989 A Mental Health Toolkit: Defeat Loneliness & Learn to Love Yourself w/Kati Morton

“With great vulnerability comes great connection and courage.”Lewis chats with Kati Morton, a clinical psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, and viral YouTube personality whose mission is to decrease the stigma around mental health issues. They discuss the steps to overcoming loneliness, the value of vulnerability, how to recognize and combat depression, and so much more. The Power of Erotic Intelligence with Esther Perel: https://link.chtbl.com/732-podFind Lasting Love with Matthew Hussey: https://link.chtbl.com/811-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 989 with Katie Morton.

• 0:06Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:28Lewis Howes?

  Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "Chaos gives birth to dancing stars." And Mr. Rogers said, "When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary." I am very excited about my guest today. Katie Morton is in the house, and she is a clinical psychologist, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a viral YouTube personality whose mission is to decrease the stigma around mental health issues. She also is the author of a book called, "Are You OK? A Mental Health Guide for Millennials," and the host of the new podcast, Ask Katie Anything,

• 1:10Lewis Howes?

  where she answers all of your questions around anxiety, depression, insecurity, self-doubt, and more. And in this episode, we dive in deep on all these topics about the root of loneliness and the simple steps to overcoming it, how to learn to love and appreciate yourself even when you're struggling and don't have a sense of purpose, why it's so important to be vulnerable in your relationships, how to differentiate between feeling bummed and actually suffering from depression. This is key for a lot of people, what the best medicine is for a broken heart, and so much more. The world needs to hear this message. I'm telling you, you have the power to change someone's life today

• 1:51Lewis Howes?

  by sending them this link, wherever you're listening to this, on the podcast platform of choice. Just copy and paste and send it to a few friends, post it on your social media, or you can copy and paste the link, lewishouse.com/989, and you have the ability to change someone's life today who might be inspired by this message. And if this is your first time here, click that subscribe button right now on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review and rating to help us spread the message of greatness to more people. Coming up in just a moment is Katie Morton.

• 2:26Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. I'm super excited about our guest today. I think this is going to be extremely relevant and timely information and much needed information. Katie Morton is here. She holds a Masters in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University and is a licensed marriage and family therapist, also massive following on YouTube. I think almost a million subscribers over there and has an incredible book called, "Are You Okay? A Guide to Caring for Your Mental Health." And I'm excited you're here. Thank you so much, Katie.

• 2:56Kati Morton?

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 2:57Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate this. I'm a, I'm a big fan of mental health and also having a positive attitude. And we were talking just before this about how positivity can be sometimes toxic and can actually hurt people if they're always positive and not dealing with certain traumas or healing or things that are actually happening, their pain. So is there a point in time where it can be, we can be too positive and it can hurt us because we don't deal with the things that have traumatized us?

• 3:32Kati Morton?

  Yeah, I think, I mean, it's tricky because everyone's different. But I believe that when we're ignoring how we really feel and only focusing on, you know, how good we can make things and we're not actually acknowledging the bad. Because I, people always say like, good feelings, bad feelings. They're all feelings and they're all okay. And so I think when we go, you know, when we ignore a complete chunk of our life and our experience and focus instead, it's great to focus on the good, but you still have to acknowledge the upsets, the things that don't turn out the way you planned. And that doesn't make it bad. It's just life, you know?

• 4:07Lewis Howes?

  What does it mean we have to acknowledge?

• 4:09Kati Morton?

  It's about allowing yourself to feel it, whatever that is. Like, if I need to cry, I'm going to let myself cry. If some days I just can't get out of bed and do all the stuff I need to do, maybe that's a sign that I need to take care of myself, right? I need to just allow myself to have the ups and downs. At the same time, and this is why it's tricky for people, is I don't want you to like ruminate or like, you know, just let yourself wallow. There's a time for acknowledgement, feeling, venting about it to people, you know, therapist, a friend, but then, then what? Okay? Then we take the steps to move forward.

• 4:42Lewis Howes?

  How long should we ruminate, vent, grieve over?

• 4:48Lewis Howes?

  A situation that affects us and does it matter the the weight of the situation where it might be a death or of someone close to you versus someone said something mean to me that triggered me from childhood struggles like how long do we is there a rumination period that is healthy are we all different in how we grieve and heal and move forward is it the level of trauma that matters?

• 5:14Kati Morton?

  Yeah, a lot of it has to do with the the level. So if it's someone just said something mean that really hurt my feelings or let's say I had a really bad interview. I need to get a job and it just went horribly and so the whole day I'm feeling terrible. Um, that's okay to give yourself that day. And maybe the beginning of the next day and then we move on. What's next? What's another thing I can can I send out my resume to someone else, you know, then we take action. Um, but then when it comes to like death in the family or

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  A breakup.

• 5:39Kati Morton?

  Yes, there's like the top 10 most stressful things in your life, like moving divorce. Um, death in the family, just to name a few. Um, and I know moving sounds crazy, but if you've ever moved, you know how stressful it is.

• 5:51Lewis Howes?

  Very stressful.

• 5:52Kati Morton?

  That those are things that are okay to give yourself like a month or two of adjustment time. Knowing that, you know, there still needs to be action in there like, hey, if I'm having a tough time functioning in my life, I and I can't be there for my friends or my family. I can't do my job. You know, things like that, then I should seek out professional help like a therapist or psychiatrist or, you know, any of those things.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  Why is moving uh, top of the list of stresses traumas? Is it because we've lived in this old identity and this this home feeling and it's just like a newness or a new identity or what is it?

• 6:25Kati Morton?

  I think it's a lot of things. Some of it is newness, also routine. We love routines, our our brains, our bodies love that. I mean, if if any of you have ever tried to get up around the same time and you have like rituals in your day. Super helpful for our mental health, physical health, all that good stuff. So moving disrupts everything, right? We have to find new places for everything. The whole scenario where we're at and what it feels like, it's just everything is so different. Not to mention, you know, having to package up all your stuff. It can be overwhelming.

• 6:54Lewis Howes?

  It's it's traumatic in itself, even though it can seem exciting, it can also be traumatic. Maybe that's why the first my my girlfriend moved uh, Christmas day, essentially like six months ago. Right before Corona. And she moved from a different country in with me. And it was kind of traumatic for both of us. I was excited. I think we were both excited, but then it was like, oh, but this is a challenge for her. She doesn't know where to go to get. You know, her nails done, her food, or find friends and just the normalcy of it. And it's a different culture, it's a different country, it's you're living with someone now.

• 7:27Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  And I had my routine, but she didn't have hers. And so I had to constantly like, you know, work together to make it work. So it's stressful for sure. I can, I can relate to that and I didn't have to move. I'm interested because my entire childhood, I had a sense of deep loneliness, deep insecurity, loneliness, worry, fear, that no one was ever gonna like me and no one was ever gonna love me. And I'm, I'm assuming that it was a number of the instances I experienced in my life, the number of um, stories, the number of things I witnessed and experienced, that built the story in my mind that no one's gonna like me or love me. And I took it upon myself when I was a teenager.

• 8:13Lewis Howes?

  When I started to have friends, when I was a teenager in high school, I started to still feel a sense of loneliness with people around me and people liking me. I still felt a deep sense of loneliness and the need to get people to like me.

• 8:29Kati Morton?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:29Lewis Howes?

  And I, I took it upon myself to, to overcome that challenge by spending a lot of deep alone time and falling in love with myself and falling in love with like who I am and writing letters to myself, taking myself out on dinner dates, but alone, movies all the time to the point where I said, you know what? I really enjoy my own company. I don't need to feel good around other people anymore.

• 8:53Kati Morton?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:54Lewis Howes?

  And it's a bonus. I love people still, but it's like, I love being alone.

• 8:58Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 8:58Lewis Howes?

  But it took me having kind of the, the vision to break this mold. It took me like creating challenges for myself, like experiencing deep pain of, you know, figuring out how to love myself. What are your thoughts on loneliness? Why do people feel lonely in general? When they have lots of friends or they don't have friends? And what do you think is kind of the root of loneliness?

• 9:26Kati Morton?

  Yeah, I love that. First of all, that's like all the homework I give my patients all the time. Like dating yourself.

• 9:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:32Kati Morton?

  Yeah, like writing letters. I mean, if any of my viewers are listening to this, they know how often I talk about writing letters to yourself. Love, love letters, um, letters from your childhood self to your adult self. I could really get into that.

• 9:44Lewis Howes?

  How to hug your childhood self now and heal. Oh, my goodness.

• 9:47Kati Morton?

  Let them feel heard and understood in a way they couldn't.

• 9:50Lewis Howes?

  That's so much of this.

• 9:52Kati Morton?

  Oh, you just feel it, right? As an adult, you're like, ooh, that was so hard. But I think, uh, loneliness happens for a lot of reasons. Loneliness occurs, I think, uh, for some people, it's because we never let people truly know us. Either because it doesn't feel safe, or we don't truly know ourselves.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh, how do we get to know ourselves?

• 10:13Kati Morton?

  You have to be curious. I think so often we, we judge. I mean, I'll be honest, as a kid, I, there's so many awkward moments in my life or times when I wished, like I, I grew up in the country. And so some of my friends had like wealth, some didn't. Some parents were like business people. My dad was a boiler maker. So we were very like, blue collar. I grew up on a Christmas tree farm. Um, and there were times I wanted for that, you know, how come I can't have that? Every kid has that, right? Or why don't, doesn't my body look this way? Why am I so gangly? And why is this look? You know, there's so many things that as a kid I was so uncomfortable. And I think being open to being curious about that, like, why am I uncomfortable? What is so wrong with me? So often we just accept something's wrong with me. And then we take.

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  That's what I thought my whole life. I was like, something's wrong with me. No one, you know.

• 10:59Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 11:00Lewis Howes?

  No one's gonna understand it. I'm, I'm wrong. I'm bad, you know.

• 11:03Kati Morton?

  Oh, totally.

• 11:04Lewis Howes?

  Stupid, all this stuff.

• 11:05Kati Morton?

  We have those thoughts. Uh, there was something I read, I forget the study that it was, that supported this, but somewhere between sixty thousand and ninety thousand new thoughts every day, or not new thoughts, but just thoughts. And ninety-four percent of them or something are the thoughts we've had. We've already had.

• 11:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, we've already, we're repeating the thoughts.

• 11:21Kati Morton?

  So, uh, and most, a lot of them are bad. I will be honest. I, I would estimate like sixty percent of them are negative.

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  Well, they're probably like fear based of like worry base of, am I looking good? Or this is, you know, what do they think about me? Right?

• 11:32Kati Morton?

  Yeah. And that's because our brain is wired to seek out threat, right? It keeps us safe, make sure we're okay. And good things aren't threatening. So of course we're going to focus on like, hey, that person was whispering when I walked in the room. I think they're talking about me. I don't think they like me, you know, it's threatening.

• 11:47Lewis Howes?

  Why, I mean, so how do we train our minds for positivity without it hurting us?

• 11:51Kati Morton?

  Part of it is just noticing our thoughts. So often, we have them, kind of building off of the loneliness, right? We have these thoughts that some shame built and guilt built, like something's wrong with me. That's shame, speaking out, saying something's intrinsically wrong, people aren't gonna like you. You're so stupid, all of those things. We have to notice if we're having those. If those are the thoughts that were like taking up our, it's taking up our brain space and our time. And we're having ninety thousand of them in a day, like it's gonna affect us.

• 12:21Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna feel lonely, you're gonna feel, you're gonna be sick, you're gonna be sad, you're gonna be worried and stressed and anxious. So how do we then get to the root of the loneliness so that we're not feeling lonely anymore? I'm hearing you say we need to discover and pay attention to who we are, we need to explore ourselves, we need to, you know, what else does that look like?

• 12:38Kati Morton?

  Yeah, I think part of it is recognizing why, kind of we said like it could be because you don't know yourself or you're afraid to let people know you, you know? So recognizing that, recognizing, you know, how honest we're being with ourselves and others. A lot of loneliness comes out of that, but when it comes, it really comes.

• 12:55Lewis Howes?

  You mean by not, we're not revealing who we are, we're hiding things, we're not opening up fully, we're, we have secrets that we're unwilling to share because we feel like other people are gonna shame us or not like us?

• 13:07Kati Morton?

  Exactly. I can't tell you how many times I have hear from my patients or viewers that they don't feel comfortable telling their friends, close friends, that they're having a hard time. So like, oh, I don't want them to think I'm attention seeking, I don't want them to think, you know, and we're, we're making those assumptions, right? Like anxiety comes out of either, we think we're like reading the magic eight ball into the future or we're focused on the past and we can't just be present. And so a lot of people will say, you know, say, I can't even tell them when I'm having a tough time. But we've put ourselves in that own, our own jail with that, right? No one else put that there. We're saying, oh, it's not okay.

• 13:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I feel like, you know, I think a lot of people wanna help someone. Like if you say like, I'm actually kind of struggling with this today. I feel like people want to be a solution, wanna be a listening ear, wanna be a helping hand if their friend is going through a challenge. I think when you, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if you're always negative, like, oh, my life is over every day with your friends, that's a drag.

• 14:02Kati Morton?

  Yes.

• 14:03Lewis Howes?

  And you don't wanna be always in need of support, I'm assuming.

• 14:07Kati Morton?

  Well, it's not even need, in need of support. I think it's not taking. Sage advice, like you're asking for assistance, but you're not accepting of any of it. So you're really not asking. You know what I mean?

• 14:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:20Kati Morton?

  And I think that's when it becomes like, I call like an emotional vampire. Or like a toxic relationship where you're just like, if you're the person trying to offer that help, it's just like they're taking and taking and you're giving and you're giving and they're not getting anywhere.

• 14:31Lewis Howes?

  It's the wor- it's like being a mentor in, in business or life. I get a lot of people that ask me, you know, to, to pick my brain or to give the mentorship. And the worst thing that a mentor can have is someone who wastes their time, who doesn't take action. I'm like, okay, here's the game plan. If this is what you want, go do this for the next sixty days. And then when they don't do it, you're like, why did I waste my time?

• 14:53Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 14:54Lewis Howes?

  If I'm prescribing you something to try, whether it works or not, and you don't do it and you keep wanting more advice, it's a time suck.

• 15:01Kati Morton?

  Totally. And it doesn't benefit either of you, right? Because it's, it's just lip service. It's not actually going to turn out to, to be anything.

• 15:08Lewis Howes?

  So say someone's feeling really lonely right now. Whether it's they've been lonely before Corona or now it's like they feel even more lonely. Like what can they do? You know, three to four things they could do for the next thirty to ninety days to help them discover themselves, to help them become a little less lonely and fall in love with themselves a little more.

• 15:32Kati Morton?

  Yeah, there's a couple of things. Um, first, kind of going back to what we're talking about originally is, is noticing your thoughts. Because I do believe if we are able to change our thoughts, we change our life. It's, it's miraculous and it's very simple, but it's also very difficult. So if they notice those thoughts and track down your top five, okay? Because remember we're saying most of them are repeat thoughts? So those could be things like, I'm not good enough, they're not gonna like me, I'm a loser. I don't know. Trust me, we've all had those thoughts. No judgments. Write down your top five and then I want you to work using bridge statements, I call them, into more positive because- No one's gonna believe, I mean, I'm sorry, but if I think I'm stupid, I can't be like, I'm smart. I'm smart. I'm not gonna believe it. Even in my head, I'm just like, that's a lie. That's a lie.

• 16:15Lewis Howes?

  There's no, there isn't proof to show, like if, for me, I thought I've been stupid my whole life because I was always in the bottom of my class with my grades. So I was like, there's no evidence. So it's a lie if I say I'm smart because I don't believe I'm competent enough to, to feel smart.

• 16:29Kati Morton?

  Yeah, cuz you're checking your facts, right? And you're like, hey, based on what I, based on our horrible schooling system.

• 16:34Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. I was, I was very street smart, but I didn't calculate that and I wasn't aware of that.

• 16:40Kati Morton?

  Well, it's not measured, right?

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  I know, right? Okay, so, so bridge statements, what, what does that look like?

• 16:46Kati Morton?

  It lives in possibility land. It's like, it's possible, like for your example, let's say, maybe I'm not as dumb as I think I am. It's possible that I could have other gifts in other ways that I'm intelligent. I'm open to, open to that idea. So we're not saying I am or I'm not. We're just like, it's possible I'm not 100% correct on this. And then we just kind of live in that land and start moving a little bit more, that, then the next step would kind of be something like, you know, I do think I have some street smart, so it's possible that I'm intelligent in that realm. Maybe. I'm gonna look into that.

• 17:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, okay.

• 17:25Kati Morton?

  Building your evidence along with these bridge statements into the space of, you know, I'm super smart.

• 17:32Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Okay, so that's the, the second step. What, what's after that? What's the next phase?

• 17:36Kati Morton?

  Then, once we've done that, that kind of work, I think, um, the letters to yourself is super helpful. I love that you did that.

• 17:45Lewis Howes?

  But come on now, Katie, isn't this super woo wooey and

• 17:48Kati Morton?

  I, hey,

• 17:49Lewis Howes?

  self-helpy, that's like, there's enough science that backs this and

• 17:53Kati Morton?

  No, there is science that backs it. So the, I mean, in as short and simple as a way I can explain it, um, you know, we always hear that old adage, like you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you can. Every day, our brain is learning. In our hippocampus where memories are formed, it creates these new neurons every day. And those neurons get together with each other to create memories and learnings, right? So each and every day, whether we recognize it or not, we're learning new things. And instead of taking that opportunity to teach ourselves nasty things, like I'm horrible, I'm stupid, let's take that opportunity to teach ourselves. Things that are helpful, supportive, you know? Maybe I can get to know myself because I've never taken the opportunity to actually learn about what makes me tick.

• 18:37Kati Morton?

  I've just numbed out and zoomed through life.

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  So what do these letters look like? Is it once a day you're writing a letter? Is it once a week, month? And what is the letter saying?

• 18:47Kati Morton?

  Um, I like to keep it pretty simple so that it's something we can do. Because I think too often in therapy especially and in the woo woo land of psychology that we can like self-help land. Um, it can get too labor intensive and then we don't do it. So I like to keep it to um, a letter to yourself tomorrow. Because the only person I'm competing with is really myself like yesterday.

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:09Kati Morton?

  And so if we keep it to that, like, um, you know, dear, dear self, you know? It could be like today I hope for or I'm grateful for this tomorrow I hope to. I wanted to just to keep it in a, you know, 24, 48 hour window of what you are grateful for, what you hope for. And what maybe didn't work out. Again, we don't want to negate the things that aren't good. We just want to acknowledge them like, hey, I tried this and I still felt bad. So I'm not going to do that one tomorrow. I'm going to try this. And so it just keeps us kind of moving forward and keeping it short and sweet. Just those like I'm grateful for, I'm hopeful for things that worked out or didn't work out. You're done. Kind of like that's why five minute journals are so popular.

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 19:50Kati Morton?

  To keep with that. And I would encourage people to try to do this if you can every day, awesome. But at least every other day, just so you're checking in with yourself. Um, to see how you're moving along, how you're doing. And I think that will give you the thing that's cool about journaling is we can go back then and be like, oh, my God. Me six months ago would never have thought that I could do this. Or, you know, we, we lose sight of our own growth and development because we're with ourselves all the time.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  I know. So I really like this idea of quick, short letters to yourself tomorrow. I'm a big fan of meditation. I was just talking with my buddy Jay Shetty last night about meditation and how we talk about meditation so much in kind of our space. But he was like, but 80% of the world, 90% of the world still doesn't know about meditation, isn't doing it. Even though we've, we hear it and talk about it so much, we think like we're sick of talking about the same thing, but. And I'm a big fan of meditating because I feel like you can be aware of your thoughts and you can start. And I like to plan the day. I do it in the morning and I like to think about what do I want to create this day? What's the greatest version of myself today?

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  But I really like the idea of, you know, self-meditating over pen and paper for tomorrow as well by writing a letter to yourself. Cause you're setting an intention as well. You're saying, this is what I want to start thinking about. Brain, when my brain starts saying, you're ugly and stupid and worthless, no, I'm going to switch it. And here's what we're going to do. So you're just preparing yourself for all the different challenges that may come. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if we don't prepare ourselves or set ourselves up to win, then we're always going to be in reaction mode because we haven't trained our mind to win. Is that right?

• 21:26Kati Morton?

  Yeah, 100%. It's like a confirmation bias. Like if I go looking, I'm always talking to my audience about this and my patients, like if I go looking for negativity, if I go looking for a reason to be upset, I'm going to find it. And so we want to make sure that we're looking for reasons to be excited, things that we can do better. Reaching the goals or being, feeling productive that day, whatever that means for you. Productive might be I laid on the couch and did some self-care, watched some TV, talked to my friends. You know, that's still productive, but I think in a lot of ways, we just, we go searching for bad things and then we're surprised that we find them.

• 22:02Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Is there a next step in this process of loneliness and getting to know yourself? If you're doing the daily letters for tomorrow, what would you say are the next kind of steps?

• 22:12Kati Morton?

  Yeah, I think the next thing, and this is going to be the hardest for people and they're probably like, ugh. But I want you to tiptoe into social land in an authentic way. So if we have friends that we already talk with and we think, hey, they don't know me. You know, I'm still lonely, even though like I've heard from a lot of people, I can feel super lonely, even though I'm in a crowded room with people that I know. Um, I want you to be more authentic. I challenge you to pick one person that I'll give you like two weeks to do this. One person that you're going to be honest with about how you're doing or what's going on.

• 22:48Lewis Howes?

  And that doesn't Not just say, I'm fine. Everything's good.

• 22:50Kati Morton?

  Exactly.

• 22:51Lewis Howes?

  I'll just repeat the same thing you always say, like, everything's great, when it's not, when you've got some underlying issue.

• 22:57Kati Morton?

  Totally. We instead, we need to say something to the effect of, yeah, it's been kind of hard, you know, I've been going through a tough time. I mean, right now, especially with the coronavirus and our world feeling like it's turned upside down, it's a, I think it's even more acceptable to be like, yeah, it's been, it's been rough. You know, this, these past few months have been pretty terrible. And they, they would understand, you know, and we're just tiptoeing. We're not sharing a bunch. I don't want you to like, what I call like verbal diarrhea. We don't want to share it, bleh, all at once.

• 23:26Lewis Howes?

  Crap all over someone's face, yeah.

• 23:28Kati Morton?

  Exactly. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I wasn't ready for that. Um, so we just want to start with little things like, hey, yeah, last week was, was, was kind of bad. But, you know, I'm trying again this week. How have you been? You know, we share a little bit, we reflect.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  So don't spend an hour just, uh, you know, going down the deep end, but open up some.

• 23:47Kati Morton?

  Yeah, letting them know that it's not all peachy keen all the time.

• 23:50Lewis Howes?

  What does that do for you and other people when you open up a little bit?

• 23:54Kati Morton?

  First of all, it allows you to be your authentic self so that people can slowly get to know you. Not to mention at the same time, you get to know yourself. And then it, that little bit of vulnerability leaves space for real relationships. And I think that that's why a lot of us are feeling lonely is because we don't really either know ourselves or allow other people to know us. You know, it's hard. It's uncomfortable. And that's why I want you to pick one person, one person you have, if we check our facts and our, you know, I always talk about being a detective. Maybe it's because I love crime shows, but

• 24:23Lewis Howes?

  You gotta pick the right person you trust.

• 24:25Kati Morton?

  Yes.

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  Because if you share the right information with the wrong person, it could backfire and they're not going to be vulnerable with you and they're gonna maybe shame you or something.

• 24:34Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  And then you're like, I'm never going to tell someone this stuff again. And then you go back to your old place of building walls and masks. Uh, you know, I wrote a book a few years ago called The Mask of Masculinity with my own journey. Six, seven years ago, I opened up about being sexually abused as a kid and then went on a journey of just like, wow, lots of men have experienced this. One in six men have been sexually abused, one in four women. And And I have a hypothesis from, and I might be completely wrong. But from all the research that I've done, the people I've interviewed, the experts, and my own experiences with not facing trauma head on and not healing the past.

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  I have a hypothesis that a lot of the pain caused in the world today in business, relationships, society, the racial injustice, the prison reform, politics. I have a hypothesis that most of the pain caused is from men who have not learned how to heal trauma and not learned how to fully be vulnerable in their emotions with themselves or with a therapist or with a friend. And a lot of it has to do with the inability and the inexperience and the lack of knowledge of how to for men to do that.

• 25:57Lewis Howes?

  And I think as I started to heal myself, I found my, I found that I wasn't feeling alone anymore. I found that I was okay with who I am. I accepted myself and became a lot less triggered and reactive towards things that normally would feel abusive, that would feel taken advantage of, to the point where I said, okay, I can think, here's what's happening in my mind right now. I feel triggered, but I'm not going to try to fight and dominate and win. I'm going to find a healthy way to resolve this. I'm going to, you know, communicate calmer. I'm going to collaborate as opposed to compete. And as I was going on, not to go sidetracked here, but as I was going on my tour for my book, most of the rooms were 50/50 men and women.

• 26:42Lewis Howes?

  And I would ask the women in the room, I'd say, how many of you raise your hand if once a week you get together with girlfriends? And you talk about your fears, your vulnerabilities, your insecurities, your relationships, your body issues? And 100% of the women, at least once a week. And I go, keep your hands up if you do this every single day with a girlfriend. And most of them are like, yeah, every day, for lunch, tea, phone call, whatever. And I said, men in the room, put your hand up if once a month you get together with a couple buddies or a guy friend and you talk about your vulnerabilities, your insecurities, what you're shameful about, anything about that. Maybe two, three people in the room out of hundreds. And I'd say, are you guys part of a church group that does this once a month structured? So it's a safe place.

• 27:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes. And I go, ladies, imagine if you spent a year and you never shared your feelings and your thoughts and your shame, how would that make you feel? And they're like, wow, I'd be, I'd be a mess. I'd be angry. I'd be moody. I'd be so pissed off. I'd be boiling up stuff inside. And I say, imagine if you spent decades in your entire life where you never shared how you felt. What would you, what, how could you? Now, I'm not justifying the, the harmful actions of men or the racial stuff or the political stuff. I'm not justifying any of these things. But I'm just saying, could you have some empathy? And understand that men have been conditioned and shamed to not share their, their, their feelings

• 28:07Lewis Howes?

  or their emotions.

• 28:09Kati Morton?

  But it's not okay, right? Like even my, my Papa, um, who recently passed away at the age of 86 was like stoic, right? Like don't, doesn't really show emotions. Like he's the.

• 28:19Lewis Howes?

  Never cries. Yeah, he's always calm.

• 28:21Kati Morton?

  Calm. Yep. Let's figure this out. He's, you know, we'll figure it out. He used to always, you know, be the fixer. And I think that the whole like, boys don't cry and not teaching, um, I don't know why we do this, to be truthful, because it's, it's just so stupid. But I don't know why we don't teach boys emotional intelligence, the way we teach women emotional intelligence. I mean, for growing up, because I.

• 28:42Lewis Howes?

  Especially in a modern world. It's not a hundred years ago where we're living in the woods or something, you know, it's like.

• 28:47Kati Morton?

  Yeah. And I, I like to say, I'd like to think that things are changing and shifting a little bit and it'll take time, right? Things can't happen overnight. Didn't, this wasn't created overnight. But I do see things kind of shifting in that direction. But it's, there's a reason that, um, most of my patients in my private practice and even my viewers are female. It's a majority.

• 29:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, I really like what, you know, Michael Phelps is like the spokesperson for I love it. space and it's like, he's putting himself out there as this elite athlete, you know, one of the greatest of all time Olympians saying like, this is something I do and I recommend it. And I think there needs to be more men opening up. It's just so challenging that there's so many models of men who don't talk about it that are more aggressive, maybe in business or life. And, and they're like, why would I ever talk about my feelings?

• 29:36Kati Morton?

  Yeah. And I think, I mean, we're doing half of our population a disservice. I think that a lot of it also starts like with children. Like, I think it's, it should be more acceptable and regularly practiced for a father to say to a son, you know, what's going on? You seem kind of upset. Did something happen? And, and talking about it, yeah, I've had things happen too, where I felt sad and it's okay to cry. And, you know, having those conversations instead of like, brush yourself off, get up, boys don't cry, you know, snap to it, like that kind of tough love. I think we're recognizing now to your point that like, it doesn't bode well for the future if we're so pent up about how we feel and feeling like hyper vigilant as a response from constant trauma in our life that we

• 30:18Kati Morton?

  haven't processed. No wonder we lash out at each other online. No wonder people are fighting in the streets and yelling at each other. I think a lot of the upset we're seeing now, isn't really about what they say it's about. Part of it maybe, but a lot of it's just this inability to thoughtfully engage with life, to express how we feel and be okay with it. And to have discourse, right? To disagree, but not lose their cool.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What happens when we store trauma in the body or in the memory? And we don't talk about it over years, decades, a lifetime?

• 30:51Kati Morton?

  It festers into a lot of issues. Everything from high blood pressure. And other health concerns. I'm not a medical doctor, so I won't get into too much of that. But I've been reading, because I'm writing a book about trauma currently, so I'm like knee deep in research of all sorts. So it can manifest physically that way, but it also comes out as like fly off the handle. We have like no control of our emotions, feels like we're always reactive, which is something you kind of mentioned, like just being reactive, not responsive.

• 31:21Lewis Howes?

  Defensive reactive, yeah.

• 31:22Kati Morton?

  The hypervigilance, I think, is something that a lot of people don't recognize.

• 31:26Lewis Howes?

  What's hypervigilance?

• 31:28Kati Morton?

  It's like on edge, like really jumpy.

• 31:32Lewis Howes?

  Always something is like, oh, what's going on?

• 31:34Kati Morton?

  Uh huh. And instead of just being like, oh, like we're scared a little, we can often be reactive, like want to punch, I'm gonna, your fight-flight response.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  It's like extreme reactive.

• 31:45Kati Morton?

  Yes, and you're right on that cusp all day, every day, which is honestly exhausting.

• 31:49Lewis Howes?

  Your immune system's got to be exhausted.

• 31:51Kati Morton?

  Yes, and I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see more like adrenal fatigue and stuff like that coming out. But again, not a medical doctor, I'm just hypothesizing. But also, it can, you know, like the fatigue, I hear from a lot of my patients, how just exhausted they are from being hypervigilant. Imagine being on edge.

• 32:07Lewis Howes?

  Gosh.

• 32:08Kati Morton?

  Not to mention, we don't sleep very well. That's one of the first things to go, because our dreams can be filled with trauma. We can actually be re-traumatized in our sleep.

• 32:16Lewis Howes?

  In our, in our memory.

• 32:17Kati Morton?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  And be scared to sleep, and then we're up all night, and then we, our health and our body is messed up.

• 32:22Kati Morton?

  Yeah, and then addiction comes along with that, too.

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  To numb the pain.

• 32:26Kati Morton?

  Yeah, how do we numb out? How do I just, I need to sleep. How do I make that happen?

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  So how do we heal addiction? Or how do we end it? I feel like we're all addicted to something, and if we're going to be addicted, we should be addicted to service, giving, love, humanity, those things. But there are so many negative addictions that people build up for certain reasons.

• 32:46Kati Morton?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:47Lewis Howes?

  How do we end addiction? Is it first healing trauma and loving yourself, or what are the steps?

• 32:53Kati Morton?

  Yeah, it's really getting to the root. I, I talk a lot about like the root of the root. So often, we just want to like put a Band-Aid over a broken leg, and it's not going to fix it. It's like, oh, we'll get them into drug treatment, or we just put them in housing, you know, because in LA, we have a huge homelessness crisis. And I'm like, no, we have an opioid and addiction problem. And so the real issue is, I think, to your point, the amount of trauma and abuse that our children. Boys and girls sustain throughout their life and never have any support or coaching on how to properly process it. And so we spend our whole lives feeling like what we're talking about, that hypervigilance, on edge, kind of being in fight-flight for years when it's supposed to be a short-lived experience, right?

• 33:36Kati Morton?

  I hear a scary person in the alleyway, I run away. Boom, I'm safe. Oh, I shake it off, I'm good. But this is sustained through our life and I, I really think the more we get to identify traumas and understand how they're affecting us and we're given the safe space to talk about them, be validated in it, um, the better off we'll be. The, there's something that I'll, I'm writing about in my book is like big Ts versus little Ts when it comes to traumas. Because when we think of trauma, a lot of people think, oh, car crashes, going to war. I mean, shell shocked was from the war and that's kind of where the PTSD diagnosis came from. So it's, it makes sense that we still think of it that way.

• 34:19Kati Morton?

  But there are so many other little traumas, like having to move a lot as a child and switch schools, being bullied for a few years even in school. That's a trauma. Um, and these little Ts, it's kind of, um, one, a colleague of mine, Dr. Alexa Altman, she's a trauma specialist and she describes it best. She talks about like, if you're wading into the ocean and one big wave takes you, oh, you come up, you gasp for air and you run back out. But imagine if medium waves just keep hitting you, you can't ever get your head above water fully, you're always fighting. That's what all those little traumas are. Um, could be everything from emotional abuse, having a father or a mother or someone in your life who tells you you're not good enough, who tells you not to cry, who ignores your needs and your pleads for a hug.

• 35:04Kati Morton?

  Um, there's all of these things that can happen to us over the years that build up. And so I do believe that our addiction problem is really a trauma problem. And we haven't fully. Recognized it or treated it. And we're still using treatments from like the 1950s. Like it just doesn't, it's like there are other treatments out there, but it's not widely available.

• 35:25Lewis Howes?

  What's the best treatment to treat, to treat addiction? And addiction you've had for years, decades, you know, multiple decades. How do you, what do you think is the best treatment for healing addiction?

• 35:39Kati Morton?

  I think the first is, is getting into a treatment center. We know it's so hard. Any stressor can throw you back. Relapses are very common. Like my specialties in my practice are self injury and eating disorders. And I like liken those to addiction. They're all coping skills, right? It's a, what we'd call a maladaptive, meaning unhealthy coping skill for something bigger, like a trauma PTSD response. And so if we get people into treatment centers where they get round the clock support and the language to put to what's happened to them. I think a lot of the healing components of therapy are just having language to put to what happened. I can't tell you how healing it is for a lot of my patients to say, yeah, I was, I was assaulted. Or, you know, I was traumatized, which sounds so simple to us, but oftentimes in our head we've said, oh, I made that up.

• 36:24Kati Morton?

  That didn't really happen. I'm not sure. Maybe I'm exaggerating.

• 36:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:28Kati Morton?

  You know, we just like negate.

• 36:29Lewis Howes?

  Suck it up, just move on. Yeah. People have it worse or whatever.

• 36:33Kati Morton?

  Always, yeah. And it's not pie, guys. If one person has it worse, it's not like taking away from your pain.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And compare, and even if someone has a trauma that's, you know, they, they lost their whole family or they've moved a dozen times and someone picked on you for, for a month and it affects you. It's still trauma. It's still going to affect you and you can still talk about it. You shouldn't just say, well, a lot of people have it way worse. And I have a house that I'm living in and I have food and a lot of people don't have that. I think minimizing your trauma.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  Is also something that you need to be aware of, right?

• 37:09Kati Morton?

  Yeah, yes, one hundred percent. Well, like, one of my favorite quotes is comparison is the thief of joy. But I think it's also the thief of pain. Because if we don't, if we're always looking out someone else, oh, they have it worse, or this is going on. Then we don't feel like it's okay for us to be that way. And then, then what? What are we left with, you know? And so, back to your question about like treating addiction, I think. Getting that support, getting the language to put to what happened in therapy, we call it like creating the trauma narrative. Because that's how our brain like remembers and processes things is through stories. So telling the story of trauma.

• 37:42Lewis Howes?

  So how important is it to retell the story?

• 37:45Kati Morton?

  It's very important.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  Moment or the years of moments, it's so it's important to share the story with someone else, right? And this is what, this is what I did almost seven years ago, where I, for the first time in twenty five years. Actually told the story of being sexually abused from the vivid memory. And it was the scariest thing I ever did. I did it in like a small group of an emotional intelligence workshop where I felt. Safe after weeks of being in this group. And it was the, it was like my life was over before I shared this. It was like, I'm gonna die, no one's gonna love me. Everyone's gonna laugh at me for the rest of my life, but it was kind of at the point where I was just like. I want to keep going farther and farther and figuring out what's holding me back emotionally and having me so triggered.

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  And feeling so abused in my life and taken advantage of where I want to fight all the time. And I was just like, it's not worth it anymore to feel the pain. And the pain served me in certain ways to. Get bigger, faster, stronger and be driven, but it left me feeling lonelier and lonelier and unfulfilled. And I just said, okay, I'm gonna go here and I'm gonna do it. I remember feeling so scared. Um, and afterwards I was. Bawling, it's like I could not control my emotions. I was just like bawling and I ran out of the room. And I was like, I'm not going back in there because my life is over. That's how it felt for me. And it might feel that for some people. And I remember luckily I had a great group of people that came out and hugged me.

• 39:15Lewis Howes?

  And then they shared their vulnerabilities. They were like, this happened to me when I was 12. This happened to me when I was six, whatever. I was like, what? For the first, and I think a lot of people don't feel like anyone else is experiencing the same trauma.

• 39:27Kati Morton?

  Oh, we always think it's only us.

• 39:29Lewis Howes?

  It's only us. I didn't think anyone else had been sexually abused. And I was like, everyone's gonna laugh at me in the whole world. It's gonna ruin me, my business, everything.

• 39:36Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 39:37Lewis Howes?

  And what it did is it built stronger, deeper relationships because people were like, wow, I really trust you now, fully.

• 39:44Kati Morton?

  Well, again, that's kind of back to our loneliness. You were, you were your real authentic self. And yes, vulnerability feels super uncomfortable, right? We're allowing

• 39:54Lewis Howes?

  So uncomfortable.

• 39:55Kati Morton?

  People in, in a way that they could really damage us, right? That's why it has to be done in a, in a caring, supportive environment. People who we already kind of have evidence to know that they're supportive. It doesn't mean it's gonna be easy. Like you said, it was still really difficult.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Kati Morton?

  But with great vulnerabilities come great, it comes great connection and courage. And we, we find a part of ourself we maybe didn't even know existed that can go that much farther, you know?

• 40:17Lewis Howes?

  I'm a big believer that the key to success in life is, uh, relationships and the key to successful relationships is vulnerability.

• 40:25Kati Morton?

  100%.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  You can't build deep connections with someone at a 70% surface level and not fully diving in. You truly connect when you know the worst, the shames, the traumas of, of that person you're in a relationship with. And I believe that the, the level of connection you have is based on the level of intimacy and vulnerability you both share with each other. Otherwise, it's just gonna be, oh, it's a good friend and, you know, I like hanging out with this person. But the depth comes from the vulnerability.

• 40:55Kati Morton?

  100%. Otherwise, we'll still feel lonely, right? Because then

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  You could have all the friends in the world and be like, but no one knows me.

• 41:01Kati Morton?

  Yeah. And maybe I don't allow myself to know that deep part, right?

• 41:05Lewis Howes?

  And I don't know my, I don't accept it myself. I don't share it with other people. So we still feel lonely. You could be the most popular person in school.

• 41:11Kati Morton?

  Yep.

• 41:12Lewis Howes?

  Or in your industry and still feel depressed and lonely.

• 41:16Kati Morton?

  Of course, yes. 100% true.

• 41:18Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 41:19Kati Morton?

  It is crazy. And I, I think it's You know, it's unfortunately what we've just been perpetuating as a society. Like, put on a happy face and just go out there and like grin and bear it, white knuckle it, all those phrases we use all the time to essentially mean, ignore how you really feel, just push through. How you feel doesn't matter. I mean, we even see it in the discrepancy between payment of physical health and mental health when it comes to healthcare in the United States. It's like so much more difficult to get coverage for our mental health. Meanwhile, our brain runs our entire body. So I don't know who thought that that was gonna, like, you know, I could really go down a rabbit hole.

• 41:55Lewis Howes?

  Our thoughts dictate our life. My next book is about, that I'm still researching on, is about self-confidence and eliminating self-doubt. How do we eliminate self-doubt and believe in ourselves if we don't heal the past and if we are constantly feeling depressed, anxious, or stressed? How do we build confidence and eliminate that self-doubt?

• 42:17Kati Morton?

  It's all about those thoughts and those bridge statements and then compiling your evidence. I always talk to my patients and my viewers alike about compiling the evidence to support the goal that you're wanting, right? So, kind of back to that, like, what I'm looking for, I'll find. Instead of looking for things that are gonna prove that I'm worthless, I'm not good enough, I could never be that successful, or that liked, or whatever, and I'm gonna look for things that prove that I am good enough and that I think maybe I can do this, you know? A lot of us have doubt. And there still will be those periods of time when, oh, like, I'm writing a new book and I always am like, who am I to write this? What do I know? Oh, but then I'm like, no, like, I'm doing my best, I'm researching,

• 43:00Kati Morton?

  I'm writing as clear as I can, I'm using stories from my, you know, I have all my evidence, right? So every time that doubt comes back, I pull up that, you know, that big filing cabinet filled with evidence, and I say, no, look, you know, there's this, this, this. So I think... Starting with those thoughts, building up the evidence, um, supporting, like, supporting the, the positive thoughts in the good way, or what you want to create in your life will just change. It'll get rid of that self doubt.

• 43:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Uh, I'm curious about, um, there's so much to talk about with mental health, but I'm curious about depression, because I feel like it's becoming a bigger and bigger topic. More and more people are saying they feel depressed, they are depressed. I know you've had some, some great content and videos around depression. What would you say are the key signs of depression? That we'd be like, okay, no, we are, I am depressed, or they are depressed with these four, or five, or six keys?

• 43:53Kati Morton?

  Yeah, the, the first one is, um, when you don't enjoy things you used to. And that's one of the key, like, if we're talking diagnostically speaking, when it comes like, how we diagnose and treat all those checkboxes, that's a big one. Um, and so this could be anything from, I used to enjoy listening to music and it just doesn't do it for me anymore. Or I used to enjoy writing, I don't like that anymore. I used to enjoy spending time with my friends, you know, the lists are endless. So just kind of take note of what you maybe used to find joy in, if you don't anymore, that's, you know, recognize that. Another is if there's been a lot of changes in your diet, like, am I overly hungry or not hungry enough, like, changes in appetite? That's kind of important. Also, changes in sleep. I know I kind of talked about that with regard to, like, trauma, but this also

• 44:37Kati Morton?

  applies to depression. Am I wanting to sleep all day? Am I, am I not able to sleep at all? You know, those are things that are important to notice if there's been changes. If it's not normal for you, um, we need to start tracking that. And one that I think is really overlooked a lot is, uh, struggle with concentration. People who are depressed, like, you know, you have your book, you're reading, rereading, rereading over and over these few pages, and you're like, I have no idea what I just read, you know? Keeping those things in check, I think, is a good place to start. Obviously, there's the things like, uh, body aches. A lot of times, if we go to the doctor, we think we're sick, and we're not. Um, that we call those psychosomatic symptoms, which is like, how our body is showing our mental illness.

• 45:20Kati Morton?

  Um, which we talked about kind of PTSD can be like jumpy or I can get like sweaty and just like stressed out feeling when in big crowds or something. Our body expresses what our mind maybe can't easily express.

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 45:36Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  So if we're not expressing how we feel, our body will manifest it.

• 45:40Kati Morton?

  Yes.

• 45:40Lewis Howes?

  Potentially.

• 45:41Kati Morton?

  Potentially. That's why trauma untreated can lead to like high blood pressure. I have a lot of people who struggle with binge eating as a result. Again, it's like a numb out, you know?

• 45:50Lewis Howes?

  So is depression a choice or is depression a disease?

• 45:54Kati Morton?

  It's a mental illness. I like to call it like an illness. Because we talk about like physical health versus physical illness, we can talk about mental health versus mental illness. I call depression akin to like catching a cold, you know?

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 46:09Kati Morton?

  We're not taking care of ourselves.

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Is it something, is it, is that a gene that you're born with? Is it part of the brain makeup? Or is it something that you can get and then you can also heal?

• 46:22Kati Morton?

  It, we can be more predisposed. If we have someone in our family who suffered from depression, primarily like our, our mother, father, um, you know, grandparents, someone close, it increases our risk. So let's say our regular risk is nine percent or four percent or something. It makes it like 15% or sometimes 25%.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  The risk of catching depression or?

• 46:42Kati Morton?

  Yes, yeah, of like having that mental illness show itself. Um, but we know through, through research that it's not just the genetics. It's, it's like not nature versus nurture, it's both.

• 46:53Lewis Howes?

  It's both.

• 46:53Kati Morton?

  If we have those gen, like gene, we have a triggering event.

• 46:57Lewis Howes?

  And so you might have, you know, a home life growing up that nurtured, I guess, catching depression or being around people that are depressed and you kind of catching that cycle and system. But it also sounds like what I'm hearing you say is that our thoughts can break that uh, cycle and depression is in the mind. Is that what I'm hearing? It's, it's in the mind. It's a, it's a ruminating of thoughts, a negative thought process, a cycle, a loop pattern that you feel stuck in, you can't get out.

• 47:28Kati Morton?

  Yeah, yes.

• 47:30Lewis Howes?

  So how do we get out and end depression?

• 47:33Kati Morton?

  I mean, a lot of it is taking, I call it like opposite action, which is a part of a form of therapy called dialectical behavior therapy. And opposite action is like when I want to stay in bed and do nothing and feel bad about myself, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna shower.

• 47:49Lewis Howes?

  I get out of bed.

• 47:50Kati Morton?

  I'm gonna go talk to somebody.

• 47:51Lewis Howes?

  I do what I don't want to do.

• 47:52Kati Morton?

  Exactly. If I want to throw myself a pity party and feel all the bad feelings and just think terribly about myself, instead, I'm gonna talk about positive things. I'm gonna get together with someone and I'm gonna, you know, focus on other. So I think opposite action goes a long way. I also tell my viewers all the time, I'm like, a shower can change your life. So.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  Just cleaning yourself and just feeling like some, listening to some music, it can be like, oh, I feel like a new person.

• 48:19Kati Morton?

  Yep.

• 48:20Lewis Howes?

  Putting on some nice clothes and like walking out in the sun.

• 48:23Kati Morton?

  Yep. Vitamin D is important. Getting sun on your face can change your mood.

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, not eating sugar, which causes like such spikes in your blood sugar, uh, blood levels and then just makes you feel a crash.

• 48:34Kati Morton?

  Totally feel like crap after, right? Good for a minute, terrible after. Um, so yeah, just kind of to build on what DBT or dialectal behavior therapy talks about is like taking care of your basic needs. So I always talk about halt, which is like, don't do anything until you, are you hungry? Are you angry? Are you lonely? Or are you tired? Check in with those things. How are you doing? Um, and there's, you can go on like they, in DBT, they also talk about like, do you take your medication? You know?

• 49:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:01Kati Morton?

  Have you, have you physical illnesses? Yeah, just, just checking in with yourself. I think so often we ignore what signs and symptoms our body has been showing us. Like, are we ignoring that we're hungry? And that's why we're feeling really agitated? You know, hangry is a word for a reason. It exists. And if you have low blood sugar. Um, so when, I mean, I know that it's, I'm kind of laughing about it, but depression is serious. And I think the more that we recognize our own symptoms. And when those symptoms are happening and taking opposite action, tracking those thoughts, you know, using those bridge statements to move them into a more positive place, speaking openly with a professional or even just a friend or supportive person about what's going on. Um, all of that is, is really powerful.

• 49:46Kati Morton?

  Um, and I always tell people, if anybody out there is really struggling and you feel like it's just not getting better, um, I hope that this can at least be the little spark of hope that can maybe, you know, start that little fire to let you know it'll get better.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:59Kati Morton?

  It takes work.

• 50:00Lewis Howes?

  I think it's, it can be really challenging and there's, there's many years of my life where I've been in a black hole for weeks and months. And it's hard for me to admit that, especially as someone who's like so driven and positive and, you know, on this journey of, of personal growth. It's hard for me to look back to middle school, high school, even college. I remember I went through a breakup with a girl in high school and I went on to college. And I was like just in my room in the fetal position for what felt like months, like at night, feeling so alone, feeling so like my life is over unless I'm in this relationship or whatever my feel, or I'm, I'm longing for this intimacy, this connection, this person.

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  And you can really create some horrible thoughts about doing bad things to yourself, about not being deserving of love and being like, what's the point of my life? Like you can, I can, I've spiraled.

• 50:58Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 50:58Lewis Howes?

  Never to the point of like wanting to commit suicide or wanting to really hurt myself. I've never gotten to that point, but I've thought about the thoughts.

• 51:06Kati Morton?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  And which is scary for me to think about that we can, you know, one experience can make us go down a black hole of pain and suffering that's hard to get out. And I just remember being like, no one understands me, no one gets me. And I wasn't doing the opposite thing. I wasn't reaching out. I wasn't finding therapy. I wasn't telling a friend. I wasn't telling family. I was just suffering alone. And I think it's really hard when you're in that black hole of depression to reach out. It's extremely challenging. And that's why I think therapy is such a powerful component of life that it's almost like having a like a doctor, family doctor where you go to once a year, twice a year for a checkup.

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  Like just having a family therapist that you can be once a year even and just say, hey, I just want to talk about everything that's happened this year. That way you know you can go to someone that you feel comfortable with when you are in an anxious or stressed place. I think it's extremely important to have or having something like Talkspace. We could do it virtually on the phone, but that's why I love therapy for people and myself when I really need it.

• 52:10Kati Morton?

  Yeah, same here. I mean, I've been in therapy off and on since I was 15 and I just, I mean, I'm 36 now, so for most of, you know, majority of my life I've been in therapy. And there's no shame around that. I think having someone to check in with is really important. And you are right, when we're feeling down and out, super depressed, the idea of doing anything is impossible.

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  It's impossible. You're like, I have no energy to even call someone, nor do I want someone to see me like this.

• 52:35Kati Morton?

  Yeah, exactly. Cause we get the shame, right? The embarrassment of it. And I think that's kind of opposite action does work. And if we can muster up even just the strength to shower, that's all it asks of you, right? It's just eat something and take a shower and you know, then.

• 52:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm such a believer in this. I love that you call it opposite action because in my teens and twenties, as I was just like unhappy with myself on these feelings and I wasn't sure what I was doing. I just created challenge after challenge for myself. All my biggest fears, I wrote a list to them. I was afraid to talk to girls when I was like 15. So I was like, okay, every day I'm going to do, I usually run away from girls. I'm going to run towards them, even if it feels like I'm going to die and just start a conversation. And then you feel comfortable. You don't feel scared after three months of doing it. The same thing with every one of my fears, public speaking. I was like, I will kill myself if I have to stand in front of five people because I'm so embarrassed, humiliated. And I was like, that's why I need to do it. Every single week I'm going to show up and embarrass

• 53:33Lewis Howes?

  myself until I feel confident and we should all be.

• 53:37Kati Morton?

  It's like exposure therapy, like you've created your own. I love it, yeah.

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  What is exposure therapy? What is that?

• 53:43Kati Morton?

  So exposure therapy is when we have, it's usually applied to like people with OCD or anxiety, and OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder. And so when we have these anxiety disorders, we can feel like I'm gonna die, I'm gonna have a heart attack, I'm gonna pass out if I do X, Y, Z. And so we slowly stop engaging in those things and build up these huge walls around ourselves so our life can feel so limited, right? I can't do all of these things because it's too scary. And so kind of to my point earlier about like gathering your evidence, exposure therapy allows you to slowly engage with the scary thing, proving to yourself and those false thoughts that it's actually not that terrible. That like, I'm gonna talk to a girl, I'm not gonna die.

• 54:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, even if she does reject me, it's all good. I'll make a fun experiment out of it, it'll be a story. It's finding something else that makes it enjoyable and it's not the scary thing.

• 54:35Kati Morton?

  Exactly.

• 54:36Lewis Howes?

  Stress, trauma, anxiety, depression. It feels like people are having a lot of that these days. Like this minor depression, like it seems like, it seems like a lot of people are having that.

• 54:47Kati Morton?

  It's like situational depression, yeah.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. What is the difference between like minor suffering and depression? And is it okay to be bummed out from time to time? When does it get the crossover to like, oh, now, now you're depressed?

• 55:00Kati Morton?

  Yeah, and it's, of course, it's okay to feel bummed out from time to time. That's just being human, that's the human condition. Sometimes life can feel terrible. Diagnostically speaking, and I'm not a huge fan, just to throw it out there, of our diagnostic manuals. I feel like they're, it's like trying to put square pegs in round holes. Doesn't always work. But I do believe in one portion of every diagnostic criteria is, does it impair your level of functioning? And what that really means is, can I not do what I need or want to do every day because of this thing? So, okay, so I'm stressed out or feeling overwhelmed, but I'm still, I'm getting up, I'm on, I'm at work or I'm on my Zoom calls for work at, in time. Uh, I talk to my loved ones, I still make dinner, you know? I do the basic things that I need to do.

• 55:46Kati Morton?

  Um, if I'm not able to, that's when I believe it rolls into more of a, a stress or just a difficult period to a mental illness. Um, because they talk about like depression, you just have to have depressive symptoms for most days for at least two weeks. Or like generalized anxiety disorder says that you have to feel anxious for most days for like six months. So there's all these different criteria.

• 56:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:09Kati Morton?

  Um, and that's why I just, I really think it's more about functioning. If I can't do what I need to do, something's wrong. You know, if I, we think of physical health comparing it to that. If I'm so sick that I can't get to work, I don't, I don't feel good. I have a headache, maybe I'm throwing up. I need to see somebody. I need to go see a doctor.

• 56:24Lewis Howes?

  Something's wrong, yeah.

• 56:25Kati Morton?

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  I guess it's different for everyone, but what's the speed in which someone can have a mental illness, depression, or some other mental illness? And heal themselves? You know, I'm assuming it's dependent on the case and how much work they're willing to do and all these things. But can you heal depression or mental illness in a couple of weeks? Or if you've been feeling trapped and suffering for years, does it take a lot longer in your experience?

• 56:51Kati Morton?

  It depends on how long you've been suffering. Um, kind of going back to what I spoke on briefly about neuroplasticity, like learning new things, the fact that our brain grows and changes. Um, I don't know if this will make sense. Let me know if it's like not clear, but I like to, um, describe patterns of behavior in our life, saying like, I had a, a shit day. So then I ruin the rest of my day because I allow myself to wallow. Okay?

• 57:15Lewis Howes?

  Right. The morning was bad, so the rest of the day is bad.

• 57:17Kati Morton?

  Yes. It's like our brain is a balloon filled with sand. And those actions, those thoughts to actions are rolling marbles between them. And it creates these big ruts. And so when we go to change that, that marble's gonna, is gonna wanna go in that rut. It knows that rut. It's comfortable in that rut. It wants to pull us back in and we're gonna fight to keep it out. And so at the beginning, people always say, why is it so hard at the beginning? Because we have all those ruts that we know, we hate those ruts, but they're comfortable. Our brain is used to it. It loves routine and patterns. It's like, hey, when we have this shit thing, we go right over here. I know how that works. And we're like, no, no, I don't want you to do that anymore. I want you to come this way. And so.

• 57:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And you, you might be surrounded by people that love misery because misery loves company. So it's like you're, you have to change the conversations with your close friends if they keep you in the rut. Or if they support the rut, you need to ask them, hey, don't let me say these things, right?

• 58:11Kati Morton?

  Totally. And you, I don't know if you've experienced this, but in my life, as I've tried to like better myself, sometimes those relationships fade out because they really only

• 58:20Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 58:20Kati Morton?

  Fed off

• 58:21Lewis Howes?

  Which makes you feel more lonely because you're like, all my friends leave me, or I leave all my friends. This is what I felt after college. I was like, I was going off and chasing dreams and doing different things and trying. I felt like, not all, but a lot of my college friends were like, they kind of stayed in the same place. And they stopped, I would reach out to them, but they wouldn't stop, they wouldn't reach back out to me. And I was like, always frustrated. And I later realized like, I was just out chasing something and trying to evolve myself. And it scared a lot of them. Or they weren't familiar, or they didn't feel confident with themselves because of the reflection in me or whatever.

• 58:55Kati Morton?

  Yeah, the comparison that they had of, you know, their own issues, right? It held them back.

• 58:59Lewis Howes?

  You should be losing friends or evolving with your friends every year.

• 59:05Kati Morton?

  Agreed. I always like to say we're like snakes. We should shed past skins of ourselves. You know, and in my first book that came out a couple of years ago, I talk about how I'd like to think that if I walk down the street, like people from, let's say my childhood wouldn't recognize me anymore. Cause I'm so different, you know, and I know

• 59:24Lewis Howes?

  Your energy is so different. You might look similar, but your energy just is like, oh, there's something, what have you been up to?

• 59:29Kati Morton?

  Yeah, exactly. So if the longer we've been behaving in ways that aren't helpful for us, the harder it can be to get them out of those ruts. But I mean, I've seen people, it's all about motivation, right? If I'm really motivated for change, like it sounds like you were super motivated for change. I believe truthfully, in a month, we can make a huge dent in how we experience life and what we do, if we're motivated. So like if we're feeling super depressed, and we're doing opposite action every

• 59:59Lewis Howes?

  All day, every minute.

• 1:00:00Kati Morton?

  Yep. And we're just fighting it. And yeah, we might still feel terrible, but we're making appointments. Maybe I'm looking into medication because I still feel bad, but I want to do it. So I'm making an appointment with a psychiatrist, you know, I'm doing all the things. I believe will get out much more quickly. Um, but it's also, I always tell my audience, the process, not perfection. Don't think one setback means that you're back at the beginning. You haven't lost all of that learning and you, that rut that you're trying to like cover over, right? Fill back up with sand. It's still halfway filled up.

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and it might take you a couple of years until that habit is fully formed of not going back to a depressed state of mind that cripples you for weeks. You might just feel moments, but you have your your skill, your tools, your skills to just go back on to that, what you want. How important is developing a vision around a new identity for who you want to become? So say I feel depressed, I eat like crap, I'm lazy because I'm have a mental illness, I can't function, I can't focus. How important is it to say, okay, I'm gonna kill this identity and I'm gonna become a positive person who focuses on fitness and focuses on whatever?

• 1:01:12Lewis Howes?

  Like, is shaping an identity of what you want to become a thing in therapy or not?

• 1:01:18Kati Morton?

  It can be. It depends on what motivates you. Um, that can help because it can help us to see, almost like we're talking about the journaling, right? Like, who am I today that's better than yesterday and who do I want to become tomorrow that's better than today? So that can give us some structure to that. And I think, um, for people who are visual learners or visual motivators, that can really help because you can imagine this version of yourself and that can be exciting. Um, so I think that that can work for a lot of people. For other people, you know.

• 1:01:46Lewis Howes?

  Like a vision board or something of like, here's the type of lifestyle I want to have. Here's the way my body I want it to look and then we can see it every day of like working towards something.

• 1:01:53Kati Morton?

  Yes, and that can really help. For other people, it can be, you know, it cannot be as positive or motivating. It kind of depends on the person. So if it doesn't work for you, don't think that, you know, has to work for everybody. Um, but yeah, I think that can be really beneficial.

• 1:02:05Lewis Howes?

  For sure. Um, there's so many things we could talk about around this subject. I want to ask a little bit about relationships because I think, again, the key to success in life, I believe, is relationships and having quality relationships. And it doesn't matter how much money you have, how much success you have, how healthy you are. If you don't feel connected to someones and if you don't feel, in my opinion, it seems like a lot of people are going through stress in their relationship during this last four months of coronavirus. I'm seeing a lot of big personalities talking about divorce and splitting up and breakup. I'm hearing, I don't know the stats, but I'm hearing that domestic violence is up more than ever right now.

• 1:02:47Lewis Howes?

  What are some things we can do during a time of isolation to? Create better boundaries and healthier relationships in general with our loved ones.

• 1:02:56Kati Morton?

  Yeah, it's, there's so much to unpack here too, because I do agree with you, really briefly, that relationships and connection are really important to our overall health and mental health.

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  And to the level of depression or mental illness we have. If we don't have quality relationships, we feel

• 1:03:12Kati Morton?

  Worse.

• 1:03:12Lewis Howes?

  susceptible to mental illness.

• 1:03:14Kati Morton?

  Yes. They've talked, people can, if they really want to dig deep in the science world, you can look up Dr. Stephen Porjes, P O R G E S, and the polyvagal theory. And to kind of take neuroscience speak and try to make it make sense is that we find through social connection, our system can both be calmed while also being engaged. And that is actually the best solution slash antidote for our stress response, meaning our fight, flight, freeze, which I think a lot of us are in right now because of the coronavirus. It's a threat, right? Our, our brain has thought it out. It's like, that's a threat to my life, people that I love's life, so I'm in fight, flight, freeze.

• 1:03:55Kati Morton?

  And connection is actually, helps that, helps us feel better. And I think that applies to a lot of parts of our life where we can feel, like you said, the trauma response, it can calm us.

• 1:04:06Lewis Howes?

  It actually makes us feel safer, more relaxed.

• 1:04:08Kati Morton?

  Yes. Yeah, because we're in it together. And that togetherness is super, super powerful. And so, so just keeping that in mind. And then I think during this time, boundaries are, they're always important, but even more so now because a lot of us are sharing space that we didn't have to share 24/7, maybe. And I think people think of boundaries as aggressive, or, I don't know, kind of too intense. Like by me saying, I won't, I won't allow that behavior. You know, we think of it as like sassy, or aggressive, or rude, like it's going to put someone out. I think instead, we have to consider boundaries as ways that are acceptable for, for me,

• 1:04:51Kati Morton?

  to allow people to treat me and for me to treat others. Okay? What do I think is okay? And I don't think enough of us spend time considering what that is. What am I okay with, or what am I not okay with? Our body already tells us. If we've ever had anybody overshare information and we go, ooh, makes me uncomfortable. You know, or someone that we don't know touch us in a way that we're, you know, as a woman, that happens all the time. Someone I don't know put their hand on my back and I'm like, I don't know you. What are you doing? Um, kind of creeps me out.

• 1:05:23Lewis Howes?

  I'll make sure I don't hug you in person then.

• 1:05:25Kati Morton?

  Well, now I've I've met you. It's okay.

• 1:05:27Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:05:28Kati Morton?

  So you know, like in a, in a crowded restaurant or something.

• 1:05:30Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:05:31Kati Morton?

  Eated. I'm like, I don't like that. Um, so there's these things that our body tells us. It's not okay. That's uncomfortable. And those are all signs of boundaries that we already have. We just haven't acknowledged them. And so when it comes to us being stuck at home, I think we have to increase our communication around, and I would frame it as what makes me comfortable and what doesn't make me comfortable. And so it's okay to say to your spouse or your, your child, you know, because we could all be sharing all of the space. Hey, from ten AM to eleven AM, I just need some alone time. I'm telling you because it's just hard for me if I don't get that time. Do you understand? You know, you can ask, and that, that might sound condescending. So you can say, do you get it? Like, I don't, you probably feel that way too. We can kind of, you know,

• 1:06:16Kati Morton?

  and we can s- set that boundary. So we have to have a communication about it. Then the tricky thing is upholding it. So it's when someone tries to walk over it and invades, let's say I'm sitting in my office at between ten and eleven, trying to get my stuff done on my own. Then I can, um, someone comes in, let's say my husband comes in and I'm like, hey, I love you. Just remember I told you I need this alone time. It's not about you. It's just about me. I just need the space. So I'll talk to you at eleven oh one. Cool?

• 1:06:43Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:06:44Kati Morton?

  You know, and if they try to throw guilt, like, no, how dare, you know, we live in this space. I need to talk to you. People will push, you know.

• 1:06:51Lewis Howes?

  You gotta create boundaries, otherwise you're gonna feel like resentful.

• 1:06:55Kati Morton?

  Mm-hmm, and walked all over and invalidated, right? And so it's just important we continue those communications and you can just validate them. Yes, I know this is difficult. It's a change, right? I get it. Things are weird right now. Um, but this is just what I need. Okay. You know, we just keep asserting. You, you, you know.

• 1:07:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You gotta stand up for yourself. You gotta do that. It's really hard.

• 1:07:19Kati Morton?

  It's a new muscle.

• 1:07:19Lewis Howes?

  Especially if someone reacts and gets emotional or upset or hurt or offended. You gotta find, you, you gotta make sure you respect yourself first.

• 1:07:27Kati Morton?

  Yeah, and I encourage people to not apologize.

• 1:07:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:07:31Kati Morton?

  Someone gets offended, that's not your fault. That's their response or reaction.

• 1:07:35Lewis Howes?

  So tough.

• 1:07:36Kati Morton?

  It's really hard. Oh, one, trust me, I'm totally on the screen and it's, it's a constant thing I'm talking about in therapy.

• 1:07:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What are the three questions? Everyone should ask their intimate partner every day or week to continue to improve the quality of the relationship.

• 1:07:57Kati Morton?

  I mean, if you're setting aside time to communicate, hopefully, maybe over dinner or something, you can say, um, you know, how have things been today or this week or whatever? Just checking in, leaving room for conversation. And then sharing your own vulnerable, like what's really going on for you. You can set the stage that way. Um, then the second would be, cause I even do this with my husband. I always ask like, do you feel connected to me? Like we're, we're making time for one another? Um, and turning off work or being a parent? Um, because a lot of times people talk about like cheating on your partner or spouse when it comes to like being with someone else, but a lot of us cheat on them with being a parent, like with the kids.

• 1:08:38Kati Morton?

  I only, you know, spend time with the children or only do those things, or I only work. We can cheat on our partners with our career. Um, so checking in, do you feel really connected? Like, am I making enough time for you? Are there ways that we can make more space and time? And then I think the last is just like, how can I be better? I, I ask my husband that all the time too. Like, are there things that I could do better? Am I not, am I not checking in on you enough? Like, I love the five love languages. If anybody doesn't know what that is, I'm a huge supporter of it. Like, do you need more physical touch? Do you need more words of affirmation? Are there shared activities we can do that like express to you how important you are? Do I need to buy a gift? Cause some people love gifts as, as love languages. So, yeah, I mean, there's so many things you could say. But I think it's just making that opportunity, that time.

• 1:09:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:22Kati Morton?

  Hear them out.

• 1:09:23Lewis Howes?

  Those are great three questions you could ask for sure. That would at least set you up for success, continued success. If you're communicating what you need and if you're listening and if you're taking action on those those needs. What do you feel like is the, you know, with all the breakups happening, or it seems like a lot of breakups are happening.

• 1:09:39Kati Morton?

  A lot.

• 1:09:39Lewis Howes?

  And, you know, I have friends who have lost parents, who have lost pets, who have gone through break, just heartache. Broken hearts. What do you think is the best medicine for a broken heart?

• 1:09:51Kati Morton?

  Support, because I think too often we think of grief is only happening when someone passes away. But it happens all the time. Relationships especially, we have to grieve the loss of the dream of what we thought it was gonna be. Because if we were the one that got left or broken up with, we could have thought that they were the one, we could have thought.

• 1:10:08Lewis Howes?

  We had a story forever, yeah.

• 1:10:10Kati Morton?

  Yes, and so we need to grieve that. The difference between what's happening and what, um, you know, what we thought would happen. And then reaching out and getting extra support is really the best. Um, again, we want to off, like, allow the other people in our lives to still talk to about their issues. We don't want to make it all about us. But it's okay to say like, yeah, I'm still having a tough time and I really miss them and, um, I find most of my patients who are grieving in any form, sometimes just want someone else to be there. So that's something you could offer to a friend. Hey, I'll pick up, you know, some takeout and I'll just come and sit and we'll just watch Netflix or something.

• 1:10:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Kati Morton?

  I think that that's really helpful and kind of back to our discussion about depression is if you have a friend that you can ask to just be there for you. Um, I think that that's what a lot of people need is just, I don't need you to fix anything. I don't need you to even maybe listen to what's going on. I just might need someone with me.

• 1:11:02Lewis Howes?

  Just hang out, yeah.

• 1:11:03Kati Morton?

  Exactly.

• 1:11:06Lewis Howes?

  Seems like there's a lot of pain in the world right now.

• 1:11:08Kati Morton?

  Yeah. I, unfortunately, yeah, I think there always is, but I think. As long as we're acknowledging it, talking about it and offering resources, you know, it can get better. Everything gets better.

• 1:11:21Lewis Howes?

  And you know, with all the heartache out there, there's a grieving process and time that you should definitely just be in the grief. And then I think Tony Robbins is the one who said, you know, make every moment a situation that's an experience that's happening for you, not to you. So it's like, I'm going through this divorce that I had this story in my mind. This person was the one I've invested so much time and energy. This isn't happening to me. It's happening for me because something greater. It's kind of like what you talked about with the bridge statement. Okay. Well, it's, I don't see the evidence of what's going to happen, but I can see other things unlocking potentially.

• 1:11:58Kati Morton?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:58Lewis Howes?

  And creating like this for me experience as opposed to to me and, you know,

• 1:12:02Kati Morton?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 1:12:03Lewis Howes?

  Everything's falling apart. It happened to me and I'm a victim as opposed to this, this is sad and this is hurtful and this hurts, but it's happening for me and repeating it. Like, there's going to be a reason in the near future. It's going to show me why this is happening for me. I think that really helps us get out of that negative cycle as well.

• 1:12:19Kati Morton?

  Totally. Because being a victim takes away all our power. Right?

• 1:12:22Lewis Howes?

  All the power.

• 1:12:23Kati Morton?

  If it's happening to me, then I have no control over.

• 1:12:26Lewis Howes?

  Zero control.

• 1:12:28Kati Morton?

  And that's just such a helpless position to be in and nobody wants to be in that.

• 1:12:32Lewis Howes?

  How do we get in control in general? Not when something horrible happens, but how do we get in, gain control when we feel out of control because we can't go to the store, we can't see our friends, we can't work, we can't whatever. How do we gain a sense of control back?

• 1:12:49Kati Morton?

  You have to take action where you can. I think so often we focus on what we can't do. And again, it's like, you know, shifting that focus to look for evidence of the contrary. So it's like, what can I do? Especially with the coronavirus, I've been talking about this a lot with people is like, does it help? And this might sound silly to some, but helpful to others. Does it help if I like wipe everything down in my house and clean things? Makes me feel a little safer? I feel better? Okay, do that. That's why people were organizing and cleaning like at the beginning. It helped us feel like, you know, we can take action.

• 1:13:18Lewis Howes?

  In control. Here's something I can do. I can control my space. Yeah.

• 1:13:21Kati Morton?

  Yes. And so that, you know, that could be like setting up Zoom hangouts with friends and, and finding other ways that we can get our needs met in this new, I hate that they call it the new normal, but for lack of a better phrasing, the new normal. So, you know, what can we do for that? And that could be, there's all sorts of things. Like I used to go to yoga in my yoga studio. And so I'm doing it at the, at the house. I've made a little space. I set up my laptop with my streaming, you know, so find ways to still get your needs met and to take the action that you used to take. Um, and also if you're just feeling really overwhelmed, stressed out, on edge, just icky, shake it out. We know that shaking, it's all that energy, all that stress is like caught up in our system. It readied us for action.

• 1:14:06Lewis Howes?

  Move your body.

• 1:14:07Kati Morton?

  Yes. So like,

• 1:14:08Lewis Howes?

  Walk, run, jump.

• 1:14:09Kati Morton?

  Yep. It really,

• 1:14:11Lewis Howes?

  Kickbox, whatever.

• 1:14:12Kati Morton?

  I even just shake like one of those little blow up balloon guys by the car dealers, you know, that goes down and up.

• 1:14:19Lewis Howes?

  Shake, shake.

• 1:14:19Kati Morton?

  Just shake.

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  I'm a maniac.

• 1:14:21Kati Morton?

  Yeah. And you'll feel better. Um, it's, it's really interesting. It helps regulate our system. Help us feel calmer. Um, yeah.

• 1:14:30Lewis Howes?

  This has been powerful, Katie. I've got a couple of final questions for you, but I want to make sure people, uh, check out your, you got a YouTube channel, Katie Morton. You're also on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, everything, katie morton.com. You've got a book, Are You Okay? Make sure you guys check that out. A Guide to Caring for Your Mental Health.

• 1:14:48Kati Morton?

  And I just launched a podcast too, actually.

• 1:14:50Lewis Howes?

  We did.

• 1:14:50Kati Morton?

  Yeah. It's called Ask Katie Anything and it's just me answering mental health questions.

• 1:14:55Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, I like that. That's powerful. Yeah. So if you guys want to check that out, go subscribe. Couple of final questions for you. This is called, uh, The Three Truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth, many years away from now. You've accomplished everything you ever want to dream, you've dreamed of. You've had amazing relationships. You've done it all. But for whatever reason, you gotta take all of your content with you from written, video to audio, and no one has access to your information anymore, but you get to leave behind three things you know to be true about your life and your experiences in life. Kind of the three lessons you would share with the world, and this is all we would have to remember you by.

• 1:15:32Kati Morton?

  Wow.

• 1:15:33Lewis Howes?

  I call it the three truths. What would you say are your three truths?

• 1:15:37Kati Morton?

  My three truths are, it can get better. I feel like that's a message that I've always tried to get across to people, that you're never alone. Like, me being a therapist, this is not like a path that people take. I would never have thought that this could be a thing. I never thought people would want to watch my content, or that it would turn into anything. Um, but you know, when you put good out there, people will come, you'll find your tribe. People that, you know, you maybe never had connection to, you're able to connect, so. Um, just know that you're, you're never alone. The last would be, I don't know, something about like, like just focusing on the love. I think so often it's easy to focus on the hate, but I hope that I've created like a community and a feeling of the fact that,

• 1:16:19Kati Morton?

  that you can be positive, you can spread love and not hate. And it's, and it's a really, really powerful emotion and a powerful action for good. We all know there can be some nasty things, but you just gotta focus on the love.

• 1:16:31Lewis Howes?

  Nasty stuff.

• 1:16:32Kati Morton?

  You know, it's hard to hate up close, so.

• 1:16:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Well, I want to acknowledge you, Katie, for a moment before I ask you the final question. Uh, and I want to acknowledge you for, you know, working so hard to treat people and support people one-on-one in your practice, but also to take more and extra time to create meaningful, valuable content for the world, to learn how to heal, to learn how to manage depression and stress and mental illness. You know, we need more people like you to are willing to put themselves out there and create useful, helpful content. So I really acknowledge you for the gift you are and the value and the love you bring to so many of us. And, uh, I'm, I'm excited to learn more and get to connect in person soon.

• 1:17:13Kati Morton?

  Yeah. Um, thank you.

• 1:17:15Lewis Howes?

  Of course. And my final question for you is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:17:20Kati Morton?

  Oh, my definition of greatness is even if you fall down, you don't stay down for long. You just, you get up, dust yourself off, no judgments, move forward. I feel like that's just what it is. We always think, I always think people think of success or greatness as being like this A to B to C to D. And I'm like, no, it's more like, ooh, ooh, ooh, you know, um, but you just keep going. You, you challenge yourself to do better tomorrow.

• 1:17:44Lewis Howes?

  That's it. Katie, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for being here.

• 1:17:48Kati Morton?

  Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

• 1:17:52Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so, so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, make sure to share it because sharing is caring, listening is caring, but you definitely have the ability to transform and improve someone's life today by just sending them a copy of this link of this episode, lewishouse.com/989, or just copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to it, over on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else online. Again, if you share it out, you have the ability to transform someone's life. Make sure to subscribe over on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review as we really love seeing those reviews. They help me make this show better. They help spread the message to even more people over on that platform. And if you want inspirational

• 1:18:34Lewis Howes?

  messages from me every single week, text it to your phone, then text the word PODCAST to 614-350-3960 to get motivational and inspirational messages right from me to your phone every week. And I want to leave you with this quote from Susan Ertz, who said, "Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." I'm so grateful for you because you are an incredible gift in this world. You are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.