The Detached podcast
Welcome to the podcast. This is a space where I get to vocalize my thoughts and dive deep into conversations with some truly remarkable individuals. It’s not about surface-level chit-chat—this is where we get into the real stuff. We talk about the things that matter: health, fitness, relationships, and the process of breaking free from the limitations we place on ourselves.
I don’t believe in small talk, because nothing meaningful ever comes from it. So, let's dig deep into the topics that can actually change your life. I want to bring you value, provoke your thinking, and help you see the world differently.
If you resonate with these conversations, I’d love for you to share the podcast with others. Your support means everything.
Let's get into it.
Sophia
The Detached podcast
EP 89: Who Are You When No One is Watching? Dr. Shaheem
What happens when you leave home and recreate your identity in a new place? How can you break free from people-pleasing patterns that no longer serve you? And what does it really take to design an authentic relationship that thrives long-term?
In this thought-provoking conversation, Dr. Shaheem draws from her extensive experience as a psychologist and researcher to explore the architecture of our identities and relationships. Having studied diaspora experiences and personality development across cultures, she offers a unique perspective on how we can deliberately design our lives rather than operating on autopilot.
The discussion introduces powerful concepts like "roaming" – moving through life with wrong programming installed by others – and explains how deepening self-awareness can become your secret weapon for navigating life's transitions. Dr. Shaheem challenges the quick-fix culture of social media advice, offering nuanced insights on everything from cultural adaptation to relationship dynamics.
Particularly illuminating is her evolution-not-revolution approach to personal change, especially for recovering people-pleasers. Rather than abruptly cutting people off (as often advised online), she suggests becoming a "people easer" who values their needs equally with others while maintaining genuine generosity. For relationships, she dismantles the myth of finding a perfect partner, instead describing love as a verb – something you choose daily – and relationships as third entities that require intentional nurturing.
Whether you're contemplating a major life change, struggling with career identity, or seeking more authentic connections, Dr. Shaheem’s wisdom provides a blueprint for redesigning your life at any stage. As she reminds us, "What gets you here may not get you there" – but with curiosity and deliberate design, you can create a life that generates joy rather than anxiety and depletion.
Ready to pull up your personal blueprint? Listen now and discover how to architect a life that truly reflects who you are.
Check out Dr. Shaheem here : https://www.instagram.com/drshaheem/
welcome back to another episode of the detached podcast. I'm going to try my best to not have this episode about me today, because I have a guest, dr shaheen on, who has dove into psychology from such an early age and she's practiced for so long. And in my early years, when I was 19 years old, I went for my first therapy session and it was the greatest gift I could have ever had. So this is why I tell you this story, because today I want to give you a gift, and I have a gift set right in front of me.
Speaker 2:Oh, sophia, thank you so much. I'm it's a pleasure and privilege to join you and your audience.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for being on the podcast today. My pleasure. So I just want to kind of dive in a little bit deeper now and just understand the foundational points of your life and what you're doing right now, so the listener gets a greater understanding of who you are, of course, you know, as you mentioned, psychology has been interwoven into every different activity that I've been part of.
Speaker 2:So, whether I was a university professor, as a professor of psychology and leadership that's how I started my early career or as a consultant, a learning and development consultant, working at different consultancies with organizations, private and public governments, and so on, as well as working one-on-one with different clients. So I became an executive coach somewhere along my career, so neuroleadership type coaching, which I think blends very nicely with psychological principles and nuances, and my research was in the area of personality and identity. So I did my PhD research looking at predominantly all our stories, our stories of people who live in the diaspora what happens when you leave home and you go live in a host country, what changes, what stays the same and what repatriation issues might come up when people go back home, is home still home? So I've always been interested in cross-cultural psychology and personality and just everything that is about the human experience.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a lovely intro because I feel like living in Dubai right, a lot of us were 80% expats here, so what happens when you leave your home country?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we have to take a couple of steps back and ask who are you before you leave, right? So what kind of international experiences did you have before leaving? International schools, perhaps, or travel? What is your socioeconomic status? You know, are you going with a comfortable financial situation or not? Do you speak the language of the host culture? So all these sort of predisposed variables very much impact the experience that people have once they arrive. Are you going to immigrate? Are you going to stay for a short amount of time? Are you going as a tourist?
Speaker 2:So there's different types and groups of individuals in cultural transition.
Speaker 2:For us, as you mentioned, in Dubai, we're sojourners, so we are people who travel for work for a particular period of time with the purpose of going back home, and we all know the Dubai story, right?
Speaker 2:People come and say, oh, I'm going to stay two years or three years and then I'm going back home, and it's just wonderful to see that they build these really meaningful lives and they contribute so much to the fabrics of the United Arab Emirates that have made this place so safe and secure for us to thrive in that people end up staying and for some of them it's quite hard to go back home because they get used to a particular lifestyle here, right. So there are changes to your cultural identity, there are additives, there's subtractions, and once you go back home, you almost have to renegotiate again. What am I going to keep? What am I going to abandon? What am I going to integrate back into what I call home? But there's no doubt that the person that you were when you first came here will be a transformed version when you go back. So, good or bad, there'll be a sort of transformation that takes place.
Speaker 1:When people leave their home country, often it can be a certain element of escapism. You know they want to escape their homes, so my mother used to always say to me you'll always bring your problems wherever you go. Yeah, wise mom, and that was something I learned very early on that a place isn't going to make me happier. But I'd like to know your thoughts on that. Do you think it's easier for someone to develop themselves in a new country and to take their problems with them and figure it out as they go on? Yeah, or do you think someone should develop?
Speaker 2:understand who they are before they migrate. You know, sophia, this question is really important for two reasons One, because of the topic and the concept that you're asking, and two, because of all the content and the cliches and the platitudes that we're bombarded with on a daily basis on social media. So many amateurs unfortunately people who do not have the education or the experience you know are sharing posts about is it this or is it that? And we're constantly bombarded with polarized views of you know how we should define who we are and how we should live in a particular way, about what's right and what's wrong. The other day, I saw a post about gratitude and that it said you know, stop telling people to be grateful. That's gaslighting. You're gaslighting them.
Speaker 2:No, but there's a time and space for gratitude and there's a time and space for grieving.
Speaker 2:There's a time and space for us to be able to say this location no longer serves me emotionally and psychologically and I need to redesign who I want to be and where I want to be.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean that you need to solve everything and to be able to reset everything while you're in that particular location. You can make the decision to go, but also to work on what it is that you need to work on as you're bridging the two locations, not to think that the new place will have all the answers, because it's not about the location, it's about the environment, your internal location. It's about how you introspectively dive in and do the work to sit with the discomfort and understanding of what am I going through, what have I been through, how can I retain the lessons but release the pain of what I've experienced and how do I take those lessons with me into this new location so that I'm not repeating past patterns, so that I'm able to reset and sort of redesign, so that I'm able to reset and sort of redesign who I want to be with this new environment. That may be better for me.
Speaker 1:What kind of advice would you give to someone prior to them leaving to a new destination? Should they set the intention before they go?
Speaker 2:I think so. I think, you know planning is so important. I'm a big planner, you know, and I think that it's about awareness of self and awareness of goals. To sit down and really understand what do I want to do your homework and to practically, pragmatically, to understand, you know, what are the barriers that might come up in regards to this plan. So have a plan but, at the same time, make sure that you're emotionally agile, that you're open to change, that you're able to pivot when needed, that you're not fixed in the plan and that the first barrier that comes up, you know, and some of our friends and family are ready to say I told you. So you know, I told you not to do this. No, but that's okay, you'll find ways around it and you'll find opportunities.
Speaker 2:And I love this quote that says you know, life's rejections are life's redirections, you know, and that the fact that maybe you hadn't thought about this particular avenue or this particular path, but life and the universe has a way of nudging us in certain directions. And so what are the opportunities here? Instead of thinking what could go wrong, or perhaps now I have to abandon this plan, what we need to do is redesign our blueprint to pull that thing up again and look at okay, this was the plan, but maybe it served me at the time in which I designed it and right now it needs to be perhaps redesigned so you can see there's a theme here. Sophia with me, right?
Speaker 1:design, yeah, life's design, yeah. So listening to you speak there, I just had a few ideas inside my mind. As you mentioned, sometimes life will redirect you. I'm sure, for the listeners and even for myself, that we all have someone we can think of in our minds right now that are constantly being redirected. When bad things happen as per se, or negative things happen or they seem to obstacles arise, but they keep going back and doing the same thing, making the same mistakes. But they keep going back and doing the same thing, making the same mistakes. Why do you think people do this?
Speaker 2:Why do they keep wanting to run into the fire? I think it depends, right. So for different circumstances, whether it's professional or personal, or if it's related to friends, it very much depends on an individual basis. But if I had to look at this question holistically, I would say that that person doesn't need to focus on what's happening on the outside, but really needs to deepen their self-awareness. They need to really understand who they are, what are their triggers, what are their preferences, what are their emotional allergies, what are their goals, dreams, delights, you know, dysfunctions, and when we don't know these things, we go through life with something that I refer to as roaming, and roaming is a combination of wrong programming, and as a cross-cultural psychologist, I'm fascinated by words that we have in certain cultures that we don't have in English. But sometimes we find words and other times we have to create words, and this was one of those words that I put together wrong programming.
Speaker 2:And so these individuals were told who they need to be, how they should show up, and there's then a disconnect between who they're authentically meant to be and what the world has been telling them, and family and tradition and culture and relationships. And their fourth grade teacher who said to them oh dear, you're really not creative, are you, sweetheart? It's good, you're good at English, and so that we carry these labels with us rather than really dive in to understand what are my skills, what are my abilities, what can I grow, what are my preferences. So when you deepen your self-awareness, then you understand ah, this is what I'm capable of, this is my potential, this is who I am, and perhaps then your GPS, your internal GPS, will be more accurate in terms of clarity and decision making. But if we're clouded and if we're just roaming when I say the word roaming, sophia, what comes up for you? What do you think about? What's a metaphor that comes?
Speaker 1:up. I hate to say it, but I was thinking of data roaming. Data roaming- when. I travel, I have my roaming on and that's the R-O-A-M-I-N-G right. But when you're roaming, you're connected to other people and maybe not so connected to yourself.
Speaker 2:Yes, and maybe you're wandering around aimlessly, right, I'm just roaming, roaming around. I'm roaming without a plan, without an awareness, without an understanding, and so it feels like walking in the dark and it feels like there's no aim, objective or set dreams, goals and objectives, achievements that we want to get to, and so I think oftentimes these people may be roaming and what they need to do is pause, have a better understanding of who they are, do the work with a professional or with themselves, by themselves, with a trusted friend and there's so many resources now out there and then say, okay, now that I have this better understanding about myself, how can I take it forward? How can I move forward with more clarity and with more objectivity?
Speaker 1:How would you practice this with your friends if you were looking to stop walking in the dark and start walking into the light?
Speaker 2:I think we have to be careful about and especially for me as well. You know you can imagine they're two very different relationships to be able to work with someone in this area, to make sure there's no conflict of interest. When you know someone, feelings get kind of mixed up and intertwined, and so we can help someone think things through. But, with their permission, and say you know, maybe I can ask you some coaching questions, maybe I can ask you some open-ended questions to get you thinking deeper, to broaden your thinking about your life. And oftentimes we ask questions such as you know, are you happy? I mean, what kind of question is that Like? Who is happy all the time? No, do you have happy moments? Yes, what makes you happy? Yes, you know how can you design moments in your life and invite moments in your life to have more happiness? Wonderful, right. But we don't want to ask questions that kind of set us up to fail or that are unattainable or unachievable platitudes. We do want to ask open-ended questions as to you know, what's the best thing about what you're going through at the moment? What's the worst thing about what you're going through at the moment? If you didn't change anything in your life, how would you feel? Is this sustainable? For how long? Right, if you could change two or three things in your life to be happier, to feel more fulfilled, what would they be, those three things? If you made those changes, how would you feel? What would your life look like at that point?
Speaker 2:And there's this wonderful study out of Stanford University, and it's called the Odyssey Life Plan, in which it asks you to sit down and imagine three possible life paths. It says what if you stuck to your life as it is right now? Okay, imagine nothing changes. How would you feel in a couple of years? It is right now. Okay, imagine nothing changes. How would you feel in a couple of years?
Speaker 2:Second plan Imagine that you make some significant changes and you did things that really lift your spirit and warm your heart and you follow your passion and purpose and you have a better understanding of who you are. How would you feel? The third one, which is my favorite, is you get rid of all the rules, you forget about all the practicalities, all the financial restrictions, and you ask yourself what could I do if I wasn't afraid or if I didn't have any financial restrictions? Sophia, you won't believe these three questions, sitting with a friend with a notepad and a pen or a pencil colored pencils, crayons, whatever you like the insights that you could generate as a result of simple questions, because you know why. You're whole, you're resourceful, you're creative, you're perfect, just the way you are, but we have just become so dependent on external voices that we've disconnected from you. Know that internal voice that will help us navigate life better.
Speaker 1:That's really amazing. I feel like this is something I want to sit down with friends and do, but sometimes our closest friends can sometimes not give us the best advice, so how do you pick and choose the right person to speak to?
Speaker 2:and, in this situation, yeah, I think you know we know which friend when we have a bad day right and we want to, we want, we know which friend to call for her or him to say yeah that's right.
Speaker 2:You know, good on you, you're right and they're wrong. But then we also have that friend that says hang on a minute, right, what's your contribution in this situation and how can you be more accountable and take responsibility for what happened? And we need both types of friends, right? And I think that you know, if we seek out too many voices from people who are not professional, we all have our biases and we all have our own projective mechanisms that we may project our own desires, goals and objectives onto you, once again influencing your blueprint, telling you who we think you should be, whereas really the responses should come from you. So gravitate towards the friend that asks you questions for you to generate those insights, rather than the ones that try and dictate what's right and wrong, because only you can decide that and design that.
Speaker 1:When did you figure out that you were this inquisitive person on yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're going to have to ask my mom that, I think, because she'll tell you. Yeah, as a child, like most children, we are very curious and we ask lots and lots of questions. And I traveled a lot, sophia. So by the time I finished high school, I had changed seven schools and that kind of the sort of resilience that is built when you have to adjust and adapt and the sort of psychological immunity that you start to build within your system of every new day at school, every friendship group that has already been formed and you now have to work really hard to try and penetrate. And then, not to mention the universities. I went to the different eight countries that I lived in.
Speaker 2:Curiosity has been my secret weapon. I think it has what has helped me survive, because you cannot go into these different experiences with a fixed mindset. You don't know what you don't know right, and it's only through curiosity that you can figure out. Ah, I need to stay open here. I need to stay inquisitive and curious and get surprised rather than get disappointed. I prefer surprise over that. And so if you don't have fixed expectations, you don't need to get disappointed as much.
Speaker 1:What was the biggest struggles that you had? Going from different schools.
Speaker 2:I think for me it was saying goodbye to friends. That was really tough, having to say goodbye to old friends. One of the biggest challenges was moving from California to Dubai back in the late 80s, early 90s, and so I was this kid that grew up in North America, and now I find myself in Dubai at a Catholic high school with a very different group of population of students from different backgrounds and nationalities, and there were very different to what it is today, and so learning to consolidate the values of my family life with my experience of being a North American kid and then adjusting to the environment here, I got into a little bit of trouble occasionally elaborate on that, I don't know.
Speaker 2:So you know, things like my uniform was always not the right uniform. I rolled it up or I. It was either too long or too short or not the right shade of blue, because I was trying to kind of, you know, experiment with my identity and wanted to be more unique. I spoke my mind, I was taught to share my opinion. I had mixed with boys and girls always, and so sometimes, you know, people mistook that as the fact that I was being too friendly to the opposite sex. But I'd grown up with, you know, female and male friends. I'd push boundaries with curfews and things with my parents and you know they'd say be home at nine and then maybe, you know, by 10, I'd come home and get grounded. So things like that really innocent, super innocent stuff. But they were part of adolescence and growing up.
Speaker 1:What do you think that was a byproduct of, you know, being a bit of a rebel through your teenage years Usually. What is the reasoning behind that?
Speaker 2:Well, you know it's interesting because adolescence is not the same across all cultures. So this Western notion of this period of storm and stress may not play out in exactly the same way in all cultures, and we think it has to do with the level of responsibility and maturity that we're expected to have. And so in collectivist cultures, where kids are required to engage in chores and work on fields and contribute to the household activities and roles and responsibilities, there's discipline and there are expectations, and so we don't have as much time to get into trouble, whereas in other societies, more individualistic societies, you've got a longer tolerance and this period of time for people to grow up, if you will, and during that time we cannot deny the hormonal changes that are happening. So the biological basis of behavior and the psychological changes that are going on. That by Eric Erickson is a professor of social psychology and he looks at the lifespan, development in a lifespan, and he says adolescence is a period of time in which we're developing our identity. So there's role confusion in order for there to be identity creation.
Speaker 2:So you need to experiment, you need to. Who am I? Am I who my parents are? Am I who my parents are or am I who my friends say I should be and who they are, and that sense of belonging becomes really pivotal and paramount. Not at home, we don't care as much to be accepted and to belong at home because we take that for granted. But now at school and amongst our friends groups, we want to fit in. We want to belong at home because we take that for granted, but now at school and amongst our friends groups, we want to fit in, we want to belong, we want to lead, and so we do stupid things Occasionally to try and fit that image.
Speaker 1:So, since you've been growing up to this modern day now, obviously society has changed so much and I feel like our environments. The design is just so complex. Right now, with AI, our basic needs and wants are not really being met with the environments that we're in. We're in the most unnatural scenario right now, with mics in front of us, with air conditioning, you know, yes, how do we really stay connected with the basics and how do we identify that sometimes we are spending too much time on the things that don't really serve us?
Speaker 2:Hmm, Take inventory. Self-awareness again. Yeah, understand where your time thieves are. What is robbing you of your most important currency and that's your attention. What are you spending it on and how is that serving you? That's not only externally, sophia, but also internally.
Speaker 2:You know we have thousands and thousands of thoughts each day and Mother Nature designed our brain to survive, not necessarily to thrive, and so we all have a negativity bias. We underestimate our capabilities, we underestimate opportunities and we overestimate threat. So oftentimes we're having more negative thoughts and repetitive thoughts than we need to. So we need to take stock of that. So the same way, for example, you would go to a nutritionist and they ask you to keep a food inventory, keep a thought inventory. Ask yourself what are you thinking about? How are those thoughts serving you? Okay, what is the positive-negative ratio? So, for every negative thought you have, you need two or three positive thoughts to offset that. Or else, if you're having repetitive negative thoughts, guess where that's being stored In your long-term memory and you have this reservoir of repetitive negative thoughts.
Speaker 2:And then we wonder why we get lines, and you know, in our foreheads and feel heavy and old and drained. That's your internal world. Now your external world. Where are you putting your time and energy, which might be draining you? Is it on social media? Is it on connections that you feel obliged to be part of or to engage in? Or is it because they're meaningful and they're important for them and for you To make the decision to stop operating on a default modality?
Speaker 2:We can't operate on autopilot anymore because there's so much going on every day, all day. We have to be so much more deliberate and to ask ourselves you know, what do I want to do? The first thing in the morning when I wake up, am I going to grab my telephone and feed my cognitive corridors this endless buffet of content? Would you do that to your stomach? Would you do that to your you know? Would you go to the kitchen and, just for one hour, eat whatever you can find?
Speaker 2:We don't do that right. We make sure that we eat in a healthy way, so why do we do that to our minds, to our brains? And then the relationships we have, the associations we have, the work that we engage in. My goodness, there was a result that said 84% of people hate their job and when you think about it, that's what you spend the majority of your time doing, day in, day out. People don't feel engaged, they don't find their job fulfilling, and so what makes them? And of course, there are responsibilities, there's mortgages to pay, there are financial responsibilities and things, but we have to be able to carve out moments of awe, engaging in meaningful and passionate work, or else I think you know, I think you know that's when we start really feeling old and depleted and drained.
Speaker 1:if we don't do these things, how important is it to spend a large portion?
Speaker 2:of your life doing your passion. Well, you're speaking to someone who has devoted 100 percent and it's just different activities. You know I wouldn't be able to just teach or just work as a learning and development consultant. I like the variation of the work that I do and I think that you know. Let me answer your question a different way.
Speaker 2:What's the consequences? What are the consequences of not living a life that generates joy? First of all, you're not dust, remember that, so don't settle. Okay, you're a human being, you're feeling, you're thinking, you're possible of change, so don't settle. Second, if you're not generating joy in different ways and this again, it doesn't have to be all day, every day there has to be a certain amount of joy generated for different people. The consequences are what we see the sort of illnesses in society, the anxiety issues, the depression issues, the panic attacks. Could this be our system saying you know, what are you doing in this relationship? Maybe we don't need to medicate, maybe we need to have meaningful and more connected associations with these feelings and sentiments and, by the way, all feelings are important. Anxiety is alerting you to something. Anxiety is telling you you're not where you need to be, move, and so the byproducts of not living a life that generates joy are these illnesses that we try and suppress and medicate with alternative solutions that may work short term but may not be sustainable long term.
Speaker 1:What kind of advice would you give to somebody who is in a job right now that feels stuck, doesn't know what's next? They're financially stable. They have lots of responsibilities. What do you think they should do? What kind of advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:I would say do the work, sit down and deepen your awareness, self-awareness about your skills, your developmental areas, your weaknesses, your strengths, and look at what kind of career or what kind of move you'd like to make. So we need to engage in a sort of career visioning exercise of what's my brand and what do I want to connect that brand to right. What do I want to do if I'm not doing this? And here are the variables that are super important to me. For example, I need to stay in the city because my kids are going to the school. So hold the factors that are non-negotiable constant. Look at the factors that are negotiable and more flexible. Look at what new skills you need to perhaps build and then find a mentor. Find a sponsor. Find someone who's doing what you think you love and that would generate more joy for you. Have conversations with people Network. Expand your network.
Speaker 2:Sophia, women need to be much better at strategic networking. You need different people for different purposes. I have mentors from 22 years ago that I still seek their expertise and their knowledge, and the difference between sponsors and mentors are mentors speak to you in the room. Sponsors speak about you when you're not in the room, right, so they know who you are and they'll vouch for you. They'll raise your visibility, and so we need both to be able to speak to these people and say look, this is my plan, help shape it for me.
Speaker 2:What are the barriers that might come up in the way? Anticipate those barriers, plan for them. You know, what we're talking about here is not rainbows and unicorns and going off with the fairies. It really is about a deliberate design to be able to accept the fact that other realities are possible. This is not. You know. You've not just been handed out this deck of cards and that you have to stick to it forever. No Trust and believe that you can change it. Otherwise, anxiety is going to come, visit doubt, uncertainty, that internal negative critic. You'll experience the symptoms of not moving.
Speaker 1:How do you reprogram your inner dialect?
Speaker 2:Everything starts with awareness, right. So I need to understand what's that voice in my head. Is it an inner critic? Is it an inner coach? Some people have an inner comedian, yeah, and we might have a combination of these different voices, but which voice is more dominant and how is that draining me? Okay?
Speaker 2:So when I finish a presentation, am I getting the inner critic that comes out and says what was that? You weren't clear, not concise. You know what were those points you made? You didn't have good examples. But then I'm going to challenge that critic and I'm going to say oh, yeah, okay, Is this? Where's the fact and where's the fiction in what you're saying? And I'm going to try and provide as much evidence as I can to objectively counteract what this inner critic has told me. I'm not going to let him or her live rent-free in my head. And then I'm going to decide what do I need right now? Maybe I need an inner coach, Okay.
Speaker 2:So I need to develop that voice. I need to say look, after a presentation, I don't need you to tell me what went wrong. Maybe that too. But also, why don't you ask what went right? What am I proud of? What did I do well? And also let's talk about what we could do better. So, awareness and you are the master, You're in charge of redesigning, reprogramming that voice and deciding who you want to listen to when.
Speaker 1:I really wanted to discuss today and it was on people pleasing. Yeah, I, for a very long time I used people please and I had a lot of friends as well, around me that I would see them do the exact same thing, and people that were very close to me as well. I learned that behavior of people that I grew up around. When I moved to, I could totally design my whole life, but I just stopped people pleasing and now I design my own future for myself. Why do you people please? What is the fuel that consumes someone to continue to people please and go against themselves?
Speaker 2:Let me ask you this was there a moment that you realized this was happening, or was it a series of different incidents?
Speaker 1:I would say it was a series of different incidents, because when I was growing up I was overweight, I was quite the chubby kid and I did notice that when I tried to make decisions for myself, as in I want to eat healthy food, I want to go to the gym, I want to look after myself there was people in my circle at the time that said no, no, you don't need to do that. So I would go against myself and what I wanted to do and just fit in with the crowd at the time, to the point where I was completely depressed, out of my mind. I was in this body that I felt like I couldn't recognize it wasn't me. So I knew I needed to change and it was the accumulation of all those little habits, behaviors, you know, bending to other people and what they were doing, that I just realized, the more I do this, the more I'm creating an unhappy future for myself. So this needs to stop. I'm creating an unhappy future for myself, so this needs to stop. I need to make a decision for myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So it was a combination of these constant messages and then a realization that it's not really serving you or getting you where you want to be. Another topic you wanted us to discuss is how important is early childhood right and formation. So I'm going to kind of combine this concept of people pleasing with foundational issues to do with early childhood, and we can go back to the whole nature-nurture debate and argue to what extent are we the product of our biology, which is profound, which is a miracle by itself, right? I mean, at the time when the sperm and the egg fuse, what can result in you? What results in you? There could be 70 trillion possible combinations. I mean that by itself is beautiful and profound. Then we have stuff that you're born with at birth temperaments, activity level, mood, attention span and we know they're fixed at birth because they're evident within the first few weeks of birth. Then the environment comes in and shapes us. Now, to what extent you know percentages and so on, I think it varies from person to person and it's very difficult to pin that down.
Speaker 2:We're taught a lot, sophia, while growing up. We're taught to care, to shelter ourselves, to clean ourselves, to feed ourselves. But the one thing that we're never taught is how to self-affirm and how to seek internal validation and approval. In fact, we're taught from a very young age to constantly go to parents, teachers, older siblings, older family members to seek approval. And so a child is sitting on the floor drawing something, painting something, and immediately they'll have an impulse or urge to run to their care provider and say Mommy, mommy, is this nice? And a few years ago I think it was 10 years ago now I was with a friend of mine and she turned around and she said to her daughter it doesn't matter what I think, sweetheart, do you like it? And the look on the child's face. I think that it wasn't the first time she was asking her that question, because that was, you know. We had a conversation about it afterwards and I said what did you just do? And she said yeah, I do that all the time. I don't instill my opinion onto things that she's working on or the clothes that she chooses. And I ask her what do you think? And then I share my opinion. And so what happens? Here? We break this cycle of every individual going through life looking for the next pat on the back or the next positive reinforcement in order to define who we are and to determine whether we're doing the right or the wrong thing. Because now that child is learning how to self-approve and to self-affirm.
Speaker 2:People pleasers are individuals who have learned through early childhood experiences that their happiness is hugely connected and tied in to other people's happiness, other people's happiness, other people's expectations, and so they've been told or taught, indirectly or directly, that your opinion doesn't matter as much, your needs don't matter as much, your way of doing things is incorrect, and they've experienced negative feedback and judgment for such things. And so they go through life very cleverly, being hugely in tuned with other people's needs, requests, desires, goals, ambitions, and they start to mirror that in order to get acceptance, to have a sense of belonging. Because, remember, belonging is such a powerful motivator in that if we feel rejected, our survival can be threatened. We survive in groups.
Speaker 2:Human beings are social animals and so people like Aristotle and Socrates have been talking about this. We are social beings. Anyone who claims otherwise is either a deity or a beast, and so we need to gravitate towards others. And if we feel what I say, if I go with my opinion and my preference and my idea, if that gets rejected, I risk. You know that connection and that connectivity all together very calm and collected, productive, organized, structured in control, but inside they're going through self-doubt, confusion, fragmentation, anxiety, burnout and really a crisis of meeting. And of course it varies from person to person to the extent in which they do this, for how long they do this until they're once again you know, they're able to, like you, do the work, deepen their self-awareness, understand where this is coming from, how they can break the cycle and have boundaries.
Speaker 1:For someone who's listening, who is people pleasing right now and they want to change their outcome and how they make decisions in the future. They feel like they're going to risk their family, their friends, their job. How are they going to make a change to reprogram themselves to make decisions for themselves?
Speaker 2:They're going to make a change by not a revolution, but an evolution, and an evolution from being a people pleaser to a people easer. Right, so not completely abandoning or changing who they are, because guess what? Deep down inside, these are generous, kind, loving individuals that you know. It's not just because they're not people pleasing purely because of their early programming. There's a part of them, there's a percentage of them, that is generous and wants to engage in pro-social behavior, and so you could become people easers, which means my needs matter as much as yours, that I'm not doing this to get acceptance and to achieve belonging, but I'm doing it because I am generous and your health and your functionality matters to me as much as mine, and that I'm capable of holding both emotions of me my needs as well as yours to be able to create this third space.
Speaker 2:And I think oftentimes people think oh, my goodness, you know how am I going to do this? What are people going to think? You know, when I make these drastic changes, it doesn't have to be drastic. Reconnect with your own needs. Learn to sometimes say no, because every time you're saying yes to someone else, you're saying no to yourself when you can't do it, when you're not supposed to be doing it. So learn to say no in an objective and empathetic and judicious manner, not no simply because you're now rebelling against this. You know again. You see on social media cut family members off and put boundaries and you know, amputate individuals who have disrespect why you know there's so much more that needs to be done in between. Talk to them first, share with them what has happened. Maybe they'll be your biggest advocate and your biggest supporter and then move towards what serves you and your loved ones. I think it's possible to do both.
Speaker 1:How do you manage to change the trajectory of your life when you're so intertwined with people who don't want you to change Like? How do you manage to set those boundaries, you know? Do you tell the people who you love around you that you're going to go on this journey? Do you let them know in advance so they can acknowledge that sometimes you are going to say no, what do you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm laughing because sometimes, yeah, social media does produce good content. And the one I'm thinking of is you can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you, and sometimes it might be that you know we need to broaden our network and, you know, not necessarily move away from those individuals, but also have others who may have other perspectives. But your question is about the fact that these people may be holding you back right. Right, I think a more important question is why is their opinion or their input so important to you? It's not about them.
Speaker 2:Emotional intelligence is a lifelong developmental process of asking how do I deepen my self-awareness to self-manage, self-regulate and to kind of be the designer of my own life?
Speaker 2:Why am I so dependent on them? Why can't I enjoy them for who they are without having to sort of bend in shape to who they want me to be? Now, in some cases, maybe there are intimate partners, in which case I think that you need to sit down and talk about look, your expectations are not aligned with my values of who I want to be and I'm not. And here are the consequences of these situations, and I want to work together with you to say that look right now, at this point in my life, these are my needs and preferences and goals and dreams and objectives, and you know, I need to kind of set new expectations for myself and those around me. How can we do that together? How can we collaborate on this? How would that impact our relationship? You think, what are you worried about? What are you afraid of for me to? As I'm evolving, we're gaining, we're not losing anything, and it's oftentimes when people fear change is because they're afraid of losing.
Speaker 1:But really to highlight what could be gained as a result of this transformation, when you mention relationships there, I'm just wondering how much of a loving relationship is important in this modern society now, because I feel like people have become way more disconnected. We're way more connected with people from our phones, but people are starting to feel way more disconnected. And I don't know, but from my experience living here in Dubai for sure, it seems like people are disposable when it comes to relationships. People are sensing a lack of love connection. How important is it to have love in your life?
Speaker 2:how would you define a loving relationship? What does that mean to you?
Speaker 1:when you feel heard, nurtured, cared about um, respected yeah, respected um heard yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how long does it take to figure that out or to experience that, would you say for you? And we're not talking for everyone, we're just saying for you so there's a difference in between.
Speaker 1:Like love as in love in a relationship or friendship or a family we're talking about romantic love, right relationship um, I think it's case by case, because I don't think there's like one fixed format for I will feel love on this date. Yeah, it depends on both parties, because if someone doesn't allow you in, it can take time to build that loving relationship, to establish that trust, to understand that person. Um, but I think you know instantly and I feel like I know instantly and my gut instinct is never wrong. I believe that if someone's carrying those true values that I like to see in someone, I know instantly.
Speaker 2:Do you know where gut instincts come from?
Speaker 1:Please share.
Speaker 2:So there, really, there's a lot of science behind it. It's not just intuitive and fluffy. We have millions and millions of mental folders in our brain called schemas, and every experience you go through is stored in these schemas or schematas. And so when we say gut instinct, it's one of those folders that we may or may not be consciously aware of that is being activated to give us data about making a decision. Right? So, really, trust, listen to those gut instincts, but question them as well. Right, it could be mixed with biases and so on, but I really like your answer and your response that you said it depends and it depends. You know, each case by case, but what is consistent across different situations is this Do I know myself well enough? What does love mean to me? What do I need in a relationship? Right? How do I define that? What does that look like? Okay, the second thing is do I model the way?
Speaker 2:So too often, too many people are waiting for all this stuff that they want to be done for them. But are you doing it? You know the number of times women say to me my husband never says you know, you look beautiful when I walk down the stairs and we are going out for a night out and my question to them is how often do you tell him wow, honey, you look so handsome, you look so beautiful tonight. And they kind of roll their eyes or feel a little bit guilty and shame, you know, for saying never, maybe I've never done it. So know what you want and then also model the way, lead the way right In a consistent and communicative manner. Share what you want, talk about what's important, right. Talk about not feeling heard or seen in a particular conversation. We have to be consistent and we need to be clear about those.
Speaker 2:Again, people don't come ready-made. There is no relationship. Love is a verb, is what you do every day, that you choose each other, okay. So nobody comes ready-made for you. Oh, I found my perfect partner. There is no such thing in my mind. From my opinion, I think it's how you shape that relationship. There's you, there's your partner, and then the third entity is the relationship, and that's like a child. You raise that relationship, you teach it etiquette and norms and all the practices that you think are important. Now there are some people who will stay in the ring with you and listen and learn and execute on what is being asked, but there's other people who won't, and so you have your answer.
Speaker 2:In those situations where you have an understanding of what you want, what's important to you, you've communicated it in a clear and consistent manner. And, by the way, for those who say, oh, but there's no joy in that, if I have to say it, if I have to teach them, there is lots of joy because very few expectations and norms are universal in relationships. There is no such thing as, oh, everyone knows that, or that's normal. You should know that. No, because people have had other relationships and they have needs themselves that may not align with yours. So there's nothing wrong with learning your love language and to be able to execute, with learning your love language and to be able to execute. But you've shared that, you've been consistent, you have communicated it effectively, but it's not happening. So then you have your answer right. In order to be able to receive love, you need to know what that love looks like and to give it yourself.
Speaker 1:What would be your definition of love? My?
Speaker 2:definition of love, I think, would be a combination of comfort, curiosity, compassion, connection, conflict resolution and capacity Endless capacity to be able to reach a potential to be that power couple that you can design to be. And once you practice the other Cs, I think that you build your capacity and you increase your capacity of what is possible in a relationship. But it's got to be both ways.
Speaker 1:Both people have to be equally invested to be able to achieve that. I know I mentioned that this podcast I didn't really want to talk about myself here, but we're going to dive down a little rabbit hole. But from my experience with the dating scene I have noticed there's two types of kind of relationships that I've experienced, where I've had someone who's very avoidant and then I've had from the other end of this spectrum where it's completely love bombing from the beginning, that it's like too much, too soon. Um, why is it that people? Let's go back to the first one. Why are people avoidant in relationships at the beginning?
Speaker 2:you know, I wish I had an easy answer that person's past, their relationships, their attachment patterns with their primary care providers, their traumas, their triggers, and it could be that in the present they may not be as attracted or invested. You know, we put these labels on individuals. I remember this guy once said we were having a discussion about commitment issues and he said I don't have commitment issues, I just don't want to be with this person, you know. But I like them. But we have a different idea of what I want the relationship to be and with this person I just want to have a good time, travel with them, enjoy her company. But it's not that I have commitment issues per se, right. So we have to look at it holistically.
Speaker 2:And it could be that that person that's love bombing. You feels that they have found their person, but they may not be the person for you. So you see it as love bombing and you see it as too much because it doesn't fit your definition of a secure attachment or someone that you want in a relationship, right. But there could be a multitude of variables. Now, let's say that person wants you and loves you but is avoidant. Then that goes back to their attachment patterns, their own insecurities, their own inability of development, and I'd like to work on the capacity and the potential of our relationship. But would you like to take part? And then it's up to them to decide right.
Speaker 1:I asked this question on social media actually the other day with um is it? Does it hinder people's attraction or females attraction to the male when the male shows too much emotion?
Speaker 2:I think so. What were some of the responses you got?
Speaker 1:it was actually very universal. To be honest, most men said absolutely not, it doesn't work in your favor, um, it backfires. Lots of females said yes, it's amazing. I've noticed it creates an intense um I don't know a bit more intensity in my relationship right now. I have more sexual attraction. So that was very diverse. So that's where I was thinking, maybe case by case again in this situation.
Speaker 2:For sure, yeah, for sure case by case. But if we had to generalize yeah, you know, and we had to look at it um, I think women sometimes get into relationships thinking that they can change the guy, and I think men sometimes get into relationships thinking that they can change the guy. And I think men sometimes get into relationships praying she doesn't change. And that goes into the effort that we put in and the authenticity that sometimes we lack at the beginning of a relationship. Oh football, I love football, I'll come and watch football with you. You know, at the beginning of the relationship and the effort with the clothing and the makeup and the so on and so forth, guys show up very much more themselves. Again, I'm not generalizing. I am generalizing for the discussion, but there will be differences and sort of nuances that we need to think through. But I think you know, the more authentically you show up at the beginning, the more you're safeguarding, making sure you are doing the right thing, being chosen for who you are and sustaining who you are, rather than things changing or the mask slipping six months or one year into the relationship.
Speaker 2:I think the most healthy and functional couples that I speak to and work with, 10 years into the relationship.
Speaker 2:They're still doing things they did in the first six months of their relationship.
Speaker 2:So they're looking at each other in the same way, they're opening the door in the same way, not because they wanted to make a good impression, but because that's the etiquette of who he is, the way that they treat one another, the way they listen to each other, the way they hear each other, date nights and so on. Right. So the more authentic you are and honest you are at the beginning of the relationship, the greater the chances are you'll make a better selection, a more suitable selection based on your preferences, and that it's more sustainable in the long run. So how do you feel? How do you want to express your feeling, but also to consider time and what's appropriate right. Too much, too soon might scare the other person away, but it could be who that person is, you know in the long run. But think about what's appropriate as well. Think about that person's cultural background, maybe in their culture, and it doesn't mean change yourself, but at least have a conversation about it, be more deliberate about it.
Speaker 1:Why do you think people overshare at the beginning of relationships.
Speaker 2:It could be that they, in their gut, in one of their schemas, you represent someone safe. You look like someone who was safe to them in their past. They have connected with you because of a sentence, a word, a sentiment that you've shared. You have created a psychologically safe contract in those moments that you've been speaking to them and so this contract has given them that safety to be able to share. Or it could have nothing to do with you and that person needs to decompress and really just get stuff off their chest that they've been holding. So put it on a continuum it could be an either or situation, or it could be all of the above so to kind of curveball away from relationships?
Speaker 1:you as a person, you've this fountain of knowledge and you have this self-awareness that I'm sure not everyone gets to experience at some point. Do you feel like it's a blessing and a curse?
Speaker 2:define curse for me. What does that mean so?
Speaker 1:I would say the more knowledge that I have, the more I think, or the more I try to tease things apart a lot of the time and sometimes I think there's moments where I don't need to have a solution for everything and it's like trying to fix things every I would. Now, I know I might be stereotypical in this sense, but I could imagine if I was a psychologist I would constantly identify in each emotions on the go 24, seven that sometimes maybe I would like to be blissfully ignorant and to switch that brain off. Do you ever feel like that?
Speaker 2:Well, we certainly have the ability to, you know, switch it off. We're not turned on all the time, and I think that the mark of an intelligent individual is their ability to be a creative, curious, critical thinker and so to be able to hold an opinion and then let it go, to be able to find new information and say, oh I was wrong, and to rethink something and to redesign. So I love that process. It never weighs me down. I don't see the negative aspect of it because I manage, mitigate and monitor my internal ecology Right. I'm aware of where my attention goes and if it's in rumination or in a quicksand type of thinking, I quickly get myself out of it. Right, because I know I'm in control and so it never turns into a curse. But, like everybody else, there are subjects and topics that test me and challenge me, and all the books, sophia and all the research goes out the window and I just need to curl up in bed with you know, lots of hot chocolate and warm blankets and things like that, and just cry and let it all out and feel and then invite objectivity and curiosity back as I try and rebuild. You know that resilience.
Speaker 2:And when it comes to working with other people resilience. And when it comes to working with other people, I'm not there to solve, I'm there to be curious. I'm there to provoke critical thinking in them. If any therapist or counselor or consultant tells you what to do or tries to solve things for you, please don't listen. It's not part of the way things should be done. They're there to hear you, to validate, to generate insights, for you to be able to find solutions yourself, and so try and remain more in the curious space of what if rather than what is. You know, I think there's a lot of. You'll release yourself of that responsibility in thinking if you just remain creative and curious rather than be solution oriented all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think in the world that we live in right now, it's quite difficult for people to think that they always need to have an answer. They always need to have this career and have everything figured out. Yeah, for someone who's really struggling now to figure out who they are and they're attaching themselves to their job identity, what kind of advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:I think this will go back to some of the stuff that we were talking about in terms of authenticity, you know, and roaming, and who are you when you're not performing for society and for your friends and family? Who are you? Who is that person and how can we get her to come out and play more and to surface more often? Tap into, reconnect to that voice and do so again through an evolution, not a sudden revolution that may have negative consequences. At every step of our life, we're capable of redesigning, pulling up our blueprints and understanding that this was designed at a different time, a different me, a different self, a different situation, a different location. And so what do I want the house of me to look like today? And to celebrate what was learned as a result of or how far this blueprint got me.
Speaker 2:It's not that we need to rip it up and throw it away, but you're building on it with experience and wisdom. And so where do where do we go from here? Get me out of autopilot, get me more into a more deliberate design modality to be able to co-create the plan and have a new blueprint for what's to come.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that answer. So, because it's called the Detach podcast, what would you detach yourself? That's limiting you today? Wow.
Speaker 2:So very beautifully led into the blueprint. I would pull up my blueprint and I'd say I'd look at what's serving me, what have I achieved how far? What gets you here may not get you here, and so what has worked to get me here that may not now serve me to get me to my next step or to my next adventure, to the next chapter of my life. And so I'd get rid of that blueprint and when I'm ready, when I've planned enough, when I've decided the sort of exterior and interior of that blueprint, I get down to design a new one.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your time and this beautiful conversation. I feel like I need to go home and revise your blueprint.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's really a pleasure having this conversation with you and I really enjoyed it. Thank you, thank you.