Erin Mac podcast interview
Lance Wantenaar: [00:00:00] Good evening, everyone. My name is Lance Wantenaar and this is a thinking like a genius podcast. And I’ve got a very interesting guest with me tonight. I’ve got Erin Mac with me for tonight’s interview, and this is going to be a bit of an interesting topic because Erin does quite a lot of work. From what I’ve seen on emotional management and also mindsets and a lot of self-development.
[00:00:47] So Erin, there’s a couple of areas or topics, which I’d like to dive in. And I wanted to find, find out a bit more about what your background, so you can introduce yourself to people. And also then we’ll start diving into some of the topics like belief in emotions and healing and. A lot of awareness as well.
[00:01:07] So can you give people a bit of a, an introduction and also some background on yourself?
[00:01:12] Erin Mac: [00:01:12] Sure. And thanks so much for having me I’m super excited to be here. so right now what I do is I work typically with entrepreneurs and leaders on how to create what I call impenetrable joy, which is the experience of no longer being at the mercy of people or circumstances.
[00:01:29] To decide whether you’re having a good or bad day or a good or bad life for that matter. And, it came about because I suffered from an anxiety disorder, many years ago. And it was so awful that it had been holed up in my home for nearly a year. And in that experience, I vowed to myself that if I could find a way out of experiencing this and develop some strategies, That I would teach that to other people so that they never had to experience this awful thing.
[00:02:00] And then along the way after I was able to get over my anxiety disorder, I realized that because of how I was able to stop experiencing anxiety, I hadn’t actually done the work in the background as far as the mental, emotional, spiritual piece. And so I found myself sort of creating that all over again.
[00:02:23] And then out of need, just a crazy thing happened. I was so frantic about a client calling and complaining that I nearly killed somebody, accidentally with my car that I, it just rocked me to my core. And I realized that there had to be a different way to live this life and being frantic and stressed out and anxiety ridden all the time was not normal.
[00:02:48] And so. I began to delve into self-development and I realized that there was a different life to have. I wasn’t sure, even though I had done it for years, you know, going to seminars and reading books and, following people and, trying new things. I found myself in the middle of a divorce and I realized that even though I had spent all these, all this money and time.
[00:03:13]doing all the self development stuff, I didn’t really have strategies to getting myself out of this dark place. I had found myself in and I thought, I’ve got to figure out a way to do this life differently and do it in a way that is meaningful and feels good to me. And so then a series of things happened.
[00:03:33] I was re-introduced to somebody that I had met at a seminar company. Went to a seminar, sight unseen. I didn’t really even know what it was about. And as it turned out, it was a day long seminar on visualization, a process that he teaches. And when I did that visualization, when I got home and did it, I was so excited.
[00:03:51]everything in my life lined up and I, my business that had been for sale for nine months sold in a bidding war. I met the love of my life in very random circumstances. And I found my purpose, which I found through going back and training with that gentleman and teaching his seminar. And I realized when I got up in front of that first seminar, that this was what I was supposed to do.
[00:04:14] I was, I was, you know, all of those life experiences had led me to this idea that I could show people how to find their joy. Cultivate it daily and live the life. They were meant to be living and in enjoying it now versus waiting for all the things to line up. So that’s what I do. And that’s my story. And I’m sticking to it.
[00:04:38] Lance Wantenaar: [00:04:38] There’s one curious aspect, which I’m asking people quite often, especially when they have quite a dramatic change in say life direction, a career change, business change, or whatever you, what was the moment that made you. Mike the decision to start changing your life.
[00:04:56]Erin Mac: [00:04:56] Well, for me, there were several things along the way, but ultimately what led to this life that I live and what I teach now, was this weird experience I had where, I was in the middle of a divorce and I actually had picked up this book.
[00:05:11] I dunno if you’ve heard of this book, it’s called a course in miracles. so it’s a book. It has 365 passages, and it’s meant to be a passage of day for a year. And I hadn’t been reading it for about a month and I don’t know what happened this one day, but I opened up the book and I read the passage and I just began to cry.
[00:05:33] And I literally couldn’t stop myself from crying. I just kept crying and crying. And I had called my step-mom and I was talking to her and I was sobbing all the way through. I don’t even know if she could understand what I was saying. And you got off the phone. I left, I was at the beach at the time I left and I was going to celebrate my birthday.
[00:05:52] All my girlfriends were going to come together for the weekend to celebrate my birthday. And I went, I told them I would get all the groceries and I went to the grocery store, still crying. And my friend, one of the gals that was going to be at the party over the weekend was in the grocery store. And she’s like, Oh my gosh, are you okay?
[00:06:09] And I was like, I don’t know, you know, just crying, crying, crying. And I literally cried from like nine in the morning until I got to the house where we were all staying and I was starting to unload my car. And one of my friends showed up and she was like, Oh my God, like, what’s going on with you? And I was like, I don’t know.
[00:06:27] I’ve been crying since 9:00 AM. And she said, Are you going to be crying all weekend like that? And I was just like, and it was just enough to stop me in my tracks and go, actually, no, I don’t think I am. And so having that moment where it was just like, Oh, I am actually the one that can control this piece.
[00:06:48] You know, I was allowing myself to be an emotion, which is fine. And it is part of the process that I teach in terms of how do you heal and grow from the experiences that we’re having? And, wallowing in and allowing, you know, yourself to be in those emotions for a while is good. Occasionally obviously you don’t want to be there all the time.
[00:07:09]but it did help me have a recognition that like, Oh, we do these things with our mind habitually all the time and you can actually stop your it’s like set on default settings. And when you recognize those default settings, You can do things to disrupt those default settings. And that’s basically what my friend did for me.
[00:07:31] She was just like, are you really going to do this all weekend? Cause it makes you thinking like what a bummer, who wants to hang out with that, you know, and who could blame her, although I’m sure some people would think, Oh, that’s so mean. It was actually exactly what I needed to go. Wait a minute. Like, I don’t need to wallow in all this stuff all the time.
[00:07:50] Now I could turn the corner and possibly find a solution. And it’s not going to be through, being upset all the time. we do tamp down our feelings a lot, and I think that’s what leads to these awful experiences of, you know, anxiety, disorders, depression, and things like that.
[00:08:07]and When we have strategies to recognize that our mind would like to go in these various specific ways, because it’s always been that way. Then we can start to recognize, Oh, where I could insert something new to have a different experience. If that makes sense.
[00:08:26] Lance Wantenaar: [00:08:26] That makes sense. But I’ve got one with that while we’ve got a number of questions, because there are so many different areas we can get into that conversation because there’s a lot of areas which I think need some more exploration.
[00:08:39] The interesting thing I would like to clarify from your side is that. One, how do you identify? You could say the belief, or the thought process and that you want to change and how to insert something that’s going to take hold because in essence, the brain is very good in maintaining homeostasis. Its very good at maintaining the current level of processing, functioning, everything else, because that’s what it does.
[00:09:02] That’s how. It ensures survival. It maintains that way of processing because one it’s worked Two. It’s less energy that it has to do was because obviously when you used to start dealing and disrupting a lot of your thought processes, it takes a lot of effort to do it right. And to get the change to take hold.
[00:09:20]So, how do you go about making sure that works
[00:09:23] Erin Mac: [00:09:23] for me, the process starts with recognizing that we do have a story that we basically have gone through this life thinking is who we are. Right. That’s the story. If I asked you to tell me what’s, the story of your life, you would tell me all the awful things that happened or the wrongdoings or the trauma or the unfairness, or, I got blamed for that.
[00:09:47] It was my brother’s fault. I got, you know, whatever the things are, right. That helped shape who you are and what you think this world is about in terms of perspective and the experience that you’re having emotionally. And I start there because most people don’t. I mean, while we understand that the past does have an effect on our future, we don’t always understand how much.
[00:10:14]I would guess that most people are unaware that, all of the decisions that they’re making are coming from the story from these experiences and these experiences that shaped this underlying, overall life experience, are, what you referred to before as beliefs. Right?
[00:10:34] And so when we address that, story and look at the different elements of it. Not for the purpose of recognizing so much who’s in it or what exactly happened. It’s really for the purpose of recognizing what you decided about yourself, because of that story. And those are those beliefs. And so, Also, what’s not important is the exact beliefs.
[00:10:59] The beliefs themselves are very similar. All of them, they are, I’m not worthy. I don’t deserve, I’m not good enough. I’m not lovable and there’s a few others, but they’re all pretty much the same. Like I don’t deserve whatever’s happening. I’m not good enough for whatever I’d like to achieve in my life or have in my life.
[00:11:22] And so again, not important, what the actual belief is more about, you know, what did you decide because of those beliefs, that’s the emotional piece, right? And so the emotions become the signal to that belief. So when we are in reaction to somebody or some thing that is because we have been taught that if, What we’ve experienced is our truth, our rights and wrongs.
[00:11:50] We hold everybody to those expectations. We have decided that we’ve committed to these experiences. And if you don’t show up in that experience, how I need you to, then you are to blame for how I feel. And what I ask people to do is come from a responsible place and say, This happened, I’m having an emotional reaction or experience to it.
[00:12:20] Where can I heal and grow inside of me versus blaming the other person? Cause that’s like deflecting where the work to be done is like, I truly believe we are here for, this development self-development would consciousness, whatever you want to call that. Like, that’s why we’re here. It’s not to be challenged.
[00:12:40] Those challenges are actually our gifts. Those are the opportunities for us to look at where can we heal and grow within ourselves based on that story. So that story is on purpose. And as being fully supported by, the universe, your environment, whatever for the purpose, like these are, we’re calling these people and these stories into our lives so that we can heal and grow in this very specific way.
[00:13:05] And so the beliefs are just, showing us where to heal and grow the emotions are pointing it out. And then we do the process of how do we heal and heal and grow. Does that make sense? Did I answer your question?
[00:13:18] Lance Wantenaar: [00:13:18] Yeah, you’ve highlighted some interesting aspects, which are fine. Something that needs a bit more clarification.
[00:13:24] You mentioned this in default, feelings and perceptions of people that built up not good enough, not worthy, not loved, and various other things out of all of these defaults that have come out that you’ve identified. Why do they always repeat in so many people? Do you actually find somebody that really doesn’t have that or is each person seem to have that perception built-in or not built in, but it comes up quite often.
[00:13:46]Erin Mac: [00:13:46] I literally in all of my work and all of the classes that I’ve taught have not found one person who doesn’t have it, it shows up in things like, imposter syndrome or lack of confidence or questioning, do I have the goods, you know, to do this job or be this person, am I like some sort of fake, you know, it comes up in all these different insecurities, you know, all the things I’ve literally had a student in one of my classes where she was like, you know, I really did not have an awful childhood. I had wonderful parents. They were very supportive and all the things. And, she literally couldn’t think of anything horrible that had happened in her life, which is fine.
[00:14:28] And she still had this piece, where she was questioning herself. And I can’t find my purpose and meaning. And. I don’t feel like I’m good enough to do the things that I would like to do or I’m qualified or whatever that insecurity or lack of confidence or whatever that is. And I just think it’s part of the human experience.
[00:14:48] Like how boring would it be if you came here and you had nothing to work on? I always thought that I was my thoughts and my emotions. I thought that that’s what this life was about.
[00:14:58] And that’s why my life felt like such a roller coaster ride because my experience of my life was based on what was going on in it. So if in business, if a client complained. I would freak out, and have to go and deal with that. And that would be that challenge or whatever, if, something was going on with my family, it was just like, you know, thing after thing or event or circumstance after circumstance.
[00:15:21] And it was just, Oh my gosh, I gotta deal with this. I gotta take care of that. And it was very stressful. And I don’t have that experience anymore because I realize that I’m not my thoughts and I’m not my emotions. And the reason that I know I’m not those things is because I can have a thought or an emotion and name what that is.
[00:15:42] So who is that? That’s naming that that’s actually who I am and who you are is the namer is the spectator of those thoughts and emotions. And once you can create space between the thoughts and the emotions and the experiences, then you can begin to see this life very differently because you have time to react.
[00:16:06] Now, if you want to react or you can just respond, you can try different things out. Instead of being beholden to, whoever’s saying something or whatever’s happening. You can start to get intentional about the things that you want to create because you have time now and you have awareness that, Oh, I don’t have to react to that.
[00:16:29] I can choose a different way to do that. I can try different things out and see what feels good to me.
[00:16:37] Lance Wantenaar: [00:16:37] How do you decouple the emotional aspect from the metacognition thinking aspect? Because that’s very challenging in a lot of aspects because the. Challenge is that because emotions one are so powerful and they’re so rooted in your thinking patterns, they can override.
[00:16:52]the ability to critically or cognitively assess a situation, how have you been able to decouple that process to give you that breathing space, to assess it differently and to allow you to change your perspective?
[00:17:04]Erin Mac: [00:17:04] Well, what I told you that helped a lot just intellectually I could go.
[00:17:10] Oh, okay. I do have a choice here. as I talked about before we do, we do so much habitually that it is challenging. And so a lot of the learning is about, first of all, recognizing that you are having an emotion and what it is, and then becoming like curious and in wonder about. What like, why, why am I all of a sudden raising my voice and angry in this moment?
[00:17:39]I have a degree in psychology. My undergraduate is in psychology. And so I did learn a lot of these, the mind stuff. but in terms of, the practicality of it, you know, figuring out where these things came from. I’ve found is less important than recognizing when we’re having the experience.
[00:17:59] And then it becomes this, you know, you become the detective of your life by recognizing, Oh, I’m all of a sudden, like my voice is raised. Why is that? You know? And then you start to sit in those emotions and recognize them on a deep level so that you can. Experience them instead of trying to avoid them, which is what we mostly are always doing.
[00:18:27] And then you can begin to start to, decide like what happened prior to this moment that brought me to this elevated experience and start to see what unfolds, because I think most people. Well intellectually, they understand that they’re not just randomly having anxiety or stress or whatever.
[00:18:48] There’s something that happened before. We’d always take the time to go. What actually did happen before that created all of a sudden this experience. And so when we start to look at what that formula is, that creates the emotional experience. Then we can begin to like insert new things instead of. So I think most people’s experiences like I’m having a bad moment.
[00:19:14] Let me attach all these other bad moments to this bad one. Right? So like this thing just didn’t work out, let me, Oh, and then there’s this other thing in my life that’s not working out and this other thing and this other thing and that other thing, right? So we go down this rabbit hole of all the things that aren’t working out.
[00:19:31] When in fact there’s so many things going absolutely a hundred percent in our favor, like millions of things, From health, good health to, food and shelter to all these things, but our focus has become on the things that aren’t working out. So that shift, I do some very radical strategies in terms of like radically being in gratitude for the things that are working out and constantly shifting.
[00:19:59] Oh, I’m focusing on that thing. That wasn’t the thing I wanted to focus on. So shifting quickly, like having focal points of things that bring us joy, like an instant kind of joy, like, Oh, I remember that vacation. Oh, I remember that picture. Oh, that person brings me or a puppy or whatever the thing is that can shift our experience immediately and get us back on track to the way we want to experience it.
[00:20:24] So a lot of the things that I’m teaching people have to do with recognizing default settings. And stopping that in its tracks, stopping your mind from going out or down the rabbit hole or out, out, out to all the things that aren’t working out going, Oh, this is just one thing in this time and space in this moment.
[00:20:45] Let me shift my focus real quick, get back on track. And so it’s constantly like trying to get the brain to like focus back in on the thing we want to focus on and stop being habitually, focusing on the things that aren’t working out. And I’m not going to lie. It is a process and the practice of it is challenging, but I’ll tell you on the other side of it is massive freedom.
[00:21:08] It’s like freedom to enjoy our life. And every moment, if you choose the freedom to not wallow in awful feelings. and what that does is when we shift, then everything around us starts to shift. People start to notice, Oh, she doesn’t like to talk about, you know, the traffic or the weather or those things.
[00:21:27] She only likes to talk about like good things. And so they, you start to subconsciously people around, you start to formulate how they can be in relationship with you because you shifted and they see that. And so that supports you as well.
[00:21:43]Lance Wantenaar: [00:21:43] Do you find recognizing and sensing. Gratitude, not just on an intellectual level but also on a physical level helps you improve your physical reaction and your emotional wellbeing.
[00:21:55] Cause I’ve, noticed that when I’m doing some meditation, if I just try and intellectually visualize gratification, it can be quite dry and it doesn’t have the same effect when actually start feeling gratitude as an Physical sensation and tie it too. Maybe they enjoy them mentally relaxing while I’m breathing.
[00:22:13]And in increasing the physical sensation of the feeling I seem to get a richer sensation. I get a better response from it and I get a longer lasting sort of response from it. Have you found that as well?
[00:22:23]Erin Mac: [00:22:23] A hundred percent. Yeah. I teach a visualization process as well. And that visualization process includes all of the senses.
[00:22:31] And the purpose behind it is to create an elevated, emotional experience. And that’s where I encourage all of my clients to start their day. I tell them, so I always start with writing out that story, you know, the old one with all the yucky stuff in it, and they write it out in story form, all the, you know, bullet points of the awful things.
[00:22:55] And then they say it out loud to themselves and possibly a spouse. So their spouse knows that, you know, these are some of the things that are in the background that I’ve committed to, that I committed you to, that you didn’t know about. And, and then they get rid of it, you know, burn it, whatever. And then they create their new story.
[00:23:13] And their new story is a day in the life of everything they ever wanted. Not for the purpose of, I am about Abundance and all the things and that includes money and things and all that. it’s not for the manifestation of it, although that will come, it’s for the elevated emotional experience.
[00:23:31] So it’s a day in the life of everything you ever wanted from moment, wake up to moment, go to sleep and it must include all of the senses And then you use that as a visualization. And when you get into that elevated emotional state, then you can recall that it’s just like muscle memory. You go, Oh, I’m having an awful experience right now.
[00:23:54] Let me just like tap into that visualization for a second. Elevate my emotional experience and then move on. I’ll tell you. That’s where I found my joy was in that. visualization experience. And when you can quiet the mind and focus in and create, I mean, when I’m done with my visualization, I have tears of joy streaming down my face.
[00:24:17] Like that’s how into it. I am. I’m like raising my arms and going, yes, this is happening and that’s happening and right, because it’s not about the things. We think we want all these things. The reason we want them is because of how we think we’re going to feel when we have those things. So why not create that experience right now and create it over and over and over again, not only is that an amazing way to start your day, but it’s also a point of, contact every time you feel like, Oh, I’m, you know, not feeling as good right now.
[00:24:52] I have some emotional awareness. I’m in reaction to something. I can go back to that state if I want to so that I can shift and refocus myself and my business or with whoever I’m with so that I can be in the present moment, which is the goal to be here. Now
[00:25:09]Lance Wantenaar: [00:25:09] you mentioned something which I found quite interesting about writing the story down and the narrative with it.
[00:25:15] I came across a research. Paper that was done with divorced couples. And they did a research where they did a comparative where the group of people just wrote down the emotions that they’re feeling. And then they had a group that wrote down the narrative from beginning to end with an end result, writing it out as a story.
[00:25:37] And then they did a comparison between the two. And they found the group that had the narrative written out with a start middle and end, like a full narrative story written out were better at the end result’s of it and had better emotional processing than people that were just writing up, being stuck in emotions and stuck in the moment because they recycling the same source over and over again.
[00:26:00]And the fact that they’ve written it out, it was a story allowed. Not only for them to process information, but obviously you’re talking about externalization, which is where the psychology comes in because you’ve given the brain almost a route of solving the problems. Like this is how it’s all started.
[00:26:17] This is how it’s broken out. You’ve recognizing the emotions and you potentially find a way for the brain to Sort itself out and figure it out and process the information because there’s a lot of people that have said they’ve written diaries or books or stories, anything about their life story. And they found it very cathartic it’s because they’ve externalized a lot of everything else.
[00:26:34] And they’ve created a narrative from beginning to end, which meant that by the time that they finished they’ve unburdened themselves emotionally from it. But they’ve also found a way of solving them problems and potentially finding ways of solving other people’s problems. And that’s why I think , there’s a lot of really interesting aspects about the connection between the two, which I thought it was an interesting correlation in that regard.
[00:26:56]Erin Mac: [00:26:56] Yeah. That was a much nicer way to say that, which is the reason that writing is so important is because it takes it from here and makes it matter. Like literally. it’s exists in, you know, it’s on something and it takes it out of here. most people who are experiencing overwhelm and anxiety and stress worry and all these depression, all these things that I call low level experiences are stuck up in here in order to be, as I said, where we want to be, which I mean, and by we, I mean, As humans, we want to be happy and feel good and be in joy.
[00:27:38] And that exists in the body. The body is present. Moment. This up here is past projecting the future, or sometimes just stuck in past and not even projecting the future. And, or as my friend likes to say future tripping, um, yeah. It’s that the ability to be in this moment, which really is the only moment where guaranteed is what we’re looking for.
[00:28:06] Because in this moment, there’s nothing, there’s no stress. There’s no, the stress and the worry. And all that is by looking at a situation, looking at our past and seeing what’s happened in the past and deciding because of that past. What the future should look like. So every time we are in a moment of anxiety or stress or overwhelm, whatever, it’s because we are not here.
[00:28:30] Now, we are in the past thinking we know what’s going to happen in the future. And the reality is, is the future. We think we’re creating by that past 99% of the time is not happening, but we’re not taking the time to go, Oh, I thought this was going to happen. That didn’t happen. How come that didn’t happen and go back to our brain and go, why are you sending me these false, this false information?
[00:28:58] And so that’s the process that I’m talking about. You know, helping people get through is recognizing that we have these formulas, that we created it a long time ago that create these outcomes. That don’t happen. So how come we’re not going back and going. Wait, what’s wrong with this formula. It doesn’t work.
[00:29:18] It’s broken and going, wow. We could do this differently. You know, we could set up a different formula or just stop having a formula and just going, Oh, okay. Every time I’m having an emotional experience, it doesn’t feel well. That’s me in the past, trying to live in the future, that doesn’t work. All that does is make me feel bad.
[00:29:40] So how about I just deal with right here and right now, and in this present moment, What is the matter? Nothing, all that stuff is stories we made up about what we think is going to happen. Well, let me worry about, you know, if my kid can get into college or, they’re going to get into a car accident or, you know, I’m going to get into a car accident or get sick or all these things they’re not happening right now.
[00:30:07]we spend so much time Lost in thought that were not even like here in this moment, not for ourselves, not for anybody else. we can’t be because we’re constantly thinking we know what the outcome’s going to be and we don’t. And so the sooner we can recognize that we don’t know outcomes, we don’t have control over people, circumstances, events, outcomes, then we could have true freedom because it’s like, Oh, I’m still going to go towards things.
[00:30:35] I still have goals. I’m going to do the things I think will lead to these outcomes that I want, but I’m not going to be so attached to what the outcomes are anymore and that’s the resistance piece. And when we figure out that we don’t have to be, we can just watch this life unfold versus trying to force all the things to happen and people that behave how we need them to in order for us to feel good.
[00:31:00] Then that’s true freedom. That’s where we get to like enjoy ourselves in this moment with whoever’s with us or ourselves,
[00:31:09]Lance Wantenaar: [00:31:09] when it comes to awareness. What’s your best advice for somebody that wants to develop awareness as a skill, because it’s a very difficult skill to develop, to become present. And aware and to be able to be in the moment.
[00:31:23] So what’s your go-to advice in that regard to, to develop that as a habit and a skill?
[00:31:30]Erin Mac: [00:31:30] it’s funny because, before I started doing this, I just thought everybody had, emotional awareness in terms of like, Oh, I’m freaking out right now or whatever. But I realized now when I work with individuals, sometimes they don’t even know what emotions are.
[00:31:46]And ,
[00:31:46] Lance Wantenaar: [00:31:46] why do you say that?
[00:31:47] Erin Mac: [00:31:47] Um, because I’ve had clients where I’ll say, so, what makes you angry? And they’ll say things like, well, when my kids don’t do what I want them to do or whatever, and I’ll go, Oh, okay. So, what does that feel like? Where does that live in your body? Where, you know, you get warm, you know, like hot or you’re like a cartoon character where like steam is like, blowing out your ears or your head’s about to pop off or like what’s happening for you.
[00:32:14] And they’re just like, I don’t know. Cause they’re so lost in that moment of, not being in their body, basically. They’re just, they’re in their head going, I need this to show up like this, right. That’s the thing I need. They’re in victim mode. They’re like, I need you kids to show up how I need, you need to pay attention to what I’m saying and do all the things.
[00:32:35] Otherwise I’m going to be angry. Right. And, when I asked them to describe what led to that, they don’t have any idea. And so then I asked them questions like, well, what does angry mean? Can you define it for me? And they don’t have any way to define it, or even to describe what’s going on for them, because they’re so lost in that default setting.
[00:33:00]and I’ve even had clients that don’t even know when they’re having emotions, you know, and I’ll say, well, When you said that thing that you didn’t want to say, or, did you recognize that you were kind of out of body basically, you know, like your out of yourself behaving in a habitual way that you don’t even recognize is happening?
[00:33:21] I mean, I know we’ve all met people who are super angry, they don’t think they’re angry. And so recognizing, It’s not always about like looking at somebody else and seeing, visual cues. Oh, they’re not on board with what I’m saying right now, or they’re not reacting in a positive way to how I’m behaving.
[00:33:39] Like that’s helpful too. And that’s why I work with couples is because, when you both understand how to heal and grow, it’s much easier to like stop elevating each other and to your beliefs. And. reaction. but part of it is, you know, recognizing, that past story and how it’s playing in your life now, how are other people reacting to you?
[00:34:02]verbally non-verbally, physically, whatever. and then being able to define when you have those experiences what’s happening for you. Because a lot of times we’re just checked out. that’s why, things like abuse are, they’re learned behaviors and a lot of times the abuser is, is unaware while it’s going on, because they’ve completely checked out of themselves.
[00:34:28] And then later on, they come back and they apologize. The abused is like, I don’t understand that because they don’t, they don’t have that experience. And so it’s like that. It’s like we learned these ways of being, and we keep doing them without recognizing. And so, you know, sometimes you’ll have to go to a spouse or, you know, look at, a work situation and say, why did that outcome turn out how it did and get feedback from other people?
[00:34:57] Like, Oh yeah. When you spoke to me that way I felt degraded. Or I felt like I didn’t have value or whatever. And so those are hard conversations to have, but they’re really beneficial because if you can’t identify, when you’re in reaction to people, it’s really hard to heal those things. And so we have to start with that, like creating a vocabulary around what does, what does that experience look like?
[00:35:24] Feel like. And then again, that detective piece, like what’s happening before, during, after.
[00:35:30]Lance Wantenaar: [00:35:30] There’s a lot of value and there’s a lot of things to think about because the thing is a very, very difficult topic. Although. A lot of people classified as emotional intelligence. I think a lot of it comes down to. One recognizing being able to understand the role that emotions play, not just thinking, but also being and not being at the best of emotions.
[00:35:50] I think in certain aspects, I think people should be allowed to experience anger and joy and everything else and being allowed to experience it because I think. A lot of times that happens with people are denied the right to have an emotion, whether it’s sad, angry, happy, whatever. And that seems to get written into default behavior, because if somebody is angry, stopping angry, you know, stop crying, they’re telling you the person to stop doing or having an emotional reaction.
[00:36:14]Instead of saying,
[00:36:16] let’s start saying,
[00:36:18] yeah. Instead of saying. You’re angry because of this. So you crying because of this, have a cry, whatever process it And I think that’s a big changing, potentially training, but also just awareness is that people are allowed to be angry. And I think sometimes, and there’s many times where I liked being angry.
[00:36:37]It’s not because I want to be angry, but sometimes I like the emotion of anger. I liked sometimes the energy that I get from anger. cause. It can be used for positive purpose. But you have to allow the person to actually experience motion and recognize it and then let them deal with them instead of denying it and then having a knock on effect, because then it becomes a pressure cooker because now what happens is that it builds up and then you start getting a lot of complex.
[00:37:00]processes coming in, because then you start getting resentment, and you ignore things and start building up and it starts affecting your thinking on a day to day basis. And again, it doesn’t allow you that ability to rest and pause and process information because now what you do is that you almost driven by the emotion you stop becoming a roller coaster.
[00:37:18]Erin Mac: [00:37:18] Yeah, I agree.
[00:37:19]Lance Wantenaar: [00:37:19] So the interesting question is where it does this denial aspect come in. Why is it coming? Why do people say these to kids and everything else? What is the intent behind those statements?
[00:37:31]Erin Mac: [00:37:31] Well, so the intent is actually. Fairly. Okay. Right. like I said, it starts at a young age.
[00:37:37] Right. It starts a little kid falls and skins their knee. Oh, it’s okay, honey, don’t cry. Right. We don’t want kids to cry at all because first of all, it’s annoying and nobody wants to hear it. Right. Right. Well, and then there’s the piece on the parent or other adult and which is, it makes me uncomfortable that this child is crying.
[00:37:57] Right. And that’s learned behavior. That we have, and then it just continues on and on. And what you said is a hundred percent, right? Like you cannot process these emotions if we’re not allowed to feel them. So I’m not saying, let your kid scream and, you know, whatever. in the middle of, a quiet, something, you know, go outside or whatever you need to do.
[00:38:22] But allow them to have emotions. And now that we’ve tamped down all these emotions for all these years, you’re allowed to have them to whatever they may be, anger or whatever you’ve distaste, for everybody that’s around you and their experience. Like they don’t want you to have it either because it makes them uncomfortable because we’re just not taught to have emotions.
[00:38:44] And we do everything we can to not experience them. I mean, the obvious ones are drinking and drugs and gambling, sex, shopping, social media, but there are even less obvious ones. Literally almost everything we do is to avoid emotion and the less obvious ones are things like, this new badge of honor that, I don’t know if it’s happening in your world, but it’s certainly happening here in America where I’m just so busy.
[00:39:12]Oh, I can’t meet because my calendar is packed, you know? And I just like, why, why is it so packed? Why are you so busy? And in that busy-ness have you scheduled stillness? Have you scheduled your meditation, your walk in nature, your, quiet moment. No, like it’s just packed back to back to back, whatever zoom meetings and activities and.
[00:39:39]got to get the most out of this life. But the thing is, is like, that’s our present moment. That’s not experiencing what’s going on. Let me just stay so busy or let me just focus on my kids. So I don’t have to look at myself and all the things that are making me miserable, you know, we find these things to focus on so that we don’t have to actually do the work, but the work is finding the emotions and sitting in them.
[00:40:03] And it’s not your fault that you don’t do that because nobody told you that everybody told you to tamp them down. Don’t feel that don’t act that way. It’s inappropriate at this time to do any of these things. And, I’m here to say, have every emotion in the middle of a board meeting if you have to and be done with it, you know, because the thing is, is that stuff stacks up.
[00:40:26] And these emotions, these sit in our body on a cellular level. This is what causes disease is. All of these emotions that don’t feel good, like stuck in our body. So I tell my clients all the time, have every emotion you are not allowed to tamp down another emotion, even if you’re embarrassed or whatever is happening, you burst into tears.
[00:40:51] Or you get angry, you can apologize later or do whatever you need to do have the emotion because it’s coming up for a reason, go ahead and experience it. And if you need to apologize later, fine apologize. we’re all human. We make mistakes. it’s not the end of the world to have an emotion. And then when you allow yourself to have emotions and the people around you are comfortable enough to have their emotions do.
[00:41:14] Hmm.
[00:41:15]Lance Wantenaar: [00:41:15] So obviously communication and being able to communicate clearly, it was very important to us, but if,
[00:41:20]Erin Mac: [00:41:20] yeah, I mean, as part of the awareness process is a recognized, like, yeah, I just lost my, I just lost it. You know, I apologize, but it’s not what I intended to happen. And, obviously that needed to happen.
[00:41:32] The problem is, is that we go from there to blame and shame and fault. And that has awful feelings, too. It’s unnecessary. Just experience what you need to experience and move on. You won’t wallow in it. You won’t stay there forever. but this explosion of emotions, like we all know those people that like seem like everything’s fine.
[00:41:54] And then all of a sudden they just blow up on you. Like that is not by accident. And it’s certainly not that one thing. It was like, that was the last thing. and I feel like there’s a lot of people that just right under the surface, there’s just one more last thing. And they’re going to explode, and it need not be that way because if we like the pressure cooker, if we let out a little bit of steam at a time, we can start to create and experience these better feeling emotions.
[00:42:20] But if we keep tamping them down, we’re just going to keep having the same ones over and over again, same experiences.
[00:42:26]Lance Wantenaar: [00:42:26] Erin, I found your topic fascinating because it’s something which I’ve been hugely. interested in because it’s not an area which people obviously teach about. It’s not something that people easily talk about because it’s easier to have the denying the emotion or to.
[00:42:41]Not know how to handle it. I think that’s the biggest challenge. People don’t know how to one recognize and to process emotions in a way that they feel comfortable because they’ve never been brought up with it in that way. So I think it’s, it’s a very valuable area to, be involved in, tell people where they can get hold of you.
[00:42:58] And, if they want to learn more about emotional management and becoming. more joyful and a lot more present a lot more aware. How can they get hold of you
[00:43:08] Erin Mac: [00:43:08] the best place to get me as on Instagram? My handle is, Erin E R I N M a C LLC. And I have my URL website on there as well. There’s a bunch of podcasts on there.
[00:43:23] People can listen to, or we talk about these same things and also different strategies. But also on Instagram, I post typically a video a week that has you just things to think about. And, it’s a little bit challenging for people to recognize that it’s possible to live this life predominantly in joy.
[00:43:43] And they’ll say, no, that’s not possible because they don’t have the experience of, you know, or the role model of. That experience and I’m here to say it is possible. And I do think it’s our birthright. And so when you hear something that speaks to you on a deep level, go down that path. If it’s me, if it’s you, if it’s this podcast or a book or something like there is something out there for you to have that experience, it’s not meant to be challenge after challenge after challenge.
[00:44:16] Those are actually gifts. And when we can look at it that way, then the experience elevates. So I hope that you find whatever that is that you need to have that experience.
[00:44:27]Lance Wantenaar: [00:44:27] I hope so, too. I hope a lot of people listen to this very carefully and they become aware of, how much of a skill this is.
[00:44:33]To change how they think, because it’s a big thing that I’ve been a fan of for, quite a while. And it’s been fascinating for me because it’s allowed me to reevaluate certain certainly how I assess things and process things, and also realize how it should actually be processing emotion. Because the fact is that people can get caught up in very much.
[00:44:53] The, you could say cognitive critical assessments and the emotion less is set. But what people forget is that in essence, humans are very emotional Emotions are very much made up part of their being. And unless I find a way of managing it effectively, Then they going to always be at the behest of emotions and emotions that haven’t got a roll in it, because it allows you to feel joy, power, love, abundance, everything else.
[00:45:16] It makes life a lot, lot more richer and properly managing it to actually get the benefit out of it. Instead of seeing you have to be emotionless, you can’t make decisions without emotions, regardless of how you think about it. Nobody’s been able to make an emotionless You always make it based on a preference or emotional drivers, but at the end of the day, it’s part of being human.
[00:45:37]So for anybody that’s out there would like to learn a bit more about it. We’ll find out but more about them. I’ll definitely ask them to, speak to you because you’ve got a very valuable insight, which I think I must say thank you for coming onto the podcast. It was a pleasure having
[00:45:50] Erin Mac: [00:45:50] you on.
[00:45:51] Oh, my gosh. It was my pleasure. What you just said is, is vitally important for people to understand, band-aiding over an emotional experience that you’re having over and over again, whether it’s stress or anxiety or depression or whatever the thing is will not make it go away. It’s never gonna go away until you heal and grow that peace inside of you.
[00:46:14] And, Not to be a doom and gloom, or just recognize that, you know, if this interests you at all, it’s topic of conversation, there is healing and growth. So you don’t have to keep experiencing those bad things. And I think people don’t realize that it’s possible to not experience them. And it is,
[00:46:34]Lance Wantenaar: [00:46:34] it was fantastic having you on.
[00:46:35] Thank you very much.
[00:46:37] Erin Mac: [00:46:37] Thank you.