How Increased Self-Awareness Can Heal Your Hidden Trauma with Dr. Paul Conti

Are hidden traumas silently controlling your life and health? This might be one of the most important conversations I’ve ever had on the show—Dr. Paul Conti, a world-class expert on trauma, joins me to reveal how the emotional wounds you’re carrying might be holding you back more than you realize. I share some of my own personal experiences growing up with an alcoholic father and how those unresolved traumas affected me in ways I didn’t fully understand until much later. Dr. Conti breaks down the science behind how trauma changes our brains and how two people can experience the same event but walk away impacted in completely different ways. We get into the concept of chronic trauma—those emotional injuries that linger for years—and why feelings of guilt and shame are often at the heart of so many struggles. Dr. Conti introduces the idea of using "compassionate curiosity" to better understand ourselves and our behaviors. And trust me, this is something that can completely shift how you see your life. We also talk about how trauma doesn’t just stay in your head—it can literally show up in your body, leading to serious health problems down the road. What really hit home for me is how generational trauma can be passed down, affecting everything from our mental well-being to how we show up in the world. I get real about how my own drive to speak in front of millions comes from a deeper need to be heard—something that started in my childhood. Dr. Conti and I both agree that while medication can play a role in healing, real growth comes from doing the hard work of understanding the root causes of emotional pain. Key Takeaways: Uncovering Hidden Trauma: How to identify those emotional scars that might be holding you back, even if you're not aware of them. Mind-Body Connection: Why unresolved emotional issues often show up as physical health problems. Generational Trauma: How the pain and trauma of past generations can be passed down and impact your life today. Self-Awareness and Healing: The importance of using compassionate curiosity to truly understand yourself and heal. The Role of Medications: When medication is useful and why it needs to be paired with deeper emotional work. This episode is for anyone who’s ready to break free from the past and truly max out their life. You don’t want to miss this one! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 2:04Speaker 01

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• 2:38Speaker 02

  This is the end mile show.

• 2:43Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So today I really wanted this man on the show for a while. I've seen a couple of his interviews and I went to my team. I said, go get him for me if we can, because today's topic is going to regard trauma, your mind, your unconscious mind, your emotions, your well being. And I think I have the best in the world here today. His name is Dr. Paul Conti. His background is he's a psychiatrist, he's an author, and he's an expert in trauma and overall mental health, but he's also the resident of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. So I think he might know what he's doing. I'm in Portland, Maine. He's in Portland, Oregon, but we're going to make some magic together today. So Dr. Conti, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  You're very welcome. Thank you so much for having me on and thank you for the kind introduction.

• 3:26Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, well, it's a true introduction. So I actually undersold you a little bit, so we'll let the interview.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 3:31Ed Mylett?

  Basic question, first of all, I know I had trauma growing up because I had an alcoholic father and a drug addicted dad who ended up getting sober. My audience knows that story. But let's assume for a second that I may not know why. How does someone know or realize maybe they've had trauma in their life that's unrealized? How would you know that?

• 3:53Speaker 03

  A lot of times if we, if we start with curiosity about ourselves, right? And sometimes that could take the form of a life narrative. Like, let me think of like, where was I born? When was I born? What happened after that? What are my early memories? How do I feel? You know, what went on? Around me. A lot of times we we know, but we just haven't let ourselves really think about it or let it come to the surface. And that there are traumas in our background, but we just kind of weave it or incorporate it into our lives. And and much of the time that happens because we don't know what to do with it. Right? If we go back and look and say, hey, something really traumatic happened, maybe all at once, right? Or maybe it was just the the situation, right?

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Especially earlier in life, that a person grew up in, you know, we tend to think, oh, that was the past and we make light of it, right? Or sometimes people feel weak, like, why? Why would that still be with me? And then then they look away from it, or they know it's impacting them, but they don't know that there's anything to do about it. So if we start from this idea that we can understand a lot about ourselves through the lens of just compassionate curiosity and like building a story and a narrative, maybe in writing, maybe in our thoughts, maybe talking with someone, then we're bringing to the surface often what we already know. And it becomes clearer, hey, like, something has really affected me, or something's really on my mind a lot, even though that was many, many, many years ago. And then we kind of know what

• 5:20Speaker 03

  we know, so to speak, but we can bring it to the surface in a way that it's not scaring us, right? So much that we have to push it back under. I can look at this. I can think about this. I can explore this. And something good can come of it.

• 5:33Ed Mylett?

  So like my family, there's four kids, right? Why does somebody, and as if the height of the emotion during the moment, I'm sure you've looked at this, but why does somebody have trauma or a particular incident affect them? Maybe in a dramatic way, the same incident doesn't affect another person that had the same experience in the way that it did. Do we know why that is that, like, I'm fifty three, and I've been blessed to help millions of people. I speak all over the world. And even now, even the last few weeks of my life, and I'm I've figured some things out about that. I'm talking about the last few weeks, like, well, I really do sabotage things in my life because I don't think I deserve the success I've had.

• 6:16Ed Mylett?

  These incidences affected me more than I realized as a little boy. Yet, I'm not sure that it affected my siblings the same way. Is there a reason? Do we know why something can make a mark on, I call it a mark, I guess? And why in some cases it doesn't?

• 6:35Speaker 03

  In a general sense, in a general sense. So, so it's kind of like, what soil does the seed fall into? Right? Some people, for example, have, they have a low feeling and expression of emotion, for example. I mean, some people are just kind of built that way, and things can happen that might be distressing to others, but they don't overwhelm the person's coping skills. They don't make changes in the brain. So, so it could be, say, a seed of significant trauma, but it falls in soil that's not so receptive to it. Again, there are ups and downs to that, that that person may have less emotional responses in other areas. So I'm just kind of giving examples. So, so it's what is the seed?

• 7:18Speaker 03

  And then who is the person, which is another way of saying, what is the soil that the seed falls into? And some of that is biological. It's just the genetic combination in a person that either predisposes or doesn't predispose. But there are other factors too. There's, there's something called the multiple hit hypothesis, which might mean if we have multiple hits of trauma, it might be, for example, the, the fifth one that seems much less than the prior four, but maybe that fifth one really strikes a nerve, right? Or maybe that fifth one is adding on top of the other four. Right? This idea that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger is like not true, right?

• 8:00Speaker 03

  What doesn't kill us very often makes us weaker unless we, we look at that and we strengthen ourselves again. So, so it's very complicated. What are the genetics, the sort of nature, so to speak, in the person? And then what is the nurture? What life experiences have we had? How armored are we to the slings and arrows of the world around us? Uh, what kind of traumas have we had in our life that might predispose us one way or another? So we do understand that in a general way, but, but to understand it for any specific person, we've got to really talk to, think about, you know, that specific person. Because that generality is true, but of course, we're all unique.

• 8:38Ed Mylett?

  So, so it's interesting you say this. So by the way, everybody, I always try to promote where you'll listen. So, Dr. Conti's book is called Trauma, The Invisible Epidemic. And it's so good. Cover to cover in three days, I read it. And I'll give you an example of what he just described, then I'll ask him a question about it. So in my case, I'm a speaker and I also podcast, so I communicate for a living. It's very interesting because people ask me all the time, Dr. Conti, why do you do this? You know, because I'm a, people know I'm a, I'm a traumatic introvert, like I, I'm very shy, very introverted, yet I speak on stages to thirty, forty, fifty thousand people on a podcast.

• 9:18Ed Mylett?

  And I just, I said the last few weeks, I was talking to somebody and I said, one of the things that came with my dad's drinking when I was young is, he wouldn't listen to me.

• 9:29Ed Mylett?

  So I would talk and he'd be gone and dad, are you hearing me? And, or I'd say something pretty important and my dad would just not react. And I remember as a little boy, over and over, I'm just figuring this out now, I didn't feel heard. I didn't feel heard. He wouldn't hear me. He didn't see me. It was almost like I wasn't in the room and I love my father. He ended up getting sober, but this happened to your point. Many times, multiple incidences of the same event. And I have to conclude that's be, that's why I'm now, even though it's contrary to my personality, I want to be heard. I speak in front of thousands of people. I, millions of people hear my stuff. And so when you're listening to this today, everybody, this stuff can show up in really fascinating ways and

• 10:13Ed Mylett?

  become more self-aware is one of the greatest rides of your life of learning about you. It's so fascinating. Now, in the book you talk about, which I want to become more of, having a healthy self.

• 10:28Ed Mylett?

  What the heck is that though? What really, I know from reading, but what is a healthy self?

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Well, it starts with. Introspection, like we're really looking at ourselves. Like so many times, we don't have a narrative. Right? So, so imagine if you didn't have that narrative, then at some point you just think, oh, I, I've kind of introverted, um, I want to be heard, but, but like a lot of times that doesn't go anywhere. Right? Like, like we, we often have to know what is actually going on in me. And here, for example, we might honor a chronic trauma as opposed to an acute one. You know, our society is very much built to understand acute traumas. Like, okay, there was a car accident, there was a loss of a loved one, and a lot of our understanding of trauma comes through the military, comes through combat, through seeing that, oh, people were different

• 11:18Speaker 03

  after combat than before combat. That's when we first started really thinking about trauma. So we're very focused on acute traumas. But that's not the only way our coping skills can get overwhelmed and our brains can change. Right? It can be the, the accumulated weight of a chronic trauma of over and over, not being seen, not being heard. And that's notorious in alcoholism where the response doesn't fit what the person expects. So, so someone, a, a child might come home and did really, really well on a, a test or a project and then gets like, oh, congratulations and a pat on the head. The child might come home the next day and might get ignored or, or talked harshly to, or, or

• 12:02Speaker 03

  you know, something that's not expected. And then what the child learns is that you're not going to be heard, that you can't make yourself heard because whatever you're saying might get one response, it might get another. Right? So then the child takes that frustration in. So, so that's a very, very interesting thing, right, to know about you, for you to know about yourself, because then we see, well, where does that go with you? Right? And it goes to a place that gets called counterphobic, right? Where you realize, oh, I'm kind of introverted and I feel this anxiety talking in front of other people, but I want to make myself hurt. Right? Then you do something that in a sense goes against your natural grain.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Right? And you're doing it in the service of making some repair, I think, for prior trauma. It's at least part of it, right? Of saying, no one heard me. You know, I've got something to say now, right? And you've felt you had something to say and you do, right? Because people want to listen. It tells you, I do have something to say and I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that counterphobic against the fear thing. Because that's part of how you're dealing with and in a sense, overcoming the prior trauma. But we have to understand ourselves, like a lot of people don't get to that place, right? Because we don't have an understanding of why is it that I may feel very introverted, but I want to express myself. Right? I mean, often without a narrative of that, we don't necessarily lead that forward.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  So there's a lot of ways we can have a healthy self, but it has to start with, you know, the compassionate curiosity towards self. Like, I just want to look at myself and understand myself. And what are the things that don't quite add up in me, right? Don't quite understand, like, let me look at that because probably it does add up. You know, there are just factors I'm not looking at, maybe I'm afraid to look at on earth. But when we become curious about ourselves, we answer these questions. And I think there is a very interesting narrative of how do you get to this place that fits with childhood trauma and fits with efforts to overcome the childhood trauma, even if that means you're acting against your own fears.

• 14:00Ed Mylett?

  That's so good, doctor. You know, this idea of compassionate curiosity. I think everyone just, if you're driving right now, just hold on to that word. Compassionately more curious about yourself. You know, I read your book actually about six months ago. And so I've had the last six months to think about a lot of things. And one of the things I started to be aware of, it's interesting. After reading your book is I paid attention to most of the new people I met since then. You know, it's you meet somebody new, whether you're, it's a new friend, or if you were single, you're dating. How quickly they begin to tell you about their youth. Quickly, early on, it's almost commonplace now, we take it for granted that you meet somebody.

• 14:45Ed Mylett?

  And part of what you do when you meet someone is they tell you how they grew up and they actually illustrate something about their parents or a story. And to me, it's illustrative that, man, we are really, so many of us, most of us, maybe all of us are operating out of our childhood still. Because even as adults, it's one of the first things we introduce about ourselves to new friends or a significant other is our childhood story or our version of that story. And it's interesting, if you all pay attention to that, when you meet somebody new, pretty quickly, they want to tell you about their childhood, or their mom, or their dad, or how they were raised, or a divorce. That's the impact these things are having, and that's why his work means so much. So hey, guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth.

• 15:29Ed Mylett?

  And you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life, or how they grow. And also taking a look at the future. If you want to change your future, you got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you get into a new environment, where you're learning new things, and you're around other people that are growth oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself. And that's why I love Growth Day. Write this down for a second, growthday.com/ed. My friend Brendon Burchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal-setting software, to personal accountability, journaling, courses, thousands of dollars' worth of courses in there as well. I create content in there on Mondays, where I contribute, as do a whole bunch of other influencers, like the Avengers of influencers and business minds in there.

• 16:13Ed Mylett?

  It's the Netflix for high achievers, or people that want to be high achievers. So go check it out. My friend Brendon's made it very affordable, very easy to get involved. Go to growthday.com/ed. That's growthday.com/ed. This episode is sponsored by Ro. A lot of people assume GLP-1's cost a fortune, and that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment. Ro helps people find a more affordable path to FDA-approved GLP-1 treatment. Ro wants to help people lose weight. That's why they have more affordable GLP-1 options, whether you're paying with insurance or cash. Ro's free insurance checker makes it easy to see if you're covered for GLP-1 injections. Just submit your insurance card, and Ro handles the rest. No paperwork, no waiting on hold, no confusing phone calls.

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• 18:21Ed Mylett?

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• 18:31Ed Mylett?

  Bizarre question. I talk a lot about the unconscious and also the subconscious mind in my work of personal development and productivity. And I had a friend of mine ask me, um, so where is the unconscious mind then? Like where's it located? And I said, I should probably have a better answer than I'm about to give you. And so I want to ask an expert on mental health and the mind. What is your definition of the unconscious mind?

• 19:00Speaker 03

  We know, we know that there are millions and millions and millions of nerves, of neurons firing in our brains right now. Everything is moving so, so, so fast. You know, there's thousands upon thousands of things going on that pushes to the surface, like the, the, the words I'm saying, right? And it may push into the surface, the words you respond with, but, but those words come on top of, they're like the very top of an iceberg. That has had thousands and thousands of events underneath. And and that's how we're built. So the answer, where's the unconscious mind? It's both everywhere and nowhere. Like, we cannot pinpoint a part of the brain and say, oh, it is there.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Right? Because our brains are working like looms, right? They're they're they're shuttling information almost at the speed of light. It's, I mean, it's wildly complicated. What's going on underneath the surface and it's accessing all parts of our brain and pinging back and forth. So so it's in us and it's the vast majority of what's happening. And so you can see how it can be determinist, right? So if the unconscious mind, for example, is afraid, right, and or fears, fears maybe that I can't make myself heard. And if I talk to you and say some things, you're not gonna like it, or you're not gonna like me. Because that's what my experience has been. Maybe I'm carrying childhood trauma into the present, right?

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Then what's going on as I'm maybe meeting you, sizing you up, seeing what you may think, but I'm not really sizing you up, right? I'm going through things in my own mind that on an unconscious level are saying, for example, when you meet a new person, that person's not gonna like you. That person's gonna be threatening, right? So so for example, after the the traumas that change our brains, we respond to new people and new faces differently. So instead of seeing like, oh, I I see you in front of me and I I see your face and I look and I see that you know, you have a neutral expression or maybe you're smiling. I think, okay, we can talk, I can feel safe to talk, but my brain may not see that.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Right? Because my unconscious mind may do a million neurons fire and then what comes to the surface is, hey, this person doesn't like you. This person is frowning at me. This person seems, you know, seems like they don't mean well to me, but this is what we do. Because our brains have changed and we don't know that. Right? We don't know that. That's why people say, I'm not making new friends or um I can't find anybody to date or but but it may be that, you know, two or three people smiled and were interested in talking a little more. One person who who I could be romantically interested in smiled back and seemed receptive, but I didn't see. Right? Because inside of me, the the the unconscious mind is determining the lay of the land, which is saying, be afraid, don't quite feel comfortable, don't feel like you're good enough.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  Uh, fear a negative response to you. So if we don't go looking at our unconscious mind, we don't know what our reflexes are. So it's undergirding absolutely everything that's going on inside of us. And in a sense, determining the climate within us. And if we don't go and look at that, you know, we don't know that the climate may not be in a healthy place inside of us and that we can change it.

• 22:16Ed Mylett?

  What if you can't see it? So by the way, everybody, we're defining the problem right now. In a minute, we're going to go to Dr. Conti's solution. So stay with us. But what if you can't see it? And I know you talk about this. And the more and more in my own life, as I get older, I I'm a believer in this, which is some sort of ancestral trauma. And I want you to, I want your opinion on this. I think I know it, but I want the audience to hear it. And how it actually could even affect, you talk about those neurons in your brain, you know, the expression of our genes. So, but the Bible talks about the sins of the father, right, affecting a child. Is there some validity that you could have a grandparent, in your opinion, who experienced

• 22:58Ed Mylett?

  some form of trauma, and that's actually impacting you genetically somehow in the expression of your genes? Or is it the environment in which you grew up in because of the trauma they experienced? And how does that impact you?

• 23:12Speaker 03

  But the answer is both. And I would say it's not an opinion. I mean, the science tells us absolutely 100%. The answer to that would be both. So if there was a trauma, say, two, three generations ago, say, a a significant trauma in that ancestor's life, right? That can change what genes are on or off inside of that person, and also how that gets passed along, which is really quite remarkable. So you can see that after that trauma, the way that genes are passed along is different. So maybe a good gene that was passed down through generations, now you get the gene, but it's not active anymore. It's as if you didn't have it.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Or maybe there's a negative gene that says, just be a little more suspicious and a little more avoidant. Right. And that's what that the product of that gene is kind of pushing towards, so to speak. And and that could now be on when it wasn't on. So so intergenerational trauma is expressed at times through the environment. Absolutely, it's best so that person who may have had a trauma behaves differently when they're raising a child. Right. But that's that's to say the nurture part of it, right? The nature or the genetic part is that genes are turned on and off in us. It's as if we had them or didn't have them based upon trauma in people who we may not even know because they came so so far before us.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  And the science of the last couple of decades or so, last quarter century has told us that, which is really an amazing thing. And I think it points to this idea of trauma overwhelming our coping skills, changing our brains. It's not a soft concept, right? It's it's a hard science driven concept. It's not saying, oh, every time someone has a disappointment, we're pretending it hurts their brain and then they're not responsible for things like. There's nothing soft about this. It's based in hardcore science that tells us, yeah, this is this is absolutely true.

• 25:13Ed Mylett?

  I I'll share with everybody and you where I think this can show up. So I come from a long line of, we'll call it alcoholics or drug addicts in my family, not just my dad. Also, I would just say some trauma, mental health issues throughout my family. Yet a beautiful, loving, amazing family will make sure my family gets all the credit in the world. But I'm the one in my family that sort of broke that chain. I'm not addicted to drugs or alcohol or this or that. And I've become financially successful and had influence. And I've got a beautiful family and all that. But how did that trauma stay in my family?

• 25:49Ed Mylett?

  The gene expression of worry, of concern, probably a serotonin and dopamine issue frankly in my brain, where I still am addicted, my obsessive personality, I didn't lose from my grandfather. I just didn't turn it to alcohol. I turned it to business and worry and anxiety. But if you have some obsessive personality thing that doesn't serve you, and you can't figure out in your own life where it came from, but it's manifesting itself in a different symptom in this life. It may be some ancestral trauma that you've got that's worth evaluating. Cause it's just showing up, the same disease, I guess, is showing up in a different symptom with me. I guess is the way that I would explain. Does that make sense when I say that? And am I right when I say that? Probably?

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes, I think there's some complexity. We don't know exactly what genes were passed along and what genes were, say, changed by prior trauma within the family. So it may be, you know, we as, as humans are selected for a little bit more anxiety, a little bit more vigilance, right? That's how our ancestors survived and maybe others didn't. And so, so some of this gets passed along to us, but then it can be impacted by nature, changing gene expression and by nurture. So, so yes, to what you're saying, but it's complicated. How much of it may be genetic? How much of it may be our own life experiences? But, but the point of what you're saying is 100% true is that's not going to change unless we go and look at it.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  So one way that we can, one way we could frame this is, is, and a question people can ask themselves is, am I owning what's mine? Am I owning what's mine? So here's an example, say, someone who's worried about financial security, right? Who is worried about financial security because at one point they didn't have it. But, but now we see this, we see this so often where that person works hard, builds financial security. And, you know, they're safely invested. It's not going to just all go away. But, but they don't see that. They're, they're feeling inside and behaving the same as when they didn't have that security. And this happens a lot where we're not owning what's ours.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  And that's kind of the catchphrase to think about compassion and curiosity about yourself. Are you owning what's yours? Or are you still trying to, for example, feel good enough? But you've already proven that in the ways you need to years and years ago. Are you trying to feel secure enough when you've already attained that? Years and years ago, because the the trauma and how it changes our brains doesn't go and look at that in a way that could be very, very simple of like, have you achieved that? It could be clear to everyone else on earth if they look that the answer is obviously yes. But our own brains don't know that, don't know that I did the things I need to boxes I need to check to feel secure, to feel safe, to feel like I've achieved something. Very often, we're still laboring under what we were laboring before, even though we've we've

• 28:42Speaker 03

  worked and and satisfied a lot of those needs in us.

• 28:46Ed Mylett?

  You just described me right there. I have not. My gosh, I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, the truth is, if I step away from it many years ago, I should have stopped worrying about ever having to be poor again or without food or, you know, when you have food stamps in your life when you're young, like I did, or welfare. No matter what abundance I've created, I've caused myself to still feel afraid of being poor. And that's the truth. That's bizarre to people that know me that are around my life. But what a great conversation, by the way, because that's exactly verbatim, me, what you just described. Still to this day. And it's just if you're the quality of your life is the quality of your emotions, then

• 29:31Ed Mylett?

  I'm not any more successful than someone who's never made any money or had any abundance in their life because I'm living in the same emotions I had.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:41Ed Mylett?

  It lacked those things. And so you're 100% right. Let's talk about some solutions. What is a mirror meditation?

• 29:49Ed Mylett?

  What is that?

• 29:49Speaker 03

  So mirror meditation is is a process where sometimes a person will stare at themselves, look at themselves in the mirror, and they're thinking about themselves, right? And it's not that everyone should do this. I mean, it's for for some people, it's too intense. It's not, you know, it's not helpful, but for others, it can be very helpful because it draws the attention to the self of like, what is going on? In me, right? What am I avoiding? And oftentimes, a person knows, you know, since that bad breakup, I haven't really given myself a chance to meet someone new, right? And I just, I just always keep thinking, I'm not meeting the right people, or, or I think, oh, it'll never work out, or I'm better off without it like.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  But I know that something changed in me during that really awful breakup X number of years ago, or months ago. And there might be just an example like that, and we could go through, where they're just going over and over and over again in our brains without ever changing anything. So, so anything that makes us stop and really look at ourselves, it could be mirror meditation, it could be writing out a narrative, it could be talking to a trusted friend, it could be talking to a therapist, but the idea is that we stop and we stop going with the automaticity in us. Because that person could tell themselves for ten, twenty years, right, for the rest of their lives that, okay, I know I stay away from relationships, they don't work for me, no one really likes me enough,

• 31:12Speaker 03

  I'm not good enough, or whatever it is we tell ourselves, but even though our whole self knows that's not true, and knows we didn't feel that way before this trauma, we embrace it because in the short term, it feels like that's keeping me safe today. I don't have to face what I would have to face, kind of getting back out there, right? So if we don't stop and look at ourselves, that these kind of things can go on forever. Like our, our brains are more complicated than any supercomputer, right? They are amazingly complex. And also, there are some very simplistic aspects to them, which is we don't just reboot, right? Even a, a computer, an old computer, you shut it down,

• 31:53Speaker 03

  you open it up, it tries to reboot, any patches going on, our brains don't do that. So we can still labor under, for example, I feel like I don't have enough money, and I'm gonna be in trouble, and I'm gonna be poor again, right? Even though all evidence would say that ended a long, long, long, long, long time ago, but unless you stop and look at that, you carry it forward, the feelings and the fear with you, as if it were now.

• 32:19Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, my case almost feel like, well, not in my case and everybody that I've coached too. I become kind of addicted to the story of me. Like there's a story. I almost feel like these patterns we create about ourselves have to be connected to a story. And typically the story, the more real it is to us is the heightened emotion level when we created the story. Maybe I'm wrong. But there's a story about ourselves. I think most people live the story of whether they're a victim of something or I'm even careful when I talk about that my dad was an alcoholic because I don't want my identity to be that I'm that's who I am. Or like that that's who my dad was. But I think you would agree with me that we all have this sort of unconscious.

• 33:03Ed Mylett?

  Maybe we're even conscious of the story we tell about ourselves. I'm divorced. I was abused as a child. I was neglected. I've always been heavy set. I'm not the smartest. I'm not the tallest. I'm not the prettiest. I'm not whatever. A, am I right about this story thing? And B, is there something that you would suggest somebody do? To interrupt the pattern of that story and start to create a new one?

• 33:28Speaker 03

  And we gotta look at the story. Right? Put the story out in front of you in words on paper, maybe or in spoken words. Is that real? Because very often unless we stop and look, we absolutely think our story is real. Like even though if we stop and look, we will understand that it is not. And the example that I give, I tell this example lots and it gets so, so compelling. And it's a real story of a young woman who came from a difficult place where not a lot of people got out and and you know, were able to live really good lives. Right? And and where she came from didn't think much of her or think much of her capabilities.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  So she goes through life and then in high school she earns an award that that said, hey, you're smart and you're capable and you can go places. That's basically what the award said. And that's how she felt about it. She felt she got empowered by it. I can get out of here. I can do good things for myself. Like she really understood that at the time. Okay, so then, subsequent to that, and not that long after, she has some very significant trauma in her life, very significant trauma, and her feelings about herself, the brain is overwhelmed, the brain changes. Now, she has a different story about that award. And the story is that it was a mockery. You know, it was telling her, you're not gonna go anywhere.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  This is the best thing you're gonna get in life, and you're gonna, you're staying here, even if you're trying to, you know, go somewhere else. Why would you think you could? Right? So she thought that about it, and had no understanding, no recollection that she had thought differently. Right? And this is happening in us all the time. Where if you ask her, what's your story? And she talked about the award, it was completely different, with no knowledge that the story is now the opposite, because trauma makes in us a reflexive response of guilt and shame. It's a reflex, and unless we fight that, we start redoing our stories through the lens of guilt and shame, and through the lens of oppression. But most people who are talking to themselves, or thinking in their head about themselves,

• 35:32Speaker 03

  aren't doing it with compassionate curiosity, right? They're doing it in a persecutory way. They're telling themselves, you're not good enough, and over and over and over again. And why they're not good enough? Why no one's gonna like you? This is what's going on in our minds. So how are we supposed to realize the truth? Oh, I didn't always think about myself. I say, no one comes out of the womb thinking, I'm not worth anything. Right? And again, I'm exaggerating a little bit. No one's thinking that much when they're coming out of the womb. But like, we don't feel that way, right, initially. So how did we get to feel that way? Right? Let's go look at that, and let's go look at what our stories are. And if those stories are true, and very often, the story is the opposite. So for example, someone who really behaved their best and did the best they could in a difficult situation,

• 36:17Speaker 03

  and all of us would think that that person has reason to feel proud. And even more, that person, looking at anyone else, would think the other person has reason to feel proud. But that's not what's felt inside. What's felt inside is shame, guilt. So unless we step outside of ourselves, look at ourselves, it's amazing the delusions of self we can labor under, including having, I've got a story of my whole history, and I don't realize it's entirely false, even by my own assessment, if I just stop and look at it.

• 36:48Ed Mylett?

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• 37:33Ed Mylett?

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• 38:16Ed Mylett?

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• 38:50Ed Mylett?

  You led me right where I wanted to go, which was shame. It's a biggie. This is a biggie like.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 38:57Ed Mylett?

  I coached privately and obviously in your background as in psychiatry, you're dealing with this a lot. But I have to tell you, even with very successful people that I coach, shame comes up a lot. I mean, I almost feel like this is one thing that's not discussed a lot in mental health. There's obviously depression and anxiety, but like shame is a major topic that keeps rearing its head. Is it in your practice? And if it is, just talk about uncouple shame for us a little bit and anything someone can do to alleviate the burden of it.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  There are a lot to that. When I didn't start off like deciding, oh, I'm going to be a trauma person, so to speak. No, having done this now for over 20 years, I just see over and over and over again that trauma is at the root of the vast majority of what ails us. Why does that person have a substance dependence? Why is that person depressed? Why is that person avoiding good things? Why is that person having anxiety and panic attacks? So many things I can say over and over examples that that if you trace them to the root, where did it come from? Instead of modern mental health, which often just wants to take an inventory of symptoms with no knowledge of you whatsoever. Let me see how many boxes we can check. And I'm not criticizing that often practitioners are doing the best we can,

• 40:16Speaker 03

  but we work in these systems that are so dumbed down that they're giving a person 15 minutes with someone. All they're trying to do is take an inventory. Oh, you have depression. Let's treat your depression. I'll give you a medicine. This makes no sense. If you trace people's stories that what you find like 80% of the time, like I really believe that across 20 years of doing it is the roots of the problems we're seeing are in trauma and trauma makes reflexive shame. Right, there's probably an evolutionary adaptation. If you did something and it made you feel really, really bad or the group of people around you and we all lived in small groups, you know, through human evolution. It probably made sense to feel such powerful shame, you didn't do that thing again.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Right, and you didn't risk harming the whole group. Right, or you didn't risk the group rejecting you. So there's some evolutionary mechanisms, but but what matters to us in the in the modern world is the trauma makes a reflex of guilt and shame, and now we're off to the races. What does that mean, the guilt and shame? Do I change my own story? And I write about losing my youngest brother to suicide. And I absolutely felt I wasn't a psychiatrist, I was in mental health at the time, I had a business career at the time, but I absolutely felt shame. Like, oh, my gosh, like, this doesn't, this happened to us and, um, you know, it doesn't happen to people whose families are are are are put together and are okay, and I'm not okay, and we're not okay. So then I start hiding that away.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  And I felt very different about myself and where I had come from. And then you can see the behaviors in my life change. I'm not as healthy, right? I start drinking more than I should. I start having unhealthy friendships and relationships. It was very, very clear that things changed afterwards and it wasn't just as if that weren't enough. Right, the the death of a brother by suicide and everything it did in my family, there was, it was something else on top of that that was toxic and poisonous, which was this sense of of guilt and shame. Like, I should feel ashamed that I didn't see it, that I wasn't able to stave it off. And what kind of person am I? And this happens to us as a reflex. And if we don't go and look at trauma and its reflex of guilt and shame,

• 42:29Speaker 03

  then it's like, hey, trauma and the reflex of guilt and shame are going to be in the driver's seat of our lives in one way or another.

• 42:35Ed Mylett?

  The driver's seat. You know, I've had a chance, I just shares with the audience, this is we're going back and forth, but. One of the compliments that I get from time to time that I really appreciate is that I have humility for whatever blessings or success I've had in my life. And you know what? I think the trauma in my life gets credit for that ironically. And what I mean by that is that some of the hard things that have happened in my life have reminded me of my humanness. And in my case, my need to rely on a power greater than myself. And so all of you that had some trauma, maybe you can pull some good from it that you've not pulled from it before. Maybe there's some really great things about you that come from the fact that you've suffered through something.

• 43:17Ed Mylett?

  And maybe it's not just the story you need to tell, but the conclusion you reach about it.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  Sure, people write and talk a lot in the field about post-trauma resilience. And we absolutely can grow from the traumas that happen to us. We can have a deeper understanding of ourselves, you know, greater compassion for ourselves and others and a desire to be in the world in a different way. But we don't get to the silver lining, so to speak, the post-trauma resilience, unless we understand what the trauma has been and what it's doing to us. So sometimes with traumas that are, say, small t, and we have to define the word. I'm just finding trauma as overwhelms our coping skills, changes our brain, right? Things that are sub-threshold to that. We can realize like, oh, that didn't feel good or I didn't like that.

• 44:08Speaker 03

  That was kind of bad for me and I want to be different and we can grow from it. But when the traumas are at the real level, right? A real trauma that changes our brains, it's very hard to get to a place of post-trauma resilience and growth if we're laboring against the sort of secret messages, guilt and shame. I mean, we can get there, but the odds are very much against us because now we're feeling guilt and shame. We lose insight. We start remaking our stories. So we can grow after trauma, but we don't do the right things in society to help us.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Do that so many more times. What happens is just bad and bad and bad. Or if there's a little bit of good, it's overwhelmed by the bad. But but I don't think that's our fault as individual people. We live in a system that doesn't talk to us about this. And in many ways, what I'm saying, I mean, I do think there's something to pulling it all together and the way that I think I'm able to pull it all together, I I feel good about, but I'm not saying things that are new. Right. This is known and understood within a field that has really lost its way. And, you know, has a book of diagnoses, you know, like a thousand pages long, that just looks at symptom inventories. And we've really lost the thread of like, what is going on?

• 45:23Speaker 03

  In us. So we just look for completely different things defined by different symptoms. Instead of saying what's going on in all of us, if we can get to the common roots of what is ailing us, then we can help ourselves better. But the field that I work in does not come from that perspective. And I think does us, you know, a a very much a disservice. Um, by not coming in a holistic and and even in many ways, just common sense, obviousness matter.

• 45:51Ed Mylett?

  I agree with you. I, uh, by the way, the way that you all might not know this, but you will once you start to read his work. The way that I found Dr. Connie is my friends in the music business has said, hey, this guy saved Lady Gaga's life. And I'm like, well, that's a bold statement, but okay. And so I started to, and by the way, whatever you did there, thank God for you. And and and and there's many other very well known people that he's that credit them with like literally saving his life. And

• 46:15Ed Mylett?

  I was telling somebody this weekend, right in the room that I'm in, who I know has struggled with anxiety and fear. This is leading to a question, by the way. And, um, he said, well, he said, you know, I was on medication for a long time for this. And he goes, Ed, have you ever struggled with anxiety? I'm sure you have never. And I said, actually, I have. I have. You know, I don't, you know, I have trauma from where I grew up in different things, and I've struggled with anxiety and worry and probably even depression, even though I'm a pretty resilient, tough dude. But I think I've, you know, struggled with that a little bit. And he said, have you ever had medication? I said, I did for a bit and, um.

• 46:50Ed Mylett?

  I concluded that that wasn't for me. I'm certainly not a psychiatrist and I certainly would never, ever suggest somebody should or should not be on medication. But this particular person said, yeah, man, I went in and they said, three weeks later, I'm just this numb human. So although I wasn't feeling the worry and anxiety I was feeling anymore, I also had no joy, no bliss, no drive, no ambition, no drive in any area, physical, sexual ambition, anything. And so I wonder, this is a hard question because you're not diagnosing somebody in person, but I know you've spoken about this before. How do you feel about the medication or over-medication of our population? And what are your opinions about that? How do you feel about that?

• 47:35Speaker 03

  So medication can, absolutely can help us. I mean, there are situations where we can get benefit from medication, but the medication has to be well-chosen, chosen to the situation, chosen to the person with reasonable expectations. If I get in my car today and I expect that it's gonna fly, right, and it's gonna fly me somewhere, I'm gonna be disappointed that it's just staying on the road. Right? But if I understand, hey, what can it do for me? What can it not do for me? Right? Then I have rational expectations and we live in a world, I mean, if all we're gonna do is have 15-minute appointments that are taking invent, you know, an inventory of symptoms, we're gonna have a reflex of

• 48:17Speaker 03

  a medicine. Medicine can be answered to everything, right? But of course, medicine isn't the answer to the every, to everything. Now, we're overselling it. It's not gonna do what it's billed to do, or it's used for the wrong purpose. The person doesn't know what to expect of it or what not to expect of it. And then the system, I think, is by and large responsible for that. Because if we have a reflex where we take symptom inventories and prescribe medicines, like, how is it gonna help a person versus saying, for example, after talking to someone, it's very, very common. There's a lot for you to think about and a lot for you to work on. And I think we could do that, right? We could start talking about life narrative. What has gone on in your life, right? How have, how have things changed at times? What are you happy with right now? What are you not happy with? Can we look at

• 49:02Speaker 03

  some of that and change some behaviors or some framings? And, and that's like 80% of the work. I mean, imagine we're saying this to like the average person who has issues of self. And also, I might say something like, Like there's some medicines that could kind of take the edge off, maybe give you a little bit more distress tolerance inside. As you're thinking about these very difficult things, we might be able to use a medicine to kind of stand by your side a little bit and help you get to. This place, but medicine is not going to be the answer. It's not going to think for us. It's not going to figure things out. Then, you know, people have a much different view of medicines because they understand what it can do for them.

• 49:37Speaker 03

  And what it can't, they don't have the experience, unfortunately, that your friend had and so many people have where there's something going on that's complicated that warrants really thinking about that person. But the system doesn't see in any way, shape or form the person, takes a symptom inventory, prescribes a medicine like that's going to fix everything, which is ludicrous. But then it doesn't work and all the person gets her side effects are not helped. And then the person thinks, oh, medicine isn't good or they avoid the field, but that's the fault of the field. And again. I'm not trying to fault individual practitioners. There are many people out there doing the best they can, but the whole framing of medicine in our society.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  And the framing of mental health, which resides within the framing of medicine is extremely unhealthy and makes predictable that it's going to go. The way that it did in many cer- in many situations, many, many, many, many thousands upon thousands of situations, what happened to your friend. Is going to happen because that's what the system makes.

• 50:34Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. And by the way, everybody, to be very careful and cautious, just in a. If you are on medication, neither one of us is saying get off that medication right now. That's, that's not something that you should do. You, you should be in consult with your doctor, but. Before you get on medication, you should heed what the warning and the information that. Dr. Connie just provided for you, but if you are on medication, it can also be dangerous to just stop taking it immediately as well. So please be careful about that.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Whether someone's on medicine or not on medicine, we want rational use of medicine for everyone. So if you're on medicine and you're not sure. What it's for, what it's doing, if it's making side effects, talk to that person who's prescribing it. You know, there, there are times when medicine can have an immensely helpful effect.

• 51:18Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  To us, right? And there are times when it doesn't. So everyone's responsibility to themselves, I think, is to understand. That and if you're on it, understand the why and why and what it's doing. And if you're not, and you think you might benefit from it, have conversations. We all deserve to be knowledgeable, informed consumers of medical care and mental health care. And that certainly means we want to know about the medicines that we're on.

• 51:44Speaker 01

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• 52:15Ed Mylett?

  It should matter, everybody, for you when you're listening to, by the way, not just for your well being, but your longevity and your health in general. And so I want to talk about that with you for a second. My dad died pretty young, like early seventies of cancer. And by the way, very fit guy, like trained hard, worked out hard, walked every day, exercised every day.

• 52:36Ed Mylett?

  But man, he was a chronic worrier. I mean, just heavy duty worry. And I would say the best way to say it would be trended towards the melancholy most of the time. And that's being polite. And so I've always had this theory that potentially that turned on some form of gene expression for cancer early on. I know you would never claim that, but, um, but I believe his mental health contributed to his physical decline. Almost, almost in my own mind, like it affected him on a cellular level. And I'd love to know your thoughts about trauma impacting aging, health, and even on a cellular level.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Like again, I'll say things, but most of what I'm saying is not opinion. Right? I'm just relaying what science knows, which is if we have these unprocessed traumas in us, they make us less healthy. They make there be more of stress hormones within us, inflammatory hormones within us. They push us not just towards depression, but they push us towards heart disease. They push us towards strokes. They make us more vulnerable to cancers. These things are true and we know that they are true. The science shows us this, but we don't honor that. Right? We don't look and say, hey, we're whole beings and whole creatures

• 54:03Speaker 03

  from head to toe. And if there's tension in us all the time and we're laboring on our fears inside of constant negative self-talk or never feeling safe, like you have someone who's achieved so much for themselves, but can't own what's theirs and still feels the fears they had before is that's harmful to us from head to toe. And do we know that, that for example, increases risks of heart attack, increases risks of autoimmune diseases? The answer to that is absolutely yes, but you know, we can know a lot of things that don't help us, right? Because we're not bringing it to bear and the medical system and the mental health system and the social systems around us don't acknowledge these things we know. You'd have to make a lot of changes,

• 54:47Speaker 03

  you know, to acknowledge them. So a lot of the things that I'm saying that seem like, oh my goodness, like, isn't this such amazing thing that, that, you know, trauma can change the genes that are passed on? Or trauma can ultimately make us more susceptible to autoimmune disease? I'm not saying anything new here. This is just me saying things that science understands. So we should all stop and think, why is it that way? Maybe something that's so known to science gets said in a way that seems like it's new, even though I'm just repeating things that are out there. You know, that's because the zeitgeist in the world around us is like, what's going on inside of us? How does it affect us? There are things that are obvious.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  And they're known and they're very, very important, but they're on the back burner or we still understand.

• 55:35Ed Mylett?

  What about the reverse? So we've got a couple more questions. One of the things I noticed right when the zoom came on is you're fit. You're in good shape and you're not 25 years old. So you're fit. And I try to stay very fit as well. So we know that our mental health, trauma, those scars, those marks can affect our physical wellbeing. What about the other way around? I have to answer the like, I don't know what I would have done in my life. I'd be a completely different human if I couldn't train five days a week and lift weights and cardio, etc. So as a practical step, how important is whatever it might be, massage, working out, stretching, walking, heavy lifting of weights, impact on these other things mentally in our life?

• 56:18Speaker 03

  No, absolutely. There's a strong impact. The brain and the body are attached and it's a two way street. So if you're not taking care of yourself, somebody is eating a poor diet is sort of lethargic, isn't exercising, isn't getting their blood moving. There's no cardiovascular exercise. That's good. That affects the how what's circulating in our blood, like how our bodies are functioning, markers in our blood. Are things okay or things not okay? Right? So, so from endocrine examples, inflammatory examples, there, there, there are all sorts of examples in us and neurotransmission examples from transmission from the brain down into the body and back that show us absolutely it's a two way street.

• 57:02Speaker 03

  And then what's circulating inside of us goes into the brain and pushes us towards, you know, being less cognitively acute, having less energy inside, or maybe pushes us towards depression or towards more anxiety. So we have to look at ourselves holistically. Again, that's not new age softness. I mean, we are one thing from head to toe. And of course, what's going on in our mental health is going to impact our bodies, like even to the point of making a heart attack lightly or not. And of course, what's going on in our bodies is going to affect our brain, including making a difference of whether depression is likely or not likely. And and again, I would say there are interesting and maybe sophisticated things to say about this.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  But a lot of it is just so clearly known and it's in the realm of basic knowledge. But basic knowledge that isn't acknowledged and act upon acted upon by the systems that are supposed to be taken care of us.

• 57:58Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, knowledge and acknowledged are very different things. Just I first off, I would tell you, A, I just really enjoyed this today, but um I'd like to have you back on. I I would really like to do this again. Um, there's so much.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  I enjoyed it.

• 58:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I really have to. Let's start, let's finish with one thing. And this is a broad stroke question, but it's just worth asking you. So they're not a part of your practice, but you're in line at Starbucks and the guy goes, hey, I saw you on Ed Mylett's show or I saw you on Huberman. I saw you on the Dyer, the CEO, whatever you've been on, any show you've been on. And they say, hey, um, I I'm struggling with some anxiety and fear and maybe anger issues. I'm depressed a little bit, maybe just like Ed Mylett's dad, I drift towards the melancholy. And I I'm not going to be in your practice. Tell me something I should do when I leave here right now that I could implement as a practice that could alleviate some of my suffering.

• 58:55Ed Mylett?

  And then I could start on the right road to making progress towards my mental well being. What would you say to them?

• 59:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, when it comes up and things like that do come up, the the the the first thing I say is I always want as a person to know that if things are in a really bad place. If you have thoughts of, I think I don't want to be alive, you have thoughts of of harming yourself, like there are times to get some help. So so I I will say that if things are in a place that's really difficult and and, you know, you're feeling some of these things inside and you need to to to get some real professional help. So get guided that way. If it's not that, then I talk about these basic things of being curious about ourselves, compassionate curiosity. What's going on inside of me? What am I telling myself in quiet moments of, you know, in the car, in an elevator, in the shower? There aren't other things going on, but there are things going on in our in our brains. What are we saying to ourselves?

• 59:46Speaker 03

  What do we think about? Ourselves. So what's going on that we may be hiding from ourselves? There's so much we can learn about ourselves by compassionate curiosity and just bringing it to the fore. Let me just try and guide people towards that because something good is going to come of stopping and thinking about ourselves outside of the usual reflexes. And it's remarkable how many times a person will just stop and think, what is it that I'm saying to myself and realize, oh, a thousand times a day or 5,000 times a day, I'm saying this awful thing to myself inside of myself. And the person may never have stopped before and realized this is going on inside. So compassionate curiosity and what we may learn from it is a great starting point. And if we're

• 1:00:31Speaker 03

  really not in an okay place and we need professional help, if that's not the case, let's think about ourselves with interest and curiosity and the excitement. I mean, I really mean it, the excitement that if I do this, if I think about myself and shine the light around inside of me, it's not that, oh, it's useless. It's not that it's gonna ultimately make me feel worse. Like this is how we help ourselves. So if we do that, we're not hiding from what's inside of us. That's often the very first step towards just being healthier and happier.

• 1:01:00Ed Mylett?

  It's really, really good. It, you know, everybody, when you're listening to Dr. Connie, I hope it dawns upon you that there's the potential for a whole new you. There's a whole new life awaiting you, a whole new set of emotions awaiting you that you can get. And I'm so grateful for your work. I'm grateful for the conversation today. Thank you so much.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  Thank you. You're very welcome.

• 1:01:19Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, so good. The book is called Trauma, The Invisible Epidemic. And I gotta tell you, the subtitle is the most telling to me because I really believe this is an invisible epidemic. I really do. I meet very few people, ironically, who aren't suffering with some of this. And it's why what you do matters so much in this conversation did today. So thank you again. God bless you.

• 1:01:40Speaker 03

  You're very, very welcome. And thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

• 1:01:43Ed Mylett?

  Thanks, everybody. Share the episode. If it meant anything to you, or you love anybody who may be struggling with this stuff, share today's episode with them like you always do. God bless you, everybody. Max out your life.