratitude. And then I guess if I were going to give you maybe one more resource that's really important for us is breathing. To relax in our body and to allow ourselves to breathe deeply is so important in shifting our internal state. It allows our nervous system to calm. It allows our brain to clear. It allows us to open up our perspective to see other possibilities and opportunities that we might not otherwise be aware of. And so breathing can be a really great resource for us in terms of managing our inner state. And we can do breathing as often as we remember, so to speak. It doesn't have to wait for a big moment. We can do it on a daily basis, right? Absolutely, anytime, anytime. That's the beauty of it. And we can do it quietly. You know, we don't need anything special to do it. We can just breathe. This has been such an eye-opening conversation. You have so much wisdom. I think with all of your life experiences, you're an example of someone who reflects. I think you shared so much wisdom based on how you've just reflected on how things happen. And that's how it has shaped your view and brought a perspective of life, which we appreciate. Thank you so much for that. Thank you, Roberta. You've been a wonderful host and you asked some really great questions that allowed us to go into some new and fresh ideas. which I always love. You stretched my thinking and I always love that. So thank you for this opportunity. It really has been a delight today. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Susie. And before you go, please tell us where to find you on social media so that if you want to continue this conversation, if you want to have no succession, where we can find you online. The easiest place to find me is at my website. freedfromstuck.com. And the book as well, Amazon or Free from Stuck website. Yes. Yeah, you can get to the book through the website or you can just go straight to Amazon and can get it there as well. Thank you so much, Susie. Free from Stuck author Susie Hayes and she is also a psychotherapist and a hypnotist. who is here to help you how to tap into your internal resources and tools to create the life that you desire, a life of happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment. Don't forget to subscribe, give a rating and a review. Thank you very much.