Speaker 1: 1:25

All right, welcome everybody to the show. I am your host, dr Jade Tita. This is the Next Level Human podcast and I have an exciting guest, someone I'm meeting for the first time. This is Blaise Aguirre MD, out of Harvard University. He is a new favorite of mine that I recently discovered when his people actually reached out to me to say, hey, would you like to consider this individual for your podcast? And as soon as I started to read about him and his background and his new book coming out, I was like I have to have him on. And so, blaze, thank you so much for being here. You have a new book coming out. The book is called I Hate Myself and it is coming out on what? February 11th or January 11th? Is it February?

Speaker 2: 2:13

11th yeah, so just in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Yep, so let me set this up the title of this book. One of the things and I'll give you something from my life Blaze that happened I was dating a girl I don't know this is probably over a decade ago and I used to just I'm't know, this is probably over a decade ago and I used to just you know, I'm one of these people who really showers people. See, my mom is like this. She sees the beauty in people and just says all the nice things that they see. And I'm this way too. I'm a words of affirmation person. And so I will say you know, I would tell her how beautiful she was and how wonderful I thought she was and how funny that I thought she was.

Speaker 1: 2:50

And the interesting thing, I had never experienced this in a person before, but every time I did this, she would get almost angry and almost act as if I was insulting her in some way, like talking down to her, and one of the things that I did is I was like what is going on here? I've never experienced this. And I of the things that I did is I was like what is going on here? I've never experienced this, and I came across this term.

Speaker 1: 3:14

This is before I went into psychology myself called self-verification theory, which was this idea that some people, if you talk to them in a particular way that they don't believe and you're showering them with all these praises and you're so beautiful and you're so wonderful they will see you as distrustful because they don't see themselves that way and would rather you speak about them in a way that is consistent with their internal dialogue. And when I first started reading your stuff, I was like it reminded me of this situation and I'm wondering if this am I completely off here, or does this have anything to do with sort of the condition that many of us find ourselves in when we're dealing with people or ourselves in our self-talk? And I'm wondering about this particular thing to open up this discussion. So I'm wondering, just from my own sort of learning is this something that you are dealing with in this book?

Speaker 2: 4:11

Yeah. So, by the way, I think did you and I have the same mother. I'm just wondering. I want to show you a photo. So my aunt was a nun and she's holding my baby brother. My mother is. I'm on the donkey over there. My mom is like looking at me and uh, and she was pure love. She just, she just saw the best in human beings and uh, and, and I just I realize how lucky I am to have had her in my life, you know, just because, because, even when I was in my the worst of my adolescent years, she still saw the best in me, you know, and there was something about that that it just like I just believed that her approach was the right approach. But let's turn that around, because we were lucky to have moms like that, you know but let's turn that around.

Speaker 2: 5:07

Let's just say that and again, not to say that people who don't have moms like that, you know, but let's turn 100%, let's just say that. And again, not to say that people who don't have moms like that are then going to not like themselves or hate themselves. But because most parents the majority of majority of parents, the majority of parents are going to be listening to this podcast love their kids. They really love their kids. The question then becomes, becomes how is it that you and I can derive like this positive, like view of ourselves, and not in a sort of like, a kind of a narcissistic way, but just like? So you know that the world is possible, that interactions are possible and uh, and that there's other people who leave childhood believing that they're broken, believing that they're not worthy, believing that the world would be better off without them.

Speaker 2: 5:59

What is it about that? And you know, as you were telling your story, you know you sort of think about, you know you had this girlfriend who believed something about herself. You had this girlfriend who believed something about herself, and here you are trying to shower her with all the things that you learned as a child and it's just not only is it not sticking, but it's actually almost like off-putting, like stop you know, like you don't see me, you don't know who I am, in a way, that you're saying all these nice things about me, and I think that that was actually one of the big discoveries that I made in terms of like really thinking about this experience of self-hatred, that it didn't matter how much others would tell the person you know we love you, we care about you, You're great and all of that.

Speaker 1: 6:48

You know if you identify as male and I 100% say no.

Speaker 2: 6:54

You know, I did some genetic testing, I took some DNA from your cup and it turns out that you're actually female and you have to start like intrinsically believing that you're a woman and you say, like identify as male, you know, genetically male, like all of that, like there's no way, it's just like no, no, you really have to. Eventually, you're going to find me really annoying because I'm telling you something that you just don't believe is intrinsically true.

Speaker 1: 7:18

So yeah, yeah, that really resonates with me very deeply.

Speaker 1: 7:24

And it's really interesting because, from my perspective, when I think about these beliefs right, as you're hinting at this idea that someone comes to believe something the way I think about these I call them misguided, unconscious decisions or MUD.

Speaker 1: 7:37

Right, and they come and this is me more asking you a question because I want to see if you see it the same way so we can orient the listener to this so this MUD forms, you know, let's say, during childhood development, maybe teenage development, during times and events and stresses perhaps, where we didn't have the knowledge, the maturity, the skills, the know-how. Then it sort of gets cemented like mud into our psychology and follows us around like a shadow, unconsciously, and this is the way that I have always seen this. But what I wasn't fully aware of is that perhaps we get this self-hatred mud as well that gets stuck in us which we really don't like ourselves. And reading your stuff made me sort of realize, okay, this is a whole different flavor of this, and so I'm wondering do you see this the same way, that this is based on some kind of early decision or judgment that gets entrenched into our psychology and follows us around, and do you see this as particularly egregious in some way of why we choose to see ourselves as unworthy?

Speaker 2: 8:58

Well, okay. So let me just say that I 100% agree with what you're saying, but I'm actually going to take it to a much, much simpler level. I'm going to. Okay, do you what? Do you speak anything other than English?

Speaker 1: 9:11

Just English.

Speaker 2: 9:12

Okay, Now why do you speak English why? Don't you speak English?

Speaker 1: 9:17

Yeah, it's the language that was spoken to me when I was young and the language I picked up.

Speaker 2: 9:22

And is it? Is it? Was it conscious or was it unconscious?

Speaker 1: 9:26

I can't remember remembering the words and consciously fumbling over the words. It just seemed to come out of me unconsciously.

Speaker 2: 9:32

And did you say to yourself you know what English is a bit harsh. It's sort of confusing. I think I'm going to learn French instead as a two-year-old.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Yeah, never, would have even thought that.

Speaker 2: 9:42

You would not have even thought about it because the conditions. Now, if I were to say what would the condition be for you to speak you know Sudanese? You would have said, well, I would have had to have been born or taken as a child to Sudan when I was very, very young and learned that. So, even though I agree wholeheartedly with you but I'm going to take it at a very different level Think about it as early learning that what you're learning is English. You don't even think that you're learning English. You're interacting with the world. And then you stumble upon a word and everybody claps and says, well, great, you said you know cheesecake or whatever it is, and then everybody's ultra happy about that. And then it kind of reinforces your learning.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Now, what if that learning includes that you're not good enough, you don't try hard enough, that you're lazy, that your siblings are better than you, that you're worthy of being abused, that you're worthy. It's not a conscious choice, it's imprinted in the software of your learning in the way that any other learning takes place. So it's not like because then there is no choice, because I don't then say you know, hey, five-year-old Jane, you know what? English isn't a really good language. You shouldn't be speaking English. You should speak French. So I don't know how to speak French. So if you know no other, idea that you're not worthy, but you also don't have a frame of reference.

Speaker 2: 11:14

What's interesting is, when I've worked with people who are self-hating, I actually haven't met too many adults who didn't learn to self-hate as children. In other words, if you've not self-hated, it would be like as if you were to say you know what something bad is going to happen to you, jane, and you're going to start hating yourself. The idea is antithetical to your experience because you can contextualize. You know, care about self versus not. You can contextualize English versus Chinese or French or whatever it's like. You can say oh, there are these other languages, this is the language that I speak. But if what you've learned from the very start is that you weren't worth it, that you were this terrible, that you were this flawed person and you didn't have any other context, and you look around and your siblings are being showered with love and they're not the ones who are getting bullied at school, and they're not the ones who are getting bullied at school and they're not the ones who are getting misused and mistreated, what conclusion can you come up with other than you're?

Speaker 1: 12:18

you're broken, that you're, you should probably shouldn't be around. Yeah, I really like this a lot, because then I start to think, ok, so my language, I'm speaking this language of self-hate, but this makes me think. It makes me think, ok, well, how do I even become aware then? Right, because I mean, in a sense, if I'm speaking this language and I believe in this language, and I hear someone coming in and saying something beautiful about themselves, it will seem so foreign to me I may not even understand it. It's like it's like okay, they're speaking Sudanese and I can't understand those words, and so I default right back to the language I understand. And now this gives me context into what was going on with this woman I was dating, supposed to love. You are your parents and the people closest to you.

Speaker 2: 13:03

And they don't, or they don't in a way that makes sense to you, but those are the, you know, the primal kind of connections. And then comes Jade and says I love you. Wait a second. I've heard that before and it was really hurtful. People who've told me that they love me were not very kind to me, were kind of cruel.

Speaker 2: 13:32

So you know, either you're like, don't understand, or you're one of these people who are trying to be hurtful or something like that, that there's a dissonance between this concept of the experience of love. You know when, you know I often, you know when I've seen, like, kids who come to my program who've, maybe they've had physical abuse. It's like, you know, I did this because I love you. So now what happens is love is being paired with cruel punishment. So when somebody tells them, hey, I love you, why would you not recoil from that? You know, why would it not be like a boy? So, um, yeah, and and and.

Speaker 2: 14:16

So you make an extremely important point because, like you know, when somebody speaks a different language, a language of love and language of connection, how could you possibly even understand that and how would you even think that you know, if you went to the Sudan and started speaking English and no one understood you. Eventually you'd realize that, wait a second, we're not speaking the same language. But if you travel around the world and you just are hating yourself, why would you ever question that? That's not normal? And then, when you go to see a therapist, what do they ask you? They ask you how do you sleep at night? Do you have nightmares? Do you hear to see a therapist? What do they ask you? They ask you how do you sleep at night? Do you have nightmares? Do you hear voices? You know how is your energy?

Speaker 2: 14:54

Do you eat enough food? Do you exercise? Are you depressed, et cetera, et cetera. Or do you have obsessions? Do you have compulsions? They never ask you what do you think of yourself? Do you like yourself? It's not part of our training in mental health to include a question about what somebody thinks about themselves. And when I start asking that question, it's like what? Like well, I don't like myself at all. Well, how badly. Some will say I hate myself. And I say well, do you think that's a problem? They'll say no, and why not? Well, I mean, you know I have blue eyes, I have brown eyes, like, that's just part of who I am. You know I can maybe do other things, but it's just part of who I am. I'm saying no, it's not. And that's the first time that it starts to like what, what are you doing? Do it?

Speaker 1: 15:46

Yeah, you know, that's interesting, right? Because I mean, then I kind of think, you know, when I think of people walking around in the world this way, if they don't necessarily see it as a problem, they may not even seek out the help of someone. So it hints that someone in their life has to tell them at some point this is a problem or something must be going wrong in their lives, and I wonder how that happens. And then, you know, here comes, you know, dr Aguirre-Basey says hey, you know, this is not normal. And all of a sudden they're like what do you mean? This is not normal. And so that is. It seems like another challenge. If this is so normal to them, how do they even figure out that it's a problem to even come to someone like you?

Speaker 2: 16:28

Okay, brilliant question, I love that question. So one of the things that happens is that I'll ask them about their relationships. I say, oh, I get involved with like toxic boyfriends, toxic girlfriends, like they're kind of hurtful. Okay, and what about school and academics? Yeah, I don't do that. Well, I haven't gotten a good job, I didn't get into a good school. What about? You know, my parents prefer my siblings and all of that. And I say, well, why is that? And they said, well, obviously I said, like, what do you mean? Obviously he said, well, just because I'm not a good person, I'm a very unworthy person. And okay, so an unworthy person deserves what Deserves toxic boyfriends, deserves shitty jobs, deserves punishment, deserves, you know that gets you to determine that you're this awful human being deserving all of this stuff.

Speaker 2: 20:15

We say, well, what are you talking about? It's been there all my life. But who taught you that? How did you learn English? I grew up in an English-speaking family who taught you to hate yourself. You had teachers who taught you to hate yourself. Who were those teachers? You weren't born hating yourself. A child is not born hating itself. A child is not born speaking English. You know it has to learn. You have to learn to hate yourself.

Speaker 2: 20:41

And once you sort of introduce this idea that you've learned to hate yourself, that you had teachers from very, very, very early on, you don't question that the way you're using English is correct or not, because those were your teachers and they did. And maybe if you got a grammar statement wrong, they would say, okay, hey, you know there, and there is two different words, this is how you use it. But once you've internalized it, people aren't thinking about you as like oh, I wonder if he's thinking about French. But in other words, when somebody is hating themselves, they're just living in the world. They're not manifesting any symptoms of self-hatred in the way that somebody with depression might isolate, or somebody who's misusing substances will be intoxicated, or who's bipolar would be manic. Misusing substances will be intoxicated, or whose bipolar would be manic. But the choices that they're making is a reflection of that inner state that says I don't deserve better than what I have, because I am not a good human being.

Speaker 1: 21:40

It reminds me of humans we live from stories, and we live from the stories that we're told. So it's like this idea if we're told this particular story, we buy into that story, and then we live out that story in our lives. And so, essentially, what you're saying is someone told them this story, or they learned this story by watching other people who believe the same story, and then they walk around in the world living out that story. You introduce this new sort of idea that you don't have to live in this story anymore, and perhaps that's the first time that their perception changes enough to go. Wait a minute, there's another reality here, you know.

Speaker 1: 22:18

One of the things I'm interested in, though, is that somehow they must know and this always comes up for me with my naturopathic background, with this idea that there's this healing power in nature, that there's this sort of inner knowing. So somehow they know in some way that there's this toxic environment, that the boyfriend is toxic, that this is somehow bad and not good, and I'm wondering how you see this, because it's almost like this, this internal, deep knowing that they are living from a toxic story, and then here you come along and introduce a new concept. So I'm wondering if there is something there that is sort of like this driving force that is waiting to come out to free them from this yeah, no, it's, it's, it's.

Speaker 2: 23:02

You know that it's a very I love. Do we have two hours to talk about this? Because?

Speaker 2: 23:10

I love being on the show with you already. So this if you make the statement like, let's just say, someone comes to you and says hey, you know, I hate myself. Now, first of all, what the heck does that mean? If I say I hate the shape of my nose, well, okay, but okay, first of all, what's this concept of self that you're hating?

Speaker 2: 23:36

Now, you know, when I had a case and these are all de-identified, because this happens a lot anyway so I had a case and I've had many, many cases of young women, say, who've been sexually abused by their step parents or an uncle or something, and that's just, sadly and tragically, very, very common, and that's all that they will know for some period of time. And they will then start to think about like, oh, are other kids? Is this happening to other kids? Is this happening to my siblings? Is this happening to other kids? Is this happening to my siblings? And when the answer is no, then the only conclusion that they can come up with is that either they're very special, somehow, but then when they're starting to feel hurt, when they're starting to feel confused, it must be because I'm flawed. And then they go and they get older and they move on, and then they start dating. But what they know is that there's a certain kind of cruelty, a certain kind of disrespect that comes with relationships, because the thing that made the other person feel good was kind of a toxic control over this young child, and so that's the thing that they know. And so when there's tenderness, when there's kindness, it's very, very, very confusing. And at the same time they know that it's fundamental level they don't actually like what's happening to them, but they just can't contextualize it, so something doesn't feel right.

Speaker 2: 25:03

You know, I'll tell you something like if I, if ever I, end up on a desert island and you know where I am, what I would have said to you is Jay, send me a baguette every day, because I love a baguette with a good cheddar. I have to tell you, I turned 50 and I started to bloat and I started to get fuzzy in my head and I couldn't understand it. I knew that there was something wrong, but I couldn't understand where this was coming from. And it turns out that after I turned 50, I became gluten intolerant. And it's such a sad love. I used to sneak into the kitchen at like four at night just to have a bite of bread, just to see if, like, maybe the bread wouldn't know that it was being eaten, and that wouldn't be you know, but then I would still, then I would still get sick.

Speaker 2: 25:52

So my body knew. The body actually knew. It wasn't cognitive until I started to pair those things together. So at some level all of us are wise, every single human. Every single human is wise. Some of us hide it very well, some of us don't let it shine. But wisdom knows. And wisdom is not verbal. Wisdom is intuitive. Actually, language does a tremendous violence to our experience. We try to capture ideas in words because they're the best tools that we have, but again, if you're speaking to that Sudanese person, they won't know what the heck you're talking about. So we're trying to you know, like, but at some level you're right, at some level they know. And then when you start to take this experience apart, then they can begin to see how very early learning has led to you know these kinds of experiences.

Speaker 1: 26:50

Yeah, I love this idea because I see it. I see it as well. I see that some part of them definitely knows, and I kind of see it like when people ask me how would I know that I have some of these erroneous stories or dysfunctional stories or damaging stories, and I go. Well, if you look at your repeated patterns, your recurrent obstacles, stuck emotions I'm interested in your take on this stuck emotions because from my perspective, you know, emotions are meant to be felt, not lived. You shouldn't be getting stuck in an emotion that you're living out. And so these patterns, these obstacles, these emotions that recur again and again, I go.

Speaker 1: 27:28

That obviously is about some kind of story you're living from, because it's your pattern, it's your obstacle, it's your stuck emotion. And then you can begin to or I began to point out to them that there is another story, there is another choice point here, and it sounds to me like that's what you're doing. They're walking around with blinders on, they come to see Dr Aguirre and he's like hey, look at this. And their perception expands a little bit and this begins to open them up. And so I'm wondering is this the first step in this sort of perception? Switch in. Okay, I do not have to hate myself. Maybe I am not as unworthy, Maybe there is a choice here.

Speaker 2: 28:12

Well, and, by the way, you're right, I love the blinders analogy. The only thing is it would be worse if you didn't even know you were wearing blinders 100%.

Speaker 1: 28:21

So that's the thing Now think about language.

Speaker 2: 28:23

What do people say when they are angry? If they were to tell somebody that they were angry, what do they say?

Speaker 1: 28:30

yeah, they're gonna be like. You know I hate you, or no, no, no, but just say you're experiencing anger right now, what would you say?

Speaker 2: 28:37

what would? How would you describe what you're experiencing? What do most people say? If you're angry right now and you say I, or you say you're sad, you say I am.

Speaker 1: 28:49

Yeah, I'm sad, I'm angry.

Speaker 2: 28:51

I am angry. Now, when you say I am angry, when you say I am sad, you fuse the concept of anger and sadness with the self. If you were to look up anger in the Oxford English Dictionary, there would not be a picture of you. You and sadness and you and anger are very different things. Now, if you say I feel angry, I feel sad, you're separating, you're defusing, you're disconnecting you and that entity, and you know that's one of the things that keeps people stuck is even, just, even just language. I am angry. Well, I thought you were somebody else. You know? Do I call you angry from now on? I am sad? So like no, you feel sad because feelings are transient, feelings can change. So let's even start. Even if you were to say to yourself I, and then just even use your own name, I'm feeling sad, you're already starting to like disconnect yourself from that experience.

Speaker 2: 29:57

So yeah, so one thing is to actually point out that they're wearing blinders and that they've. You know, if I say to, if I've been teaching you in math, one plus one is three. One plus one is three. One plus one is three. One plus one is three. Erroneous, erroneous, erroneous. Now you get to the final exam and the final exam question is what's one plus one? And it's the thing that's going to get you into college and you are certain you're going to put a three because that's what you've been taught. And then the professors other professor said no, you're wrong. I said no, well, I was taught that I am right, because you don't have a context under which you understand that that's wrong.

Speaker 1: 30:28

And that is incredibly disorienting, very disorienting.

Speaker 2: 30:32

Very, very disorienting. You can say, well, somebody taught you something incorrectly. So I'm going to point out that you've been looking at the world through a very narrow perspective. Point out that you've been looking at the world through a very narrow perspective. We see this today a lot in like politics and you know, media consumption, all of that sort of stuff. That ability to think maybe that's not true. Or, alternatively, if somebody thinks this one thought they're terrible human beings, if they think this one thought they're wonderful, and then we erase any other kind of ways of thinking that they might have that you might disagree with. So that ability to say that is a perspective. And I understand how you got to that perspective, because you were taught that perspective. That perspective is wrong. Not only is it inaccurate, it's also extremely hurtful. And they say, no, I'm really terrible. I say, well, you know how many Russians have you killed? Or Ukrainians have you killed? Okay, well, maybe I'm not that terrible.

Speaker 2: 31:31

Okay, I can also start to lessen the level of terribleness that a person is, because it does get into this idea of taking an emotion and you called it an entity, right.

Speaker 1: 31:50

And so this idea and I'm wondering I do this in my work too and I'm wondering if this is part of what you do with this is that what I will do?

Speaker 1: 31:53

And this is in some of the work of you know comes from internal family systems, maybe parts work, maybe, you know, even shamanism has some of this within it, this idea that, okay, if I feel anger, I'm not anger, I feel anger but then I can.

Speaker 1: 32:07

I love the way you called it an entity because I can essentially, once I see anger as an entity, it's almost like I'm having a conversation with anger in the room. In the same way, I'm having a conversation with you right now and I can analyze anger in a different way. And when I do that, all of a sudden I understand something that I did not before, and this is another way, in my way, of seeing. That perception is altered and I'm wondering is this part of what you do in this work? I certainly do it in my work, but I'm also wondering if this is part of what you do or these part of the steps, because I want to start unpacking. How do we unwind this knotted ball of I hate myself and I'm wondering what those steps might be, and this idea of creating this emotional distance is part of it.

Speaker 2: 32:57

Yeah, so I think because many people who you know I get referred patients, who other therapists have said oh, this person has a lot of self-hatred and we don't know what to do. Because, by the way, that's the other thing is like we have treatments for obsessive compulsive disorder, for adhd, for bipolar disorder and all these things. But if somebody has self-hatred, like, what are you going to do about it? Because what?

Speaker 1: 33:20

do, you do for that.

Speaker 2: 33:20

You know, so say you know so, so, so step one has to be the recognition that you've learned something, because you know love comes much more naturally to the human heart than hatred. Does I mean if we, if everybody, carried hatred like we would probably be dead as a species? Um, you know, killing ourselves and they. Obviously there is a lot of hatred, but there's much, much, much more love in the world. And because love comes much more naturally to the human heart than hatred, does that, if you could learn to hate, you can also learn to love. And maybe love is too much to even think about, you know, when you first come to talk to me, but maybe just like yourself or dislike, or hate yourself a little less, or maybe just dislike yourself. It's just like lower the temperature of that. So, but it starts off with the idea. So I asked the people okay, you hate yourself, you've learned to hate yourself. You weren't born hating yourself. You weren't born speaking English. You had to learn because of interactions with the environment, because of conclusions that a very young mind, without context, learned about themselves. Okay, so that's step one. Okay, so then I actually get them to write it down, because when we name and label phenomena, it actually defames those phenomena to a certain extent, rather than just making a statement. Just tell me more about it. It's a little bit like, you know, columbo back in the day or Sherlock Holmes is like, okay, we're really going to analyze exactly what's going on here. So I want to start off. When did you start learning to hate yourself? Who were your teachers, to hate yourself? Who were your teachers? What were the experiences that you had with those teachers? And also, that's also like kind of disconcerting. What do you mean my teachers? I said no, the bullies at school. You know the people who have misused you, the people who maltreated you, the people who told you that you weren't enough, the people who told you that your grades weren't good enough, the people who said you weren't going to amount to anything. You know those teachers. And, by the way, why are you listening to those teachers? Do you want to be like them? You know, if you want to be like them, follow their teaching. If you don't want to be like them, then don't follow their teaching. You're following teaching of bad teachers, so okay. So then they start to write it down and then they start to see what.

Speaker 2: 38:52

And I say wait a second Now. Do you have other people in your life who teach you something different than you are actually worthy? How do you be, how do you feel? When you're in the presence of people who aren't mistreating you? I feel better, but skeptical. Okay, that's fine. But what's that teaching you about the interactions that you need to have, and what is it that those people are seeing in you that don't find you so toxic? And maybe you know? And they say, well, they don't really see me. You know, they don't really know. I said, well, listen, if you're this terrible. And they say, well, they don't really see me. You know, they don't really know. I said, well, listen, if you're this terrible, terrible human being, I probably need to go either to the police or the FBI. So let's just start. You know, are you killing neighborhood dogs?

Speaker 2: 39:41

No, Are you, you know, slamming doors on little old ladies. No Well, what is your crime Like? What is this terrible thing that you need to hate yourself for? And you know it starts to crumble. So I think that, just like a deep into what that experience is, is critical in changing it. But what doesn't work is telling them that they need to love themselves, or telling them to that they're worthy or that you care about them.

Speaker 2: 40:09

That just doesn't work, because it's not believable, and I'll often say in a very irreverent way look, I accept it, you're a pretty awful human being, I get it, but you're not worthy of hate, you're not worthy of going to prison for it. Can we just start to reduce the level of self-hatred, to just self-dislike, something like that, and then, once they start to see that this immutable idea can shift a little bit, now you've got movement, but it's when it's this cannot change that, then there's nothing you can do and you know.

Speaker 1: 40:44

It reminds me of and I guess this is the idea of the dialectical behavior therapy that you do right it reminds me of this sort of Socratic questioning where it's like let's actually go into the questioning of the story that you're telling and check the accuracy of it and, as they see that it's not as accurate, because they have this objective voice that's essentially saying let's analyze this story, then you start to unwind the knots, and so I really love that. So am I getting that right?

Speaker 1: 41:12

This is sort of this dialectical approach where we're essentially challenging the stories that they're telling themselves, starting at a very low level and basically just dismantling slowly these knots that they've created around why they're so bad. And I'm wondering how long does this take? Because I can imagine this big ball of yarn with all these knots in it and you're sort of picking at it slowly but surely, and every once in a while you'll come across a big knot where five or six knots unwind all at once. How fast does this happen? Do they begin to see this pretty quickly, or is this months? Is this years?

Speaker 2: 41:50

Yeah, so I've been working. So you know, if we go back, you know to your point. So I'm a practitioner of dialectical behavior therapy, which combines meditation with Western cognitive behavioral therapy. A lot of the meditations were based initially on Zen Buddhist principles, but subsequently all faiths have a meditative tradition that encompasses a lot of the mindfulness practices. So it's not a religious mindfulness, it's sort of like a paying attention to the here and now that is based on reality and not the creation of your mind. I mean you could argue that. I mean you know, everything's just perception, but I'm just saying like, if somebody isn't hurting you right now, you can't then say somebody's hurting me right now. It's just like, yes, I have the memory of somebody hurting me in the past. So you combine mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Speaker 2: 42:47

Now, because I treat people, many of the people I treat have a condition known as borderline personality disorder, and what we know about people with borderline personality disorder is that they have tragically, if you need, hospital level of care. Tragically, they have a very high level of suicide. About 10% of people who have hospital-level care for borderline personality disorder will die by suicide and many will attempt Because their life, their emotional pain, is so much that the well you know they're in that much pain? Yeah, it can make sense. But what about psychological pain so bad that death seems preferable?

Speaker 2: 43:42

So dialectical behavior therapy was the first therapy to show marked reductions in suicide and self-destructive behavior. And even though we were able to really reduce suicide and self-destructive behaviors in people with very severe borderline personality disorder and we've had a lot of success tragically we've lost a few young people to suicide. It just it pained me so much that we would lose people who I just admired, who I loved, who I just cared about, and also the suffering of their parents. I thought what is it that they have in common that we haven't really paid attention to? And the one thing that showed up time and time again when I reviewed their records was self-hatred.

Speaker 2: 44:31

So, you know, I mean you could have say asthma, but then not hate yourself. But maybe you have asthma and you hate yourself. So a lot of people with more like personality issues don't hate themselves. A lot of people with eating disorders don't hate themselves. A lot of people with other conditions don't necessarily hate themselves. But then when self-hatred is included in the experience of emotional suffering, the idea is you know that I need to take my life. And actually there's very, very little research on self-hatred. But the small amount of research that there is shows that the reason and this is the interpersonal theory of suicide, the reason that people will take their lives is because they feel that they're a burden to the world and to those around them and that you know, it's ironically.

Speaker 2: 45:24

They feel it's a kindness that they're doing to their world. You know, say well, how can that person who's so awful be kind to the world anyway? You know, that doesn't make make sense, so so that's why it became so critical. You know, I really I mean, I'd rather people do lots of, you know stuff that I think maybe is not that adaptive or whatever it is, then hate themselves, because that level of profound self-hatred causes so much emotional pain, and if you already have emotional pain, it's magnified.

Speaker 1: 45:54

Yeah, when I even think about the way you describe that, it's like unfathomable to me this idea of this amount of pain. So you can really, when you describe it that way, you can really begin to feel it. One of the things that strikes me and I'm curious about this because you mentioned meditation and so from my perspective and what I think I know, you know, given the work that I do is that most of these things seem to be at the unconscious level, and so one of the problems I've always had and feel free to push back on this one of the problems I've always had with therapy is that therapy is changing. There's lots of different tools, but in general, my sort of idea is that it's very process oriented, it's very rational, it's very much like rational, logical, process oriented stuff. And I was always kind of looking at me like this stuff is at the unconscious level, and I love the way you put it.

Speaker 1: 46:45

This is just a language we speak. We're not necessarily even aware why we speak this language. It's at this unconscious level. Then I go well, we're going to need some other tools that get to that level of consciousness. You know, if I'm in beta brainwave states and I'm talking to you, I'm not going to be able to access some of this stuff. So putting myself in, you know, theta states or alpha states, through meditative practices or other ways, seems to me to make a bigger difference in being able to talk to someone. And I'm wondering is this how you see it and is this why you, you know, move towards meditation, and what other techniques do you use? Because I just don't see how we make a difference just with talk therapy, if we're not getting into the subconscious realm.

Speaker 2: 50:17

Yeah, so, so, so, okay, let me ask you this what's your spleen doing right now? No idea what's your bone marrow doing right now? So here we have this entire thing that we call the body and we're unaware of all the things that are happening inside of it. You know, and maybe you could say well, if I'm having trouble breathing, yeah, my lungs aren't working well enough, or I'm having a heart arrhythmia, but the vast majority your pancreas right now.

Speaker 2: 50:47

What's it doing? Your you know your kneecaps? What are they doing? We're not aware of the vast majority of processes and organ functions or anything like that. That's happening most of the time. And even if you were to say, okay, I'm going to really pay careful attention to what my spleen is doing, you know well, first of all, where is my spleen? I don't know what it's doing. You know I'd have to look it up, and yet without its functioning, you know, most of us probably wouldn't be around without the liver's functioning, without the pancreas' function, without all of these things that we're not aware of, you know.

Speaker 2: 51:24

So then, how do you bring awareness to stuff that we're not aware of? And you know, we have to have a degree of intentionality in terms of like, even sort of paying attention to it. One of the things that I do in therapy is that when I notice energy changes, energy state changes in the interaction that I'm having with a patient, I get them to stop talking. I say you know what, by the way, there are going to be times when I'm going to ask you to stop talking, and what I want you to do is I want you to pay attention to what your body is telling you Are you shutting down? Are your muscles more tense? Do you have an urge to hide? Do you have an urge to turn away from me? I just want you to not talk because that's going to get you to much, much deeper awareness. You know, if you're going for a jog down a trail in Arizona and you hear a rattle and you see this thing that looks like a snake, you look at it, you know, you just jump, you do something, you don't stop and you say, hmm, I wonder if that's a six-banded. You know like rattlesnake with. You know toxic venom.

Speaker 2: 52:39

You know that we are pre-verbal, fundamentally as a way of surviving. We have the tools built into the system. We just have to pay attention to them. You know, if you tell somebody to use a map, they don't know how to use a map. But you say, well, I just use an app. So, like, don't appify your life. You know it's like the tools are right there. Your body, it's its own warning system. You can pay attention to that. So it's sort of like I don't get very cognitive. I want people to sort of experience and when they're experiencing, then trying to put some words like wow, talking about that, shut me down. Okay, like what was that feeling? Like you know what was dwell in that feeling? Because those feelings, when they're very painful, what we want to do is avoid. But we know that avoidance of suffering causes more suffering.

Speaker 1: 53:28

So it's like stay in that suffering.

Speaker 2: 53:30

It's not going to kill you and you'll learn how to master it. Your body will learn how to master it. Earlier on, I told you I like to train in the cold. I can stay outside in 25-degree weather with a T-shirt on because my body I mean humans survived multiple ice ages. They don't have heaters or like hand warmers or anything like that. The body knows, so we can tune into that without being verbal.

Speaker 1: 53:59

You know what, blaze, I love this. This may be the most the best part of this conversation with you for me, because I've never really heard someone say so simply how we can tap into the unconscious mind. And what you're telling us is just that, when you feel these things, stop and feel these things. Once you get if I'm hearing you right, just getting into the experience and the feeling is dropping into the unconscious, it is getting out of logic, and I think that you know, for you listeners, I think this is pretty profound. It's very simple, but it's pretty profound. You don't have you profound.

Speaker 1: 54:34

Dr Aguirre is not telling you that you have to go and meditate. What he's saying is stop, feel, be in the experience. And, if I'm hearing you right, the more you do that, the more you are getting in touch with the unconscious. Now, what happens from that, I wonder, is that the stories begin to unwind. You begin to become aware of the stories associated with emotions. You know, when I think of emotions, I think of they can trigger stories, but they're also triggered from stories, and so I'm imagining, then, that maybe the next step, as you begin to drop into these experiential states and kind of stop and just feel that perhaps these stories begin to appear to you and begin to unwind. Your perception starts to widen. Is that the goal? Totally.

Speaker 2: 55:18

You know, if you, you know, imagine you go to the zoo and you see a tiger and then you like start freaking out Tension, narrows, focus, narrows. And then you sort of like, wait a second, take a breath, experience what's happening. Okay, I'm not in India, I'm not in some jungle, I'm at the zoo. And then what happens is, as you begin to pay attention, as you slow that whole process down, your awareness expands. It's very, very important for survival to narrow attention when there's a threat, when there's a real threat. You know, like if your house is on fire, you don't want to be discussing Socrates with your neighbor. You know, it's like that's all you're focusing on. But when it's just a creation of your mind and you sort of say, wait a second, like what's going on right now? Is there actually a fire? What's happening in my body? What is the fear? What am I causing? I'm just going to dwell in that experience. As you sink in, what happens is that narrowness of focus then expands and then you can see so much more, and that's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 56:27

I've had this happen lots of times with myself and clients where I'll say, get them into this state, this feeling, experiential state, and then you know, essentially ask them, where is this familiar? And oftentimes, when you say that it does go back to, oftentimes they can go back to that original sort of seed story that seeded the actual belief, and so I just love this, this way of looking at it, for sure.

Speaker 2: 56:53

The one thing where and some of my colleagues will think I get a little bit extreme on this is that you know we think about people will often say to me yeah, but when are we going to get to the root cause? Okay, now to me insight is overrated. Do you know what people who smoke know about smoking?

Speaker 1: 57:11

A lot that it's not good for them. Yeah, it doesn't stop them from smoking.

Speaker 2: 57:15

That's insight. They have insight. People who don't exercise know that not exercising is not good for them. That's insight doesn't stop them from doing it. Simply having insight, simply knowing that you were mistreated, is not in and of itself enough, because it doesn't change what actually happened you. You might have some more awareness. You then have to say that taught me something, and I have to unlearn that. It doesn't say that that didn't happen. I'm not saying you're not going to stop and say no, that didn't happen. It's just that that taught me something about myself. That wasn't true.

Speaker 2: 57:49

And the other thing is this when people ask for the root cause, they say like, what is the root cause? I say it's the Big Bang. Without the Big Bang, none of this would have happened. Because, because you know, you say that that person abused you. Okay, but what? Why was that person abusive? What happened to them that they were abusive? Maybe their parents abused them? Okay, but what happened that their parents abused them? Well, maybe their parents?

Speaker 2: 58:15

Well, how far back do you have to go along the series of events? Because just simply looking for the root cause doesn't actually get you to a point of healing. You can understand that certain bad things have happened. You can say that's the cause. But every single cause in the universe has a cause, and so you know you have to go back in time, you know, gazillions of years, billions, in order to get to the original cause. So I don't you know, I'm just saying it's part of like what explains things. But it's like, okay, but this is your life right now. Do you have to continue to live with that false story, with that false premise, or can you make you know, or can you make a different decision?

Speaker 1: 58:56

I love this because this is this idea of like okay, and this is part of my problem with therapy. It's right, okay, so we've processed it, we've tried to figure it out, but ultimately, in the end, we're going to have to take ownership of it, radical responsibility for it, and decide that we're going to do something different with it. Right, because if you dwell on the cause that's still keeping yourself stuck in this sort of victim state, at some point you have to own and do something with it. And I love that you're speaking to that, because to me, this is where we get into the idea of resilience. And certainly we go back to this idea of your teachers.

Speaker 1: 59:29

And if you look at it from that perspective, well, what can I do with these lessons? Then I can grow myself, I can enrich others, I can evolve the world, and this is putting someone in a position of power. And I'm wondering is this what eventually begins to happen? As people begin to unwind this? Do they start to see their trials, their tribulations, their traumas as something to learn from, grow from, teach from, create from?

Speaker 2: 59:56

You know if you want to hike. So I live in New England and the highest mountain is Mount Washington. You know 6,000 feet. So for people who are listening to you in India or in Western United States, they're going to say that's like a foothill.

Speaker 2: 1:00:11

But in order to get to the top of the mountain. There's some very easy sections, but there's some very, very rough sections. Now, if somebody were to say to me, your goal is to get to the top of the mountain, but I will take away all the rough sections, and I'd say, yeah, that's great, okay, but without those rough sections I'm not getting to the top of the mountain. And if you were to think about your life, think about your own personal life, and for most people you've suffered. I mean, you cannot be a human being and not have suffered in some way, that you've had moments that were the darkest moments in your life. And if I were to say to you, I will take those all away, but you won't know where you are Because they've shaped you.

Speaker 2: 1:00:58

So, rather than saying that those were bad and those were good, and certainly that there were some very, very, very hurtful moments, but they've shaped you to be who you are in this present moment, they were part of that journey to get to the top of the mountain. That is you, and so you needed to go through them in order for them to shape it. Top of the mountain, that is you, and so you needed to go through them in order for them to shape it. So if you could sort of say I am stronger, I'm more aware, I'm more resilient because of those things, then they were wonderful teachers and it's unfortunate that they had to be so cruel and hurtful at times, but they shaped you and most people, once they get to the other side of not hating themselves, are grateful that they've that.

Speaker 2: 1:01:36

Not that the things happened, but that they that, that because of them they met the people that they met, that they've done the things that they've done, because because it shaped them, it kind of funneled them into where they are right now. And most people not everybody, and I get that right now. And most people not everybody, and I get that wouldn't give up all the terrible things if they wouldn't be where they are right now. Some would, some would say I would change my life completely.

Speaker 2: 1:02:06

But most are saying, yeah, it's okay. And why is it that we're labeling the good events that happened as wonderful? I don't remember the majority of my good events. I remember the most of my painful events and I know what they meant to me, how much I suffered when my mom was dying, and it just pointed out how much we were connected. It's okay. She's still in my head like telling me not to do certain things.

Speaker 1: 1:02:35

Yeah, it reminds me of you know this's still in my head, like telling me not to do certain things. Yeah, it reminds me of you know this is. This does remind me.

Speaker 1: 1:02:39

I read a lot in the area of Taoism and Buddhism. You know, pain is the path to purpose. Suffering is a source of meaning. Your hurt can be a way to help, and I do think this is the power of being human. I would agree with you that part of being a next level human is taking the painful bricks of our lives and figuring out a way to build something of value with them, and those are the things that we're most proud of. I see fulfillment as the quintessential human emotion, not necessarily contentment or happiness, because fulfillment has that sense of I did something of meaning with my life.

Speaker 1: 1:03:10

I'm so excited for the work that you are doing. Certainly, from my perspective, next Level Humans this is what they do right. They take their work, they teach and create from it. Your book is obviously going to do this for people. I want to just give you a chance to wrap up any other things that you want to say, and I want to remind the listener that Dr Aguirre's book is coming out February 11th. I hate myself. I'm certainly going to be getting a copy and reading it. I just love this conversation. Anything you want to leave us with before we end.

Speaker 2: 1:03:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:03:42

So if anybody out there is sort of like, if this concept like resonates with them, I want them to know deeply, deeply and fundamentally that they learned how to hate themselves and that that is not their future, that is not their destiny, that they can learn another language.

Speaker 2: 1:04:03

They don't have to buy into the marketing of, of we market to self-hatred, like if you buy this product you'll be prettier and you'll be curvier and you'll be smarter. You know like you aren't good enough as you are right now and that once you begin to not label yourself as a second class citizen deserving of self-hatred and you're able to kind of see that you had teachers who told you that you weren't good enough and you can break away from that teaching and you can away from that learning and you can see the glory of who you are as a human being. It lifts so much pain and that's been the reason I finally published the book was because when I saw people who took this idea that they believed would never change and it changed and they've done something with their lives and they couldn't believe it, it's just like it's glorious. It's so much joy for me to see them so content. So at peace, you know, and that any listener who's out there can get there as well.

Speaker 1: 1:05:01

So yeah, no, so thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:05:03

Thank you so much for having me on the show. It's just, I love the questions, the probing and yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:05:12

Yeah, it's been. It's been a real joy for me as well. Dr Blaise Aguirre, you guys check out his new book and do me a do me a favor, blaze, just stay on the line. I just want to make sure we get everything uploaded. But for all of you, thank you so much for hanging out on the Next Level Human podcast and we will see you at the next show.