Summary
Joe defines depression through three nervous system levels rather than symptoms. In the head: persistent negative self-talk full of shoulds and self-attack. In the heart: stuck anger (97% of cases) that turns inward because it can’t be expressed outward, sometimes also stuck grief. In the gut/nervous system: adrenal fatigue from chronic stress and self-attack, depleting the body’s capacity for energy and motivation.
Joe emphasizes that most people treat depression’s symptoms (pessimism, fatigue, feeling stuck) rather than root causes. The core belief driving depression — “there’s something wrong with me” — is itself the depression, so any self-improvement approach that starts from brokenness reinforces the cycle. The most effective interventions are: changing your relationship to the inner critic (head), moving stuck anger physically (heart), allowing pleasure and nervous system rest (gut), and deepening genuine community connection.
The episode also addresses how to support depressed loved ones: avoid fixing (which signals brokenness) and instead communicate unconditional acceptance. Joe shares the story of a depressed Quaker whose only helpful visitor simply washed his feet each Tuesday — embodying “you’re whole as you are” rather than “here’s what’s wrong with you.”
Key Concepts
- Depression defined through head, heart, and gut
- Moving anger is the fastest way out of stuck
- The story of brokenness is the problem
- Chronic stuckness leads to depression
- Burnout is sustained adrenaline depletion
- Pleasure signals safety
- Fixing avoids being present
- Connection dissolves shame
Key Quotes
“You are in every way you’ve tried to fix yourself you’ve assumed there’s something wrong with you and that you need to be fixed and this is how you’re going to fix it and that won’t work.”
“There’s a way to think of it as ‘there’s something wrong with me’ IS the depression.”
“For those who are depressed who are listening to this, you have been listening to everything the voice in your head says for whatever years and this is exactly where it’s gotten you.”
“The only person who helped him was somebody who just came in and washed his feet every Tuesday — basically the only person who was saying you’re great, you’re perfect just the way you are.”
“If you tell yourself every day you’re shit, you’re gonna start acting more like shit.”
Transcript
foreign [Music] welcome back to the art of accomplishment where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease in today’s conversation Joe and I focus on depression and how it shows up in our thoughts emotions and nervous systems we talk about how to examine our direct experience to uncover the root causes of our depression and how to get unstuck by relating to ourselves in a new way we also offer tips and stories about how to show up for friends or loved ones who are feeling depressed I hope you enjoy it Alright good morning Joe good morning Brett ah yeah I’m tired I did not get that much sleep this week we’re preparing for a wedding there’s a lot there there’s a lot work stuff going on there’s a lot that’s happening in my family health-wise um a lot of that’s not looking really great so there’s there’s definitely just a lot and uh this is my fifth hour on Zoom oh so far today but the good news is it’s my fifth hour of Zoom with either you or Tara which is pretty cool that’s a pretty cool kind of morning nice oh yeah it was a good it was a good session this morning I enjoyed it yeah I enjoyed it a lot as well um and I’ve also enjoyed that we’ve been getting some requests from from folks for for topics and something that’s come up a lot recently has been requesting that we talk about depression ah wow okay great it’s a it’s one of my favorite topics to talk about so that’s wonderful yeah which is bizarre we’ve we’ve touched on it but we haven’t actually had an episode for it so I think I think if I recall correctly our first episode ever our first iteration of a first episode was on depression oh that’s right and it was like three hours and everybody all of our friends who listened to it were like dude you gotta make this shorter and this is like you’re wandering so we just never came back to it yeah this is perfect yeah yeah well I think we’ve got our shorter game dialed a little bit Yeah despite that we’re continuing to talk about it for a while so maybe let’s just get right into it okay perfect right all right that was a professional that just for everybody who’s listening that was a professional segue okay just yeah yeah we I paid good money to learn that that Segway and license it from the professionals foreign all right so let’s do it what’s what is what is depression Joe what is this about yeah you know it’s interesting with that one I think it’s something that I I want to Define I want to be really particular about how I Define this thing and I I first want to say that I’m not talking about it as like in a clinical psychological way meaning like I’m not what we’re about to do is not to diagnose somebody um so I so I I’m just going to tell you about my experience of working with people who have worked with or suffered from depression and and what I’ve noticed is that there is there’s lots of good definitions of it uh but the thing that I would say is that I would Define it very particularly from the place of the head heart and God if you will or the the human brain the mammalian brain and the reptilian nervous system brain and I think that it makes a lot of sense to Define what depression is from those three places and to separate that from the symptoms of depression because I think oftentimes what’s happening is people are really working on the symptoms of depression and they are not working on the root causes and so my definition is how I see the the root causes that’s and that’s why it’s the definition not this not not I’m not defining by the symptoms got it and and we’re describing these three nervous systems the the sort of like the human the mammalian The Reptilian we also refer to that a lot in this work as the head heart and the gut yeah that’s right yeah okay so let’s let’s start then how how would you define uh depression or introduce depression as it relates to the Head yeah so so again you know there’s like in the clinical approach psychological clinical approach to depression there’s different levels of depression and and some of them can really get into you know losing touch with reality and I’ve had a friend go through that and so I’m not speaking to that at all but when somebody can I self-identify as depressed um and it that’s that’s what I’m speaking to when I Define it this way so in the head it’s negative Cell It’s like a tremendous amount of negative self-talk it means that the the voice in the head is very negative and and very regular so that’s how I would Define it and so in those things there’s going to be a lot of shoulds a lot of uh that negative self-talk is going to have a ton of shoulds it’s going to have a ton of why didn’t you do this a abusive voice in the head that’s happening a tremendous amount um it’s going to be uh uh second guessing everything that happens so it’s it’s just that just very abusive very critical uh self-talk if someone is listening and they’re like I don’t have a voice in my head uh how might that still show up in the mind if if it’s not something people identify as having a voice or words I think with depression that there is a voice and it is I don’t know I’ve never met anybody who’s had that level of depression oh that’s not true I have met a couple people um but they have done a lot of work to let go of that voice and that like to have have a different thing than the voice in the head working so I know some people who are long-term meditators where the voice in the head has really moved away but the depression is still there and when we talk about it that’s where I’d say the heart and the nervous system come in so it’s like all three levels yeah but if somebody there are some people probably are like I don’t know what do you mean voice in the head just because they’ve never really explored that and what I would say is just be silent and listen and you will hear yourself tell yourself something and that’s what I’m talking about by the voice in the head and if you start paying attention to that there’s going to be a lot of you should have done this you should do this you should really make it this way why didn’t you do it this way what’s going on here you didn’t do that right a lot of you know hurry up hurry up get that done why haven’t you done this yet you’re 40 and it’s already blah blah blah blah you’re 35 and you’ve already blah blah blah blah did you see how they thought of you they didn’t like that at all it’s going to be that kind of Perpetual negative self-talk yeah yeah that’s what’s happening on the head level of somebody who’s who’s who’s who’s working with depression yeah okay so let’s let’s then move down to the heart how does it show up on the Heart level commotions so it’s um particularly stuck anger occasionally stuck grief but if you’re listening to this and you’re like but anger’s bad or anything like like I would say it’s a 97 chance that it’s stuck anger and that’s the first place to go so it means that basically all the negative when you’re feeling angry it all goes towards yourself and so since it never gets released it never finds out it never finds a way to move away from you because since you’re not allowed to express it it all goes inward it keeps on coming back at you and so that lack of expression of anger and that can be for many reasons and there’s the anger episode that we have um it can be because my dad was angry and I’m never going to be like that or it’s going to be like I was told my anger wasn’t acceptable here temper tantrums weren’t welcome but there’s a lot of reasons people don’t get angry um but it means that there’s no expression of anger and and in that I’m saying I’m not suggesting that you go out and start yelling at people you can express anger without doing it at anybody and so and that usually has the in modern society usually has the quickest change of depression than any other thing is like moving and expressing that anger on a regular basis and so you just described like almost all cases or most cases what about the other cases you said stuck stuck grief sadness and and oftentimes underneath the anger there’ll be some sadness too uh yeah so for some for maybe three percent they’re just they can’t get sad there’s no there’s no capacity for Tears or crying or that kind of stuff and so that can create some depression too but typically like I said it’s anger and if the anger moves and the tears will come naturally so how would you know if this applies to you if someone’s a listener and they’re like well I just don’t I feel depressed I don’t feel like there’s any anger there it’s just it’s just about bad things happening to me or it’s about my situation there’s nothing to be angry about what would you what kind of exploration would you offer go get angry tell me what you think um yeah so typically when someone’s like that I can’t identify the anger um typically I would point out all the ways that they’re passive aggressive all the ways in which they um use being stuck or despondent or apathetic or rebellious or not being on time how they have somebody in their life who’s their authority figure that is constantly upset with them because they haven’t been doing the thing that they need to do I would end the fact that they’re not in touch with their own wants but they’re just constantly have a life where it’s set up where there’s people who they’re disappointing and then they beat themselves up for that disappointment I’d say all of that is anger all of that is repressed anger as well as like being the feeling of being stuck all the time you know the feeling of of not being able to change their situation all of those things to me are and are all anger and that’s repressed and so if you what I know normally do in a in a coaching session is I take away their capacity to be uh passive aggressive and I’ll just push them that will keep on like pointing to the anger and eventually they get really really upset with me and they’re like ah and then I’ll go yay look there you’re angry that’s what I’m talking about right there and and then they’ll start smiling they’ll see the the thing but all of that’s really not necessary if you’re depressed just get angry even if you’re like there’s nothing to get angry about I don’t know how to get angry I can’t get angry really I try but it goes away no just just like pretend you are in a play and your job is to get angry as heck and angry until you have complete Clarity like that’s the role that you’re playing your body’s going to want to collapse but see yourself as an actor trying to play this role and give the most compelling performance ever and great your mind is like this isn’t true that’s fine I’m just acting that’s fine but move the anger and see what happens that’s the experiment don’t worry about what your head says for a minute you’ve been listening to your head for those who are depressed who are listening to this you have been listening to everything the voice in your head says for whatever years and this is exactly where it’s gotten you so if you think that’s the thing to listen to you should expect the exact same results you have right now so instead see what it’s like to listen to your anger for 40 minutes see what happens and of course there to bookmark our we have a couple of episodes on anger in the emotion series that would give you some further signposting on ways to make that something that doesn’t reify shame or you know create the like prove the story that your anger is dangerous yeah or cause you to hurt people highly recommend listening to the anger episodes if you’re going to do this you know yeah Okay so we’ve spoken to the how The Head and the Heart are involved in depression and where how it shows up in those parts how about the the nervous system The Reptilian nervous system yeah so a good story on the nervous system I was like doing my first company and I went to an acupuncturist and the acupuncture said oh your adrenal glands are kind of getting getting beat up here here’s some stuff for your adrenal glands gave me some adaptogens and and um and I asked this act oh what would you because it was my first time with acupuncture I’m like if you’re a western doctor what would you do and he said well I’d wait for a while and then you’d start drinking a ton of coffee and then maybe energy drinks and then you get depressed and I give you antidepressants and the way he saw the system work was that uh anxiety is a big part of the depression now whatever it is 25 years later they’re starting to treat depression with anti-anxiety medication so like the Western people are catching up a little bit but it’s still not actually replenishing the adrenal system according to acupuncturists um but yeah so the so the idea is that if you’ve been running on um adrenaline over and over again you get to depressed and so the couple ways that you can see this typically with folks is that if you’re constantly under self-attack from The Voice in your head you’re constantly under stress I’m not doing good enough each one of those is this little adrenaline boost the other way that that’s really typical is like I have I cannot tell you how many CEOs I know who when they retire they spend a lot of time in their pajamas and they’re not motivated and then they beat themselves up for not being motivated because they’re adrenal they’re just suffering from not like their adrenals are spent and and the negative self-talk unit doesn’t help them recover and so that’s another way to look at is you know I remember listening to Billie Jean King and probably a lot of people don’t know who she is anymore but she was a woman’s right activist who was a professional tennis player and she was really advocating for women’s rights and and you know some some version of the feminism at the time and and I was listening to her talk in the 90s and she was playing I think in the 70s or something like that and she said yeah today I wake up tired and I know I’m not tired from yesterday I’m tired from the 70s and I and I know a lot of folks that are that are in that kind of a situation so yeah that would be another way to describe it and unfortunately when people go into that and then they start beating themselves for not being productive not being active not to instead of actually just allowing themselves to recuperate another question for another time but I just want to say it is like how how many CEOs are like What proportion of CEOs do you see that are not in adrenal fatigue in their role yeah yeah that’s a good question I’m not going to answer that right now I don’t know crazy tangent yeah yeah yeah that’s for another time yeah all right so we’ve spoken to the Head heart the gut the head part you know the nervous system level what else what what are some other levels on which we could kind of Define what yeah what you see I don’t know if this is a definition or a symptom but I would say it it’s if it is a symptom it’s one that you if you treat it seems to go to the core problem which is the connection level of it most of the people who start getting into some sort of Depression start isolating themselves and they either isolate themselves by just being alone a lot or they isolate themselves by um or they isolate themselves by making sure that the interactions that they have are not fulfilling don’t have deep connection but in one way or another they’re isolating themselves they’re they’re this negative self-talk has made it so that they are very ashamed and so they don’t speak about certain things um they’re not open with anybody about what’s happening inside of them and they don’t have like a sense of community and so that is that is a great way to address depression is to actively work on building your community and making sure that those connections are deep and meaningful and so I think that would be the social way I would describe depression and like I said I I think there it’s a bit of a symptom and a bit of a Cause um but and so I don’t know exactly how to define it in that way but I do know that if you address it it really can change yeah depression a lot well being being both a symptom and a cause can make it can cause that can make it that there’s a feedback loop that can go in either direction the negative feedback loop of disconnection and isolation or the positive news here is that you can get into a positive feedback loop yes which is really what a lot of the work that that we do involve there’s a lot of group work a lot of group connection and really opening up the capacity for that connection to impact your nervous system and set you down a a more positive feedback loop yeah I think that’s the thing about depression in general is that there’s a feedback loop to it like you start negatively talking to yourself and then you start believing it and then your performance is less and so then you talk more negatively about yourself which means you are like again go even deeper into non-productivity or non not being who you want to be right if you tell yourself every day like your shit your shit your shit your shit you’re gonna start acting more like shit you know if every day you say don’t get angry don’t get angry don’t get angry you’re like you’re constricting and it just all of it feeds on itself which is an interesting thing some some of these you know some idiosyncrasies don’t feed on themselves like this but this this one really feeds on itself yeah it seems that seems true up and down the nervous system too where if you’re if you have anxiety you’re not even aware of the anxiety the kinds of emotions and thoughts are going to have on top of that anxiety are going to be anxiously produce thoughts yeah which are going to be the kind of thought that will trigger you and cause more chemicals of fear to release in your body that you may or may not be aware of because your emotions are stuck yeah and that that cycle also then perpetuates yeah and they and they’re all related in the negative self-talk makes you feel like you’re under attack on the nervous system creates more anxiety the more anxiety you have the more you’re trying to get out of it which makes you feel stuck like there’s so many ways in which this all feeds each other which is which I think what makes it apparently challenging to get out of it’s not actually challenging to get out of um I know so many people who have totally turned the corner on this and and can do it in really short periods of time I I can imagine a number of listeners who maybe they’re having a hard time accessing their anger until you said it’s not really challenging to get out of us good yep getting angry is easy I don’t believe that you can’t get angry exactly um yeah yeah okay so so what are some of the other symptoms how how because one of the things I just noticed often and especially like when I have been in a place of feeling somewhat depressed it’s just amazing how difficult it can be to see through the forest and actually notice it be like oh that’s what’s happening yeah so what are some other what are some other symptoms that you might see in someone’s life yeah um so one a couple things on the symptoms of the thoughts that you believe them but if you really take a close look at them you’ll notice that they’re automatic that they’re not Based on data and they contradict each other so you’ll notice that the negative thoughts all seem to have that it’s um and they’re constantly attacking you instead of actually trying to adjust like the voice in the head isn’t trying to adjust itself it’s trying to adjust you which is abusive so that’s something to see as far as kind of straightforward symptoms you have a lot of pessimism you have some forever thinking it’s never going to change it’s always going to be like this how am I ever going to get out of it uh the feeling of being stuck um you have a soul dysmorphia you can’t see yourself clearly um you have friends telling you how awesome you are and you can’t believe it um uh the short attention span like it’s very hard for people to focus when they’re depressed there’s the adrenal fatigue so those are all some of the things you know like uh I don’t have the energy to do something I don’t want to do this uh like that feeling all is based on it’s all based on are all symptoms of depression and oftentimes that’s why people go after they’re like oh you know I just need to think positively uh or um they say I wish I wasn’t so tired I have to do something to stop being fatigued or I feel stuck and I don’t want to feel stuck they they’re constantly working on the symptoms but they’re not saying oh what is it like to not speak to myself negatively what is it like to move my emotions what is it like to put myself constantly in places where my nervous system can relax how do I stop believing the voice in my head those things are what what are far more likely to solve the problem than trying to say you know how do I become more optimistic or how do I um how do I uh see myself more clearly or how do I focus or how do I you know not be fatigued and so that’s typically that’s why people think it’s really hard is because they’re treating the symptoms instead of the cause right right and then there’s there’s a thing you said a moment ago about how you know all of the thoughts you’ll see that there’s no data behind them yes uh and I think that’s the partial truth or the the partial not truth to that is that there’s data behind them but it’s selective data so the belief that it’s hard to get out of comes from that it has not worked to do what you’ve been doing to get out of it yes yeah so there’s the data like you you’re 40 and you don’t own a house right and so that’s true and it’s data but it’s very selective data it’s not like it’s it’s not seeing everything that you have done right it’s always looking at the negative side of the equation and never looking at the positive side of the equation it’s it’s you’re treating yourself the way you wouldn’t treat somebody else typically yeah or it’s I’ve tried this this and this this that and the other thing to treat my depression and it hasn’t worked therefore it’s hard when all of the things that you may have tried may have actually been to treat the symptoms and what in the way you just described or may have been strategies to change your change your circumstances sometimes they might have even been like perfectly orchestrated to not work right the other thing I would say is that most the other way to present the same thing you’re saying is uh you are in every way you’ve tried to fix yourself you’ve assumed there’s something wrong with you and that you need to be fixed and this is how you’re going to fix it and that won’t work yeah but that can be such a alluring thing to be like oh you know what there’s going to be a plan I’m going to execute on that plan and then when the plan is finished voila Freedom you can have that it just can’t start with the Assumption of there’s something wrong with me that I have to fix if it’s um oh my voice in the head is not competent and I need to help the voice in the head become competent that’s a very different approach than there’s something wrong with me that I have to fix and so so typically right because the very premise that of that there’s something wrong with me is the exact kind of thought that triggers the fear in the nervous system triggers the the self-attack triggers the it literally is the depression there’s a way to think of it as there’s something wrong with me is the depression and so any fight with any fight to make make yourself better is part of the self-fulfilling prophecy of depression yeah yeah yeah okay so so if if we if we kind of boil it down to the belief that there’s something wrong with me being the the core here what are some things you can do let’s say that belief just feels really persistent and maybe your mind kind of sort of gets it but nah you just can’t fully let that in yeah or explore it what what are some things that you can do yeah so that would be something other than treating the symptom I spoke to some of them so and so I’ll probably speak to them again and see what else comes up so on the head part of it you can do simple things like stop using like noticing every time you use the word should and see what it’s like to change it to the word want um to look at the negative self-talk and really question it and and notice how it it how it’s it’s nonsensical so like literally write down here’s the 20 negative most persistent negative cell thoughts and then literally debate them with yourself like take the other side and say I’m gonna see if the voice in my head is actually accurate and really debate with it um at some point you get to a place where any of the negative self-talk you’re just like yeah that’s bullshit there’s also there’s a little bit of Truth in each of them but like the the general premise is bullshit and that makes the change happen really quickly when you can see that um other ways to deal with it is when you have the negative self-talk right now most likely you listen to it and agree with it wow you really messed up yeah I messed up okay I gotta do something about that instead of you messed up uh that’s really shitty management that’s not how you should manage me that’s like bad coaching or you messed up are you talking to you is this the voice in the head talking to itself or is it talking to me did I mess up or did you mess up you know or you know everything did I mess up while listening to you for the past 10 years exactly or you messed up you why shouldn’t you done that and you could literally just respond to the voice in the head um uh I see that you’re really scared and that’s okay it’s okay that you’re scared there’s lots of iterations that you can try but one of the things that the voice in the head is that if you if you treat it differently it starts behaving differently and so most of us just kind of accept acquiesce to the voice in the head and then we do this kind of what Fritz pearls talked about was she was like overdog Underdog that overdog is like you should do this you should do this and the other dog is like yeah I should yeah I should yeah I should and the responses are all the ways that you sabotage yourself yeah yeah I really should do that and then you don’t do it yeah I shouldn’t watch it again then you keep on watching video games like that’s the underdogs role and so most people once they start realizing that the voice in the head is the issue they try to change the voice in the head but you can also change their response you know it could be like yeah you really should have shouldn’t have done that it’s like yeah I really really shouldn’t have done that I’m such a bad bad bad bad person for having done that like or you can be you shouldn’t have done that and your response can be and I’m saying I’m a musical say wow you repeat yourself a lot and yet I still don’t listen to you apparently maybe you should try a different way you know thousands of responses so for the head that’s those are some of the ideas in the Heart part it’s it’s moved the anger move the anger move the anger best way is to is to listen to the parts of our podcast about anger that’s I think I don’t want to go into all the ways to do it it’s very big and I’d rather have them listen and then for the nervous system it’s really about accepting pleasure it’s really about putting yourself into really calm States nature massage time in water cold plunges hot saunas stretching yeah anything that like allows you to feel the pleasure and what I notice is that oftentimes that pleasure is taken away with shame and so you know the simple things that you can get a lot of pleasure from like eating or breathing or walking or talking to a friend is all like interrupted with shame so it’s like how do you take pleasure in your daily life and all the little things that are there yeah and just I don’t know just fully physical like enjoyable oh wow just listening to the way that my voice is vibrating my vocal cords right now has a pleasure in it that breath has a pleasure in it so how do I pull the pleasure how do I it’s not pull how do I relax into the pleasure of the moment is a really great way to work with the nervous system yeah so what I’m seeing here is sort of this Arc from the head into the heart into the nervous system one one pathway that I hear you describing is that you can you can work with a relationship we have with a voice in our head so it might be like oh you really messed up that opportunity and you’d be like but if you if you listen to it if you really work through that relationship you’ll recognize oh yeah I hear that you really really wanted that opportunity and there’d be some emotion under that and that would move it down to the heart like yeah there’s some there’s some heartbreak there’s some grief and not getting what I wanted or in not showing up the way I wanted to or whatever whatever it was that the voice really wanted for me and all the other parts of myself and that was also like the voice in the head for talking to me like that yeah yeah there’s also that anger yeah yeah and then when that all moves when that emotion moves there’s spaciousness in the nervous system and that third piece that I hear you talking about is allowing there to be pleasure in the nervous system it has been so used to being constricted in such a way as to be congruent with that abusive voice in the head and the stuck emotions in the heart and now there’s a yeah go ahead yeah there’s that’s true for some folks and then for some folks it’s all about just moving the anger and then they can feel the you know that like I wouldn’t give a I don’t want anyone to think there’s a particular order that works so I would out all of the anys any way you want to do it is great my experience in modern day is that the the anger moving is probably the best and quickest um response the uh the other thing is obviously Community is like deeper connection we talked about this the last thing that someone can do is just really increase their connection increase their sense of community be more vulnerable whether that’s like a 12-step program or you know a course with us or or there’s a thousand ways men’s groups psychologists whatever you can do to actually share what’s going on with you and feel supported whatever is a good match for you yeah so so how about the case where you have a friend who’s depressed yeah or a partner what would you have to say about that yeah so so again the the issue here is what I spoke about earlier which is if you come in with a premise that there’s something wrong with you and I’m here to help you or I’m here to help you which means that there’s something wrong with you it means you’re not capable then you’re only deepening the problem and so there’s a guy whose Name Escapes me unfortunately but he he’s a he was a he was a Quaker he had this really strong community and so when he got depressed all these folks came in to help him out and he said they all hurt they all made the problem worse and because everybody was coming in and telling him what was wrong with him and because they were like you could do this you could do this you could do this here’s how you could help you know everybody good intentions but what what a depressed person hears in those moments is this seed this is what’s wrong with me this is what’s wrong with me and so instead he said The only person who helped him was somebody who just came in and washed his feet every Tuesday I think it was you know which basically was the only person who was saying you’re great you’re perfect just the way you are you don’t need to change it and he said those that was the only person who was helpful in his depression and so so often times when we’re trying to fix somebody who’s depressed where we don’t want to feel it we think there’s something wrong with them we’re aggravated at them at some point we wanted to change and so we’re sending them the message that they’re broken which only amplifies the whole problem and so however you do it the idea is to send the message that you’re whole yeah I love the foot washing thing that’s like an amplification in the other direction yes he could have just been like yeah I’m here with you you feel depressed that’s okay there’s nothing wrong with you right he did he went he went big but but he just went like went big yeah I recently had a client who did that on you know had this moment working with me where they got in touch with this just very deep love this really deep sense of like love and service and devotionalness and um which is cool and came and had been spent it had really done a lot to help their friend who was depressed and had Revisited them after a couple months and that’s what they did and that just it was how they were moved it wasn’t like a prescription and and I think bat he didn’t wash but bow to the feet you know and and so yeah any way that you can just send the message that like oh yeah you’re you’re great just the way you are I can love you unconditionally in this place is is really the is what they need to learn to do for themselves and so you can be that a representation of that for them an example of that you can lead them in that way yeah and what if you can’t what if you find yourself just unable to love the part of somebody that is that feels they’re bad or wrong because it makes you feel scared or oppressed or yeah well I’m not responsible hey it’s not your job to fix anybody so there’s that and that’s a really good signal at the thing you can’t love about yourself so if you if you’re really into it for your own Freedom then the best thing is to learn to love the part of yourself that you can’t love in them and that is that that’ll provide a lot of freedom for you uh but yeah your job isn’t to fix somebody so if you’re not able to contribute to them in a way that is beneficial than not doing harm is great you know maybe it can just be like a text message every once in a while it says I love you you know like it doesn’t have to be like I’m hanging out with you for five hours every week and listening to you tell me about how everything in your life sucks like yeah which if it came out of the obligation it would still be a another way of saying they’re broken and that’s right you’re here to fix them that’s it even if it’s by being there with them in the way that you heard on the podcast yeah that’s right yeah exactly exactly can’t come out of obligation yeah yeah awesome awesome well this is fun yeah it was good it was nice to that it wasn’t it wasn’t three hours yeah it wasn’t three hours it was much more bite-sized and manageable than the the first iteration yeah and it was a joy for me to record yeah it was a pleasure all right hopefully you can get some sleep and rest and get off Zoom let me know at least enjoy it at least enjoy it I am all right all right and then my nervous system will get some rest sometime okay thank you everybody for listening if this episode brought up some thoughts or questions for you we’d love to hear from you you can reach out to us on Twitter at Art of a comp or you can email us at podcast art of accomplishment.com take care see you next time [Music] please [Music]