Developing Emotional Resilience

[00:00:00] Michael Diiorio: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Gay Men Going Deeper, a podcast by the Gay Men’s Brotherhood that showcases raw and real conversations about personal development, mental health, and sexuality from an unapologetically gay perspective. I’m your host, Michael Diiorio. And joining me today are Matt Landsiedel and Reno Johnston. Today we’re talking about developing emotional resilience, and we’re going to be exploring questions like, how have your personal challenges helped you build resilience? How do you distinguish between building resilience and simply pushing through your challenges? And how do you know when it’s time to seek support from others? And what does that look like for you? What we want you to get out of today’s episode is to find strength in your struggles. The last several episodes, I’m going to say, have been pretty heavy and have been about a lot of common challenges that we face as gay men. Not belonging, wishing you were different than you are, being overly hard on yourself, compare and despair, social anxiety, and so on. And so today, we want to offer you an opportunity to use these challenges as the curriculum for developing emotional resilience. But before we jump in, I’ve got some exciting news for you. Moving forward, we’re introducing a new feature that we think you’re going to love. Now, I know a lot of you listen to this podcast, or probably listening to us right now, doing your workout, on a walk or on your commute, in transit, or in your car. And so for you, our listeners, the audio podcast version will now be slightly edited and condensed, making it a bit more streamlined and easier to listen to on the go. But there’s also a lot of you who I know like to sit with us each week, turn on your YouTube, feel like you’re part of the conversation, and you can see our expressions and our faces and how we interact with each other. And you guys really like that more personal experience. So for you, our YouTube version is going to remain exactly the same, raw and uncut, just the way you like it. So we would love to hear your thoughts on the new audio format. So if you’re listening to us, please let us know what you think by giving us a rating in review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you’re listening to us on. And to all of our longtime viewers and listeners, we just want to thank you for sticking with us. I think we’re at episode 211 at this point, and if our podcast has been helpful to you at all, we would love it if you could take just two minutes to leave a positive rating and review it really helps us reach more people who could benefit from the content here. Now let’s talk about developing emotional resilience, as I like to do. I like to find the definition so we can level set, know what it means. And I took to the Googles. Google told me it is the ability to adapt to stress, setbacks and adversity without losing your sense of self or hope. It’s not about avoiding your challenges, but rather learning to manage and recover from them in a healthy and constructive way. And I love that definition. The concept of empowerment is at the heart of who I am as a human, as a person, and also all of the work that I do as a coach. And the way that I teach empowerment is not just bulldozing your way through challenges, which I think is a misunderstanding that people have. It’s not about just bulldozing your way through challenges. It’s about processing it in a way that serves your future self and the people around you. It’s really about taking ownership, and I love that word of your challenges and then deciding how you want to emerge from them. We do not control the shit out there that happens to us. We do not control a lot of things that happen to us, but we do get to control how we respond to it. Okay? And that’s how I like to teach empowerment. So my personal response to when I’m faced with some adversity or challenge in my life that is beyond my control, when I’m at my wits end, what I like to ask myself is, why was I chosen to have this experience?

So it’s not why me, it’s why me?

It’s coming at it with curiosity. Right? The words are the same, but the energy is completely different. Why me? Why was I chosen to have this experience? And I know I say this phrase a lot, both on the podcast and my work and with my clients, you know, this is your challenges are your curriculum for your evolution. They’re not meant to, like, hurt you. They’re not meant to punish you. I don’t believe in that personally. I don’t believe in a punitive universe or a punitive God. I believe that they are meant to evolve you. That’s just my personal take on things, okay? And so when it comes to challenges, we face many of the same ones as queer people living in a hetero world. We’ve talked about that on the previous months, and that all kind of falls under the umbrella of minority stress. The things we have to deal with that are straight folks don’t. But on top of that, we each also have unique personal challenges that are very unique to our lives and our circumstances. But regardless of what type of challenges we’re talking about today, or whatever ones you’re bringing to your table as you think about this podcast, in your mind, the universal theme in developing emotional resilience is the same. It’s about learning how to process your emotions, owning your path to recovery, whatever that might look like, learning self-compassion and coming out on the other side of your challenges with more insight into who you are, and most of all, self-love. Because if there’s one thing I notice about people who approach their challenges in this way with this kind of emotional resilience mindset, is that they are genuinely empathetic and understanding and kind to themselves and the people around them. You just know if you have encountered a dark night of the soul and you have come out on the other side of that, you no doubt will have learned what it means truly to have compassion for yourself and for others, and empathy for people who are in the midst of their own struggles. And so my point here is that this episode, developing emotional resilience, isn’t just for you, but actually benefits everyone around you as well. So I’ll leave it there. Let’s jump into our first question today. So, as I said, you know, the last few episodes have been about challenges and adversity we face. So what my first question is going back to one of the personal challenges you’ve experienced that we’ve talked about on the podcast. How has that challenge, or how have those challenges helped you build resilience? And let’s start with Matt today.

[00:06:00] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, there’s not really one specific challenge that sticks out. It’s an amalgamation of my path over the course of the last four years, really.

I was going through a lot of stuff even prior to this whole journey of the GMB starting and everything, but I think it really amplified at that point. So the last four years have been very challenging for me. Very rewarding in certain ways, too, but very challenging. And I think I’ve kind of developed a spectrum, one side being surrender and the other side being persistence. I’ve developed a strong ability of discernment of when to use which weapon on my path. Surrender comes in handy when you need to, or when I need to embody, maybe healing. And I need to nourish myself and be compassionate and slow down and rest and take care of myself, which is not something I had developed prior. I was masculine, yang energy, doo doo doo. I remember trying to meditate my emotions away and trying to hold crystals, trying to breathe my emotions away. And it’s just like emotions need to be met. They need to be understood. They need to be questioned with curiosity. Where’s this coming from? And so learning how to rest, learning how to slow down, surrender, bring less force, more flow into my life has been absolutely tremendous, and that’s where a lot of my resilience has come from. It’s. And that. That side of me was underdeveloped, likely due to a lot of dissociating from a young age and, like, disconnecting from my body, my emotions, and going more cerebral. So since opening up that. That chamber, that part of myself which I classify as more the feminine. Right, you call it yin, feminine doesn’t really matter. It’s the more slowed down aspect of beingness, the presence of who I am to. I have a tremendous amount more of capacity to hold space. And I think that’s a word that I attribute to resilience as well, like my capacity to hold something. I think of capacity as a big barrel. We only have so much capacity at certain moments in our day or in our life. And when that gets filled, we might feel not like we don’t have a lot of resilience when it’s overflowing. But I think resilience is learning how to be very, very discerning of what I’m putting into my big barrel, who I’m letting have access to me, the thoughts that I think, what’s filling my big barrel, that’s a big piece of it. And then I think, like you said, off the top, like, compassion is a big piece of it. Compassion and humility. Because my suffering over the last four years, it’s been tremendous, really. But it’s cracked me open, and it has really shown me my fracture points in life. Like, my vulnerabilities, the things that I need to work on and heal. And my work now is very, very different. The way I show up in my work, the way I facilitate groups, is different. The way I counsel is different because I’ve met a part of myself that I really do think it comes from humility. I don’t counsel from ego. I don’t facilitate from ego. Like, I’m very heart centered and embodied when I do do my work now, which is a lot different. And then, so that’s the one side, that’s the surrender side. The other side is persistence. And I’ve learned how to rise to the occasion.

I’ve learned how to meet my emotions. I’ve learned how to stare my dark demons in the eyes and be with them. I’ve learned how to come into relational dynamic and community in a heart centered and in an authentic way. I’ve learned how to have difficult conversations. And I think that side of me needed to be developed as well. But from humility, right. I used to be egoic and charge my way into situations, probably because of trauma responding. I was more in the fight energy. And now I’m able to kind of meet more of that persistence with more humility, but also kind of balancing that with, like, dignity. The last thing I’ll say is, nothing really fazes me anymore. When you surrender enough and you face your shit enough, it’s like almost like nothing can faze you. Like, I was lying in bed last night and my mind was just running into all these weird, dark places. It’s like, just so fascinating. And this can happen once in a while where my mind will just go, especially when I’m tired or I’m feeling like a depressive energy. My mind will just go into all these dark places looking for every possible thing that’s wrong in my life. And I had this really cool experience where I disidentified with thought, and I was just lying there watching my mind run wild, and I was not being taken down by it. It was such a cool experience. And I think that’s the next level that I’m stepping into in my spiritual path, is disidentification with identity, with thought form, and really meeting a lot more presence. If there’s one silver lining to depression for me, that is it, like, it slowed me down enough that I’m able to see what needs to be worked on, heal those parts of myself, and stop trauma responding. Depression is like a way to stop trauma responding, in my opinion. And it allowed me to be able to see how I was so identified with my mind. And now I’m able to kind of pull back and be like, ah, okay. I don’t need to be constantly identifying with this. This aspect of my. Of myself. So been quite the journey. So thanks for these questions because it really helped me kind of walk down, like, really how far I’ve come in the last four years. It’s been. Been pretty. Pretty awesome.

[00:11:16] Michael Diiorio: Yeah. Matt, can I ask a follow up question, please?

[00:11:19] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:11:19] Michael Diiorio: What? I think a lot of people listening to this episode maybe have gone through some kind of trauma. Like a trauma in their life. They might be thinking, oh, well, this isn’t for me because I’ve gone through some kind of trauma. What would you say to that?

[00:11:30] Matt Landsiedel: I think there’s a certain point in the trauma healing journey, that the trauma becomes the treasure or the thing. Like, we turn our pain into our purpose. And I am the wounded healer, right? Like, that’s my archetype. That’s what my soul incarnated to be in this life, which the ego hates, but the soul embodies it and just runs with it, right? And I think that without my adversity, I wouldn’t develop resilience, and I wouldn’t be able to teach from the places that I teach from. So it’s almost like my suffering is my gold. And then I hand out these gold nuggets to people because of the experiences that I’ve had. And it’s very different when you’re. When you’re somebody who hasn’t been through this stuff and you’re trying to teach from this place. Like, there’s not that resonance that energetics that you bring into it. So I think people that really embody and have been through the things that they’re teaching, I think their teachings are much more potent in my experience.

[00:12:21] Michael Diiorio: All right, Reno, over to you.

[00:12:23] Reno Johnston: Yeah, today’s a fun day because we’re discussing resilience, and I shared with y’all before we started recording that I came in hot.

Buttons being pushed today. It’s great. The first thing that came to mind, the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. That right there, I said it the other day, I was out for a walk, and I said it out loud and funny enough, Matt, you mentioned surrender, and there’s a song, and I swear I don’t go to church regularly, but, like, I’m preaching right now, it’s a gospel. I surrender all. I love that song. It almost moves me to tears. And I found myself even singing that on my walk out loud the other day. And what makes sense to me about these moments is that they invite the experience of surrender. They invite the experience of compassion. They invite the experience of inquiry and of growth when they’re happening. Gosh, it doesn’t always feel that way. There’s anger and sadness and confusion and hopelessness and grief. So many other things come up in those moments. It can be really hard to see the message in the mess, the testimony in the test. And sometimes I will jump straight to it. I will jump straight to, oh, I know why this is happening. It’s happening to grow me. The spiritualist in me is, like, right there, as soon as it happens, like, oh, I know what? This is my lesson. My growth has been like hanging out in it for a bit and not jumping to optimism, not jumping to the lesson in all of this. It’s been to kind of sit in the feeling of it and let it digest, let it alchemize, let it process.

And that can be really uncomfortable. It can be really uncomfortable to hold what is there, I think, to make it practical when these things happen for me or to me. And it’s funny I said for me, and I’m glad that I said that, because that’s one of the perspective changes that has happened for me as I’ve had the many experiences that I’ve had, the many traumatizing experiences I’ve had were difficult or challenging. Right? Is that they. I experienced them to be happening for me. And the question is always, how is this here to serve me? How is this here to evolve me or grow me or teach me? And some of these experiences, for example, have inspired and supported me to use my voice.

Something that came up when I was reflecting on this question was one of the first times that I was spanked. And some people, depending on where you come from culturally and the time you grew up in, spanking is normalized. But if you’re on the receiving end of it, it’s a traumatic experience. And I actually remember being spanked by someone who was not my parenthood. Right. That was a very difficult and invasive and traumatizing experience for me. I remember it to this day. I certainly recovered from it. And my willingness to meet. Not at the time, later, because at the time, I don’t think I had the awareness or the tools or the capacity, but my willingness to meet that experience, that invasiveness, and to, like, feel everything that came with it gave way to my voice and my strength, my. No, it’s like now, like, I’m very clear. No, not okay. No, you cannot put hands on me. You cannot engage me in that way. It is not okay. When we’re young. I think that that voice is there. I think that that strength is there, that resilience is there. But sometimes it’s sort of clouded over, bogged down conditions, so to speak. Yeah. As time went on, there were things that started to come up from my past, and I had to. To meet them and to process them and to find ways to release that energy. But I would say resilience was innate, and it’s what allowed me to have those experiences and to keep going. I guess the last thing I would say is an element of resilience for me, has been befriending my experience.

Not invalidating it, not making it wrong, not making it not okay, but just allowing it to be there and making friends with it. That’s huge. We are so conditioned to invalidate our experiences, to trivialize our experiences.

No.

You know, no.

[00:17:43] Michael Diiorio: Thank you for sharing such a tangible, real example so vulnerably. I love that. I think that’s going to be very useful and helpful, and thank you for putting that forth. Okay, so how have my challenges helped me build resilience? I want to go back to something that I had talked about in the episode. I wish I wasn’t gay, which came out on national coming out day, which that was released October 10. So if you haven’t listened to that, that’s what I’m referring to. An example there. So I had talked about this feeling of constantly having this need to prove myself as a man, as a gay man. Just everyone just. Just constantly have to prove myself. And I hated that. I hated that I had to do this thing that other people didn’t have to do. The corporate world. I had to work harder to be taken seriously than my straight colleagues. I had to put up with a lot of microaggressions from even my family and friends, loved ones who just didn’t know better. They didn’t know they were microaggressions. They just were. I had obstacles that my straight brother did not have when we were growing up. As teenagers, he got to bring his girlfriend to dinner whenever he wanted without any fuss whatsoever. First of all, I had to be in the closet and then come out and then have a boyfriend and then asked to have my boyfriend over. All of these are steps he didn’t have to go through. And then having my boyfriend over for dinner was like a whole thing that created all kinds of drama in my life with my parents, and that was not very fun for me. I also had obstacles that my straight colleagues did not have. When I was in the corporate world, again, they could openly talk about their girlfriends and what they did on the weekend, and I gave them a sense of camaraderie with all the boys in the office, blah, blah, blah. And then again, there’s me. I don’t have a girlfriend. When I did have a boyfriend, again, I had to go through the process of coming out that whole thing. And then when I did talk about my boyfriend and what we did over the weekend, it was met with super awkwardness and silence. No camaraderie for Michael. Left out, ostracized. And so I also have been bullied. I’ve been victimized for just being who I am, for being gay. And a lot of people out there can identify with this. This is just part of that minority stress. So, yes, it is a fact that queer people have unique obstacles that hetero people do not. It is a fact. Yes, it is harder for us. Yes, it is unfair and unjust. And so where I’ve developed my resilience is what I make that mean. What do I do with that? Okay, that’s the fact. What do I do with it? So I could be a victim my whole life, even if I have been victimized, even if I have been a victim at times in my life or not, I can take that in and do something else with it, and that’s up to me. And for you, listener, viewer there, you get to decide. I’m not like, just because I’m sharing what I’m sharing here doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing. You get to decide what that means for you. And that’s a really good reflection question. So, for me, I’m like, I’m not going to let this stop me for going after my goals. I’m not going to let this stop me from being the man that I want to be in the world. And in fact, it is because of these challenges that I consider myself courageous. It is not even questionable to me whether I have courage. I just do. Like, I had to do all that shit. And if you’re a queer person who had to do that same shit, please do put the courageous label right on you because you have it. You have courage. I am strong, and I would say, arguably, I am more resilient than any of my straight colleagues or friends or anyone out there because I had to go through shit that they don’t, and I still do. I have to go through shit that they don’t have to go through. So that is what builds my resilience. And I make that mean if I have to work four times as hard, I’ll work four times as hard, and that’ll make me four times stronger. And that’s the way I kind of look at it. And it’s also because of these challenges that I’ve learned to love myself harder. We talked about this in the inner critic episode. I have a very strong self-advocate. Reno just talked about that boundary setting, you know, that comes up that very hard. No, I’ve learned to have a thick skin. And most of all, my favorite is I’ve learned to just let people have their opinions about me, enjoy your opinion, even if it’s wrong, have at it. I’m going to continue living my life in the way that I want to, regardless. So that is definitely not something that I was born with. This mindset and attitude you’re hearing from me now, I was not born this way, guys. I developed it through the adversity. And as I say, I use that adversity as my curriculum. Okay, let’s take a little breather then. That was a really good first round for our audience out there. Let’s take this time to pause and reflect on what we’ve shared here today so far. Check in with how you’re feeling. What we’d love is if you can go into the comments on YouTube or wherever you’re listening and let us know how you have or how you would answer that question. How have your challenges and your adversity-built resilience for you? And if you’re enjoying the discussion we’re having here on the podcast, we invite you to continue this with us on the last Thursday of the month in the Gay Men’s Brotherhood Sharing Circles. That’s where we give you guys a chance to share your own experiences on the topics we discuss here. We also have our connection circles, which happen on the second Thursday of every month, and our smaller, more intimate breakout rooms of three people or four, where you can discuss the topics on the podcast with other members of the community in these small little pods. So if you’re interested in either or both of these events, please go to gayminsbrotherhood.com and check out our events section to RSVP. If you don’t have Facebook, that’s okay. Just make sure you’re on our email list, and we’ll email you all the details and the zoom links when needed. All right, let’s go on to question two. And this one’s super important. How do you distinguish between building resilience and simply pushing through in a way that just creates more stress and burnout? I think it’s really important because I know most of our listeners are men. All right, Matt, let’s hear from you.

[00:22:42] Matt Landsiedel: I actually just wrote a blog this week about burnout, and that’s. I’m realizing that that’s a big piece of my depression. Feeling inadequate, having lots of shame. Push, push, push, push through. Don’t feel your emotions dissociate. Get through. Create more. Produce more. That was my shtick. When I went that long without feeling my emotions, I had a backlog of stuff, which likely is what my depression is. It’s a backlog of unfelt emotions, unexperienced experiences, because I was dissociated. And I think that’s why it’s taking so long for me to move through this, because I think I’ve had a lifetime of not feeling, thinking my feelings, intellectualizing and thinking. That was what emotion regulation was, is thinking your feelings. But it’s actually an element of surrender. And I think that’s where I’ll speak to surrender. And it’s a good example to talk about in emotions, because most people want to drive through their emotions. They want to find a way to fix them or not have to feel them. And that would be pushing through, in my opinion. When we look at building resilience, it means moving through and doing so deliberatively and slowly. And that’s what I look at. Surrender is it’s not completely avoiding. It’s taking the time to be present through the experience. Pushing through is like unconsciously moving through. There’s no presence attributed to it. So surrender, for me, there’s two words that come up when I think about surrender, and it’s welcoming what is and allowing. I’ve been going through a depression now for almost four years, and it’s come and gone, come and gone. I’ve tried a zillion different things. I’ve done the masculine piece, right? I’m working my buns off to try and make this go away, but there’s no amount of work. I can’t work this away. I have to be this away, right? And that’s part of my surrender, is like, I have to allow myself to be the feelings that I never allowed myself to feel prior. This is a big part of my lesson that I’m learning. I think that’s just a huge piece to it. And I think when we’re, you know, I look at resilience as this ability to bounce back from something, that we go through some. Some form of adversity. And there’s a tolerance that we develop when we move through that. And I think when I go through something heady and push through, I’m almost, like, bullying my body through these experiences. You know, the question is saying, like, you know, how can I distinguish between building resilience and pushing through in a way that that doesn’t create additional stress and burnout? For me, it is exactly that. It’s listening to my body. My body doesn’t have an ego. It’s just pure truth. So whenever my body is feeling stressed or burnt out, I’ve learned to listen to it. But my biggest Achilles heel in my development so far has been dissociation, numbing out. I’m not connected to my body. So I just, boom, I push through, and then I’m like, whoa, I’ve just said yes to all these things that I’m not actually aligned to because my intuition is in my body. Its constantly telling me. My body is constantly actually the thing, the barometer for my level of capacity, not my mind. My mind will just keep filling my barrel until it is overflowing. But my body is where my capacity lies. So now that I’m connected to my body, I have the wisdom, I have the key to knowing, am I pushing through? Am I dissociating these sorts of things? And I think that, for me has been huge. And I know I’m pushing through. When I feel resentful, angry, I feel like I’m betraying myself or abandoning myself, these sorts of things. And part of it, what I’ve had to learn and develop resilience to is saying no to people. It’s been so hard, you guys, honestly, in the last, because this is a big shtick of my codependency growing up with my mom, all these things, there’s so many pieces that, that are tied into, into this not wanting to disappoint people. In the last two years, more specifically, I’ve had to disappoint people. I’ve had to cut my caseload. I’ve had to tell people, sorry, I can’t work with you, all these things. And it’s been, it’s just caused me a lot of, I guess, guilt. Maybe that’s the feeling that I really have a hard time sitting with is guilt. But I feel like part of my resilience is, you know, pushing through that. So that’s where I think being conscious and present with the push through is important. Right. For me, it’s the discernment. Is this a time to surrender and move away from whatever’s causing the adversity? Because I think a skill I’m being asked to learn in life, too, is disengagement. Oh, there’s drama over there, or my mind wants to create drama. No, I’m going to disengage. I’m going to pull away. That’s an element of surrender. And then there’s time where it’s like, okay, I can’t pull away from this. I got to face this fear. I got to move towards it. And that’s going to help me develop resilience. So there’s kind of like a passive and like an assertive way to, I think, develop resilience. In my opinion, at least, that’s been my experience.

[00:27:14] Michael Diiorio: I love that. And there are so many ways to numb or dissociate. Like, you had talked about maybe using work for you, but there are, like, no shortage, right? Substances, alcohol, sex. Sex was my favorite one. My go to. There are lots of way. Shopping, gaming. Like, there’s really so many ways, and so look out for that. And how could somebody kind of understand if they are numbing, how would they know?

[00:27:38] Matt Landsiedel: There’s so many things. It’s almost just like a procrastination.

You know? I always say that one of the biggest signs of somebody not willing to meet themselves in an embodied or a somatic way is like rumination. Overthinking. The mind tries to take on what you’re not letting the body do, and the body just wants to discharge energy. You think of a child like a toddler, they get activated. It’s like 90 seconds, boom, tantrum done, right? Whereas humans, we grab onto all these, we try and make meaning we try and avoid. We do all these things that the ego tries to convince us to do. It perpetuates the problem. So just watch for rumination as soon as rumination hits, go downward, and just try and feel be with what’s, what’s alive in your somatic.

[00:28:19] Michael Diiorio: Beautifully said, Reno.

[00:28:20] Reno Johnston: I wanted to piggyback on what you said just now, Matt. And I think I noticed that anytime I’m avoiding an experience, I’m likely numbing or potentially numbing. And when I say, I think it’s important to make a distinction, because one of the things that I felt was really powerful, that you said was declining the invitation to drama or declining the invitation to engage in potential nonsense. Let’s just say finding your no. And so the clarification here is that it’s less about, like, going into that stuff and more about going into your experience, the one you’re having in your body, in your being. No one is saying, remain in that situation, a situation that is harmful to you, but more so to be with your experience and honor your experience. That’s kind of how I see it for myself anyway. Yeah, resilience, for me, I look at it as part of the design. I cut my finger immediately. My body is going to work to repair and restore. It’s in the design.

Tear a branch off of a tree or alter something in nature, and you will see it regrow. You can look at elements of nature, the body, and see how they’re designed to withstand and also to repair. Like, resilience is literally built into everything that is natural in the natural world. So it’s not something that, like, some of us have and others don’t. Might it be impeded or might it take a bit longer in different people or different elements of nature and what’s natural? Absolutely. But it’s built in. I think something that has been really helpful for me is to recognize that life is a contact sport. There’s just, there’s no getting around that. Like, there’s no getting around that. I mean, unless I stay in bed. And even then I met with my inner experience, there’s no avoiding this experience.

And so we get to meet it. We get to meet it and we get to move through it, I guess, in the way that occurs to us. But this piece around, like, whether we’re pushing through or we’re building resilience, it was said earlier, it has a lot to do with allowing, allowing what’s there. Am I being with my experience? Am I being with what’s present?

I had this thought earlier. I’ll see people, like, take their pets for walks, to go to the bathroom in the morning. One of my friends, I watched him do this, and it’s so interesting, like, seeing how different people relate to their pets and, like, the impact that that has and also how, like, similar people and their pets are. And I would watch him, like, sternly sort of say to his dog, like, go pee, go pee, go poo. Come on and hurry up. And I thought of this because in my experience, this is how we are sometimes relating to what’s happening to us. Imagine trying to take a poop or go pee while someone’s, like, shouting at you to go pee or poo. That’s awful. First of all, I don’t think it’s going to make it happen any faster. In fact, it’s probably going to cause a me to contract.

I know how this works. You know, it’s like you go for a walk and you walk around and they sort of fart around a bit. And it supports metabolizing, right? The relaxation, the regulation, the walking, that sort of thing. And then the what is innate, that sort of resilience or that, like, you know, the design gets to go to work and do what it does, but if we’re interfering with that process, well, then, then we’re in trouble. So I kind of look at it that way, right? It’s like, let it do its thing.

[00:32:38] Michael Diiorio: Reno, your examples today are next level. I love both of the ones. I was in love with the nature one, because, you know, I love a good nature analogy. And then that one was even better. So thank you for that.

[00:32:47] Reno Johnston: Yeah, it’s in the design.

[00:32:48] Michael Diiorio: Beautiful.

[00:32:49] Reno Johnston: Thank you.

[00:32:50] Michael Diiorio: All right, well, you guys had some really great responses there. So I guess what I’ll do is I’ll just share a tool that I actually like to use for myself and with my clients with respect to this, because what I noticed, the comment I made earlier about it being a man thing is I do find men really do want to bulldoze and all the things that we talk about, I do. Maybe I’m generalizing here, but I feel like men have a harder time with this. They want to bulldoze and push through. And maybe women might be a bit more suited for actually building resilience, slowing down. And this is me, too. Right? Like, I also, you know, as you guys were sharing, I am very heady as well. I can find myself getting into that point and having to go into the body. So I have a five point scale here. Pushing through is ignoring your emotional and physical limits, whereas building resilience is recognizing and honoring those limits. Pushing through is focusing solely on getting through it, no matter the cost. And there’s, like, a rush. There’s a rush together, like Rito and the. And the poo. Hurry up and do it right. Versus building resilience is taking your time with it, really, you know, sitting in it and just letting that. Letting it take as long as it takes. Being a bit more patient with yourself when you’re pushing through, it feels overwhelming. If you feel exhausted and stressed, that’s the way you know you’re in pushing through mode. Whereas when you’re building resilience, it’s still hard, but you’re also having some self-care and some self-compassion at the same time. So it’s not easier, but it’s a different energy. When you’re pushing through, you are suppressing or ignoring your emotional pain. And then when you’re building resilience, you are acknowledging and processing it. These are just points that we have kind of talked about that I’m summarizing here. And then finally, when you’re pushing through your develop or you’re experiencing burnout and frustration, and then when you’re building resilience, you are developing strength and adapting over time. I’ll just use that as a way to summarize all of your wonderful points.

[00:34:31] Reno Johnston: Guys, they’re so good. One of the things I love about doing this with you guys is, like, all of our answers are so, like, different. It’s so cool to see how each of us answer the question differently.

[00:34:42] Michael Diiorio: So we’ll take another little break here. And for our viewers and listeners, do the same thing. If you want to share some of your tips, please do share them in the comments on YouTube. And if you’re looking to accelerate your personal development journey, please do check out our coaching collection. Learn how to heal and empower yourself at your own pace by getting instant access to 45 premium personal development coaching videos created by us. Included in those are three that I think would be really helpful for this particular topic. One is called how to feel your feelings. In another one, we have a lovely guided meditation by Matt, and then we also have a video called Emotional Intelligence 101. So please head over to gaming goingdeeper.com for more info. And by the way, guys, you also get access to our healing your shame and building better relationships course, with the coaching collection, this is an important one as well. How do you know when it’s time to seek support from others? And what does that support look like for you?

[00:35:32] Matt Landsiedel: Matt, I want to comment on what you said about dogs, and this kind of ties into this question because we can seek out support from our pets, right? Pets think are a huge protective factor for people who have adversity or adverse childhood experiences. You know, you look at like, support animals or support pets.

[00:35:48] Michael Diiorio: Yeah.

[00:35:48] Matt Landsiedel: I’m a firm believer that dogs are empaths and they take on the energy, the emotions, and the characteristics of their owners. As an empath, when I’m seeing a dog and a human together, I can feel similar energy, and I can also feel the true authenticity of the owner’s energy in the animal. The owner might have facades and masks, but, like, when I feel the energy of the dog, I’m like, ah. I now understand the owner much more clearly. So it’s fascinating. So that would be my first thing is, you know, seek support from our lovely little furry creatures or winged animals or critters or whatever you got. And then for myself, I think when I it’s time to seek out support, when I’m in like a negative feedback loop. So I’ve entered rumination. I don’t want to feel. I don’t want to be with my emotions. And the ruminating has gotten so bad that I can’t stop it. And even I’ll go to sleep. I wake up in the morning and it’s still happening. So I’m like, okay, I need to reach out. I need co regulation. I can’t self-regulate right now. I need co regulation. I need a hug. I need to talk. I need it to interrupt my cycle. And then that really helps. So oftentimes that’ll be fear. Rumination is I’m feeling unsafe and I’m trying to find safety by, like, thinking so much about things, trying to find answers so that. And then also I think when I’m feeling lost or confused, we can easily lose objectivity in ourselves. And I think that’s why people hire coaches and therapists and these sorts of things, because we provide objectivity to people, we remain objective. So I’ll often reach out to, like, my best friend or. Yeah, I have got a very, very small. I wouldn’t even call it a group. Like, a few people that I like, trust that I know can hold me. Like, I have a very core belief that people can’t hold me. And it’s been proven over and over again. Like, I’ll bring my stuff to people and it’s almost like they don’t know what to say or what to do or they try and fix or correct or cheer me up or, like, those sorts of things, and those things don’t work. I need to just be, like, listened to or held. So it takes somebody that’s kind of been to the places I’ve been that can match me and hold me in the energy that I’m bringing forward. And it’s not often you come across people like that, so. And this is a big part of my journey. It’s part of what’s developed. I’m developing resilience now because I’ve always been like, I’ll do it on my own kind of guy, and I don’t reach out to people. And I think this has been a big, big piece of my learning, is how to reach out and ask for help when I need it and ask.

[00:38:08] Michael Diiorio: For the type of help. Right? Like, sometimes that’s the way to do it, is to say, hey, this is what to approach. Like, this is what I need from you right now. Like, I don’t need you to fix. I don’t need to repair. I just need you to hold me while I cry.

[00:38:19] Matt Landsiedel: Totally.

[00:38:19] Michael Diiorio: Yeah.

[00:38:20] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:38:20] Reno Johnston: I would say when it occurs to you to seek support, seek support. And I feel a lot of conviction in that because I have definitely gaslit myself or talked myself out of having my needs met. And I imagine, like, a little. A little Reno, like, you know, five, six, seven, whatever, coming to me. Right. Because they’re experiencing adversity. I would never give them crap for seeking support in any situation. I would arm him with the tools to be able to again accept the things he cannot change. And the courage to change the things he can and the wisdom to know the difference. Right.

[00:39:04] Michael Diiorio: I.

[00:39:04] Reno Johnston: And also, it’s like, baby, come to me anytime, anytime. It’s never wrong. You’re never too much. I love you. I got you.

[00:39:14] Michael Diiorio: Yeah, I love that. And, you know, for everyone listening, it’s just whenever. Whenever you want to, as Reno said, whenever you feel like it, there’s no. Everyone’s answer is personal. I’d say for me, it’s just when it becomes overwhelming for me or if I’m finding it hard to manage on my own, it doesn’t matter. Like, that’s not the same level for each issue or if it gets too heavy, right? If I am juggling a lot and there’s this one straw that breaks the camel’s back, I will seek the support for that straw. All right. And so the last time I did this in a. I guess, in a meaningful, powerful way, was going through my breakup earlier this year. I lean on a few people in particular for different things. I know which friends to go to for what kind of support. Luckily, I have a few different options. But also, I want to mention on this, like my mother. I am 41 years old, grown ass man who does this work. But in those times of deep, deep, deep emotional pain, she’s still the first person I turn to. I turn to my mom. She’s not gay. She doesn’t know what it’s like to have a gay partner. But it doesn’t matter because she’s still able to support me. And I would say this for anyone out there, right? People can support you on your emotional level because we all have understanding of those emotions. We’ve all felt fear, shame, loss, sadness. And so if you can come at it from empathy, then let people hold you in that space. Oh, and also coaching. How could I forget? I have my coach, who I love. I got coached plenty on that particular topic before the breakup, during the breakup, and even after the breakup. And we spent many of our sessions talking about that. So, for me, it’s like a 360-degree perspective on getting support. I wanted the soothing comfort, love, and wisdom from my mom.

I wanted some relatable advice and support from my friends who really just know me at that level. And then I also wanted objective guidance and some really, you know, present future focus from my coach. So that’s what it looks like for me. All right, guys, any final words? All good.

[00:41:02] Reno Johnston: You are so loved.

[00:41:04] Michael Diiorio: You are so loved. We are also loved. And our viewer and listener is so loved for sticking with us, for this amazing episode. And thank you also to Matt and Reno for your, as always, wisdom and insight. A reminder to our audience out there that this podcast and YouTube channel are listener and viewer supported. So if you enjoy what we’re creating here, you can support us by making a donation to the show using the link in the show notes. You could also subscribe to get early access on Apple Podcasts to get ad free access and listen to episodes before they are released wide. All of your support helps us to continue making content for you and supporting our community. We thank you so, so much in advance and we hope to see you at our next event. Please head over to gameandsbrotherhood.com to register. See you guys next time.