Why Many Men Don't Feel Lovable with Dr. Kelly Flanagan

[00:00:00] Matt: Hello and welcome to the Eternal Optimist Podcast. My name is Matt Drink on, and I'm your host, the host with the most, some might say. Before we get started, I wanna encourage you to go connect with me on social media, follow us at Instagram and Facebook at Eternal Optimus podcast accounts. Today's episode is with Dr.

[00:00:18] Matt: Kelly Flanagan. He's the author of multiple bestselling books. He's a father, he's a husband to his beautiful. Who, by the way, is also named Dr. Kelly Flanagan. That's interesting. Dr. Kelly helps people to master the most important moment of their lives. He's a front row dad. He's a world renowned couple's therapist who came to fame after some letters he wrote to his daughter, went viral some years ago.

[00:00:44] Matt: He's one of the most articulate, transparent humans I've ever met. All I can say is I love. He's opened my eyes through a lens of emotional intelligence I did not have before I met him. In this discussion, we talk about how the things that guide us to midlife might not be working anymore and what we do about it.

[00:01:05] Matt: We talk about how we might stay fully present and involved when we're challenged and feel like withdrawing. We talk about how to break out of our own prisons we made in our thinking. This might be one of the most intriguing conversations I've had yet on the show. Nearly everything that comes out, Dr.

[00:01:20] Matt: Kelly's mouth is wise and provides a learning moment. So sit back and prepare to hear a masterclass on ego, emotional intelligence and love. Without any further ado, my friend Dr. Kelly Flanagan. Enjoy.

[00:01:39] Matt: ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, it is my privilege and sincere pleasure to introduce you to my dear friend, Dr. Kelly Flanagan. Kelly, good morning, sir. How are you?

[00:01:49] Kelly: Matt, I'm doing fine. Thank you for having me here.

[00:01:53] Matt: Absolute pleasure. Ever since I've first heard of you sometime ago, back in the front row, dads, I heard Kelly Flanagan's, the person to talk to. He's a known, reputable author with a number of books, including Lovable, which we enjoyed, and he's someone that coaches and councils, people in relationships, and he's darn good at it, And when I finally met you face to face, it was awesome to meet you because you're so unassuming and humble in the way you show up. I have this perception in my mind if someone is a coach, psychologist, psychiatrist, someone that deals with thinking and helping people through things, with thinking in their emotions, that they might have to be some kind of ho toy kind of stuck up book person, you know?

[00:02:31] Matt: And that's not you at all. You're so natural and human. And I just, I may have said too much. I'm excited to have you here today, Kelly.

[00:02:37] Kelly: Well, it's really nice of you to say, will say I tried arrogance for quite a while in my life and it just didn't work, . And so I'm glad you didn't meet me back then. You know?

[00:02:46] Matt: Oh wow. We may have unintentionally stumbled upon a first opportunity of the day. Let's, start with that. Let's start with I was gonna start with a challenge. Something that was difficult for you, that you experienced and then went through and learned from in your life. And let's start with arrogance.

[00:03:02] Matt: What is your relationship and history with arrogance in that regard?

[00:03:05] Kelly: for me, My life changed almost on a dime in 2008. at that point, I had finished my PhD. I was Dr. Kelly married to a wonderful woman, also named Kelly. Very confusing for everybody, including tsa. But how about the height of arrogance? Marry a woman with your name?

[00:03:22] Kelly: Right. But . I married an amazing woman named Kelly. We had two kids at that point. Again, graduated with my PhD. I had established very quickly a successful therapy practice and theoretically was on top of the world. And came quickly to discover that the top of the world wasn't everything that I thought it was going to be.

[00:03:41] Kelly: Felt right about everything. Felt like my wife was the reason I was unhappy, cuz she wasn't making me feel as worthy as she should. She wasn't giving me the attention that I deserved. know, young kids, toddlers, they're not exactly wired to make a parent feel great about themselves all the

[00:03:57] Kelly: time. You're right. Yes. You get that like, familiar with that experience. so by the end of 2000 seven going into oh eight, I'm getting depressed. I'm sort of angry doing damage to my marriage. and the thing that really starts to get to me is that I'm watching myself pass on some of my wounds to my kids.

[00:04:16] Kelly: Right. Getting angry at them disproportionately and sending them messages about who they're that are. What I wanna send. So I made this decision at the end of 2007. My New Year's resolution, ironically I wasn't an author yet, was I'm not gonna read any more self-help books. I'm done reading self-help books.

[00:04:32] Kelly: I'm actually just going to start to practice some of the things that I've been reading in these self-help books, right? And so I'm gonna start to practice mindfulness meditation on a daily basis. I'm going to start to regularly practice contemplative prayer, which is not, asking God for all the things you deserve, but is actually just trying to listen for the voice of God in your life.

[00:04:51] Kelly: And so I'm gonna start to practice these things and it was probably like three or four months into 2008, and I remember saying to my wife, standing in the kitchen like, you know, my whole life, if you put me in front of God, what would God say to you? I think I would've said, God would say to me, Kelly, I'm disappointed in you.

[00:05:06] Kelly: You can do better. and that was really the voice that I was passing on to everybody else in my life. I'm disappointed in you, you can do better. And I said to my wife, my whole life I've been told that's the voice of God. I think it's the voice of shame. I don't think I've ever actually heard the voice of God.

[00:05:19] Kelly: I don't think I've ever heard a more graceful voice inside of me. And so I continue to listen and to pray and to practice mindfulness. And I had an awakening. It was on a marine base in Virginia. The day after my sister-in-law's wedding, I woke up on Father's Day in a bit of a theory about all the ways the day wasn't gonna go to my liking.

[00:05:37] Kelly: and I had just this moment where this great awareness set in that I was inside of a prison of my own making. That all of my expectations and my angers and my resentments and my arrogance was a prison of my own making. And that I could step out of it in a moment if I chose to. And I did. I stepped out of it and I got to experience myself apart from what I now know is our ego, the thing that we built up to sort of protect ourselves. and it was a life-changing moment for me. Not to say that my ego disappeared or that never sort of reasserted itself, but for the first time in my life, I had an experience of what it was like to live without it.

[00:06:16] Kelly: I'm grateful for you to say, boy, you come off as a pretty humble guy. Because what I'm hoping to do is to live from that place of not ego as much as I can. And generally that tends to come off as relatively humble. Of course the ego then wants to seize on your humble identity and use it to get you all sorts of things, and you have to be careful of that.

[00:06:34] Kelly: But the last, that was 2008. Spent a few years getting to know myself apart from my ego, discovered that I loved to write. Something I'd never considered doing before. and I started to write a blog. That blog went viral a few times. Pretty quickly. my daughter and I wound up on the Today Show as a result of one of the blog posts.

[00:06:50] Kelly: Got connected to a great literary agent as a result of that appearance, and ended up writing a book called Lovable, which ended up connecting me with the community that you and I are both a part of Front Row dads. So but really it all goes back to that moment in eight. I was able to experience myself apart from my ego and start to get to know myself a little bit better.

[00:07:11] Matt: were you aware at that time when you had that awakening that your ego was in charge, your ego was even there running the show?

[00:07:20] Kelly: No idea. And I didn't even know on that morning. that, that's what had happened. I didn't know what to call the thing that I thought I was that all of a sudden I was no longer living inside of. I didn't know what to call it. And so that actually initiated a deep dive in 2008, 2009, 2010 to go.

[00:07:38] Kelly: what was that identity I had created that I had the choice to step outta? Right? The thing that I thought this identity, I thought that was gonna get me all this freedom that was actually imprisoning me. Uh, What is this thing? and so sort of became a student of the ego. And it's counterpart, the soul as you might say, or the true self and fell in love with the good news that any of us can step out of our ego and live authentically and just wanted to have spent the last 10 years spreading that good news as much as I can through what I do and what I say and what I write and how show. My wife would tell you I'm successful hopefully 50% of the time

[00:08:13] Matt: Okay, well that if, okay, if you're successful 50% of the time, that means because you've made progress, you were probably only successful 10% of the time, or not even through that lens at all when you started. So you've made progress. Well, and that's right. And then when the ego reasserts itself, it says, oh, what's wrong with you? You're not perfect. you need to be I mean, it's just this whole process. And, but I think the awareness that comes with the true self is that we're doing the best we can.

[00:08:37] Kelly: And yeah, 50% of the time is a lot better than where we're at. And let's keep working at it.

[00:08:41] Matt: I'm thinking here that it might be, Easier for us to spot ego, showing up when we see others making statements or others showing up. But when it comes to ourselves we have this amazing blind spot around our own ego because we're all so self-centered. And I'm wondering if there is some inner critic or inner voice in Dr.

[00:09:04] Matt: Kelly that is still espousing that you should be in charge or you should own this, or you, and, that the ego is still trying to claw its way back for a main seat and how you

[00:09:16] Matt: work with that.

[00:09:17] Kelly: yes. Daily. and the interesting thing is, like, obviously as you become more aware of all this, you see the ego in those all around you. But how you see the ego tells you if you are seeing it from a place of ego or from a place of true self. Because if you judge somebody else's

[00:09:31] Kelly: ego, you can be pretty confident that you are in a place of ego.

[00:09:35] Kelly: But if you see someone else's ego and go, oh yeah, me too. Yeah, I get it. and if you see that ego and go, oh, we only live from ego. If we feel unsafe, we only live from ego if we are protecting pain, then when you see someone else's ego from a place of true self, you go, oh, you're in pain and you don't feel safe.

[00:09:52] Kelly: How can I make you feel safer right now? But when the ego is observing ego, it just has judgment. One of my favorite stories is an anecdote told by a guy named Peter Rollins, a theologian and philosopher. he tells a story of this rich Texas oil man who discovers, he's got a long cousin Seamus over in Ireland, and he wants to go get to know his relatives.

[00:10:11] Kelly: So he goes over to Ireland and Famous is showing him around his humble little property. And the rich Texas Oilman says, well, you should see my property in Texas. I can't even drive my car to the edges of it. And Shamus looks at him and says, ah, my car's broken too. My car's broken too. In other words, I see through the ego, you were just projecting, having to tell me how big your property is and I see the brokenness underneath it.

[00:10:33] Kelly: The reason you need to tell me that, right? And so that's how true self sees ego. It goes, oh yeah, me too. I'm hurt. I'm in pain, I'm broken. I need to be protected as well, which is why I built my ego. You're doing the same thing. I choose to see the hurt underneath the ego. But

[00:10:48] Kelly: ego sees ego.

[00:10:49] Matt: I feel like continuing to ask questions, and this might get into a counseling session for me personally, and I'm totally okay with that. I feel like what you just said, if I were to try to simplify it, a judgment space equals you're in an ego space where your ego is more dominant. . And if trying to find the word that fits in right here, I wanna say curiosity or openness is more equal to your living from the opposite of the ego space, from a humble space or community space.

[00:11:16] Matt: does that connect in any way?

[00:11:17] Kelly: Yeah. And by the way, I think every good conversation is good counseling for both people. So if this starts to feel like counseling, that's fine for me. when we were in Austin a few weeks ago, we did a sound bathing isn't it amazing? morning

[00:11:28] Kelly: exercise.

[00:11:29] Kelly: And so I'm laying there and I realized several minutes into the sound bathing that I'm judging the sounds. Oh, I like that one. I don't like that one. I like this one. I don't like this one. And that makes me realize that it's my ego showing up to the moment cuz the ego is the part of us that is constantly judging, creating hierarchies, creating categories in tears.

[00:11:48] Kelly: This is better than. It can't just experience reality, it's constantly judging it, Whereas the true self is curious about reality. It simply wants to participate in what is, even if it doesn't match our preferences. And so in that moment during the sounding, I caught myself judging, let go of the judgements, participate in this experience.

[00:12:10] Kelly: But the judgements wanted to come back over and over again. Like you said, ego wants to reassert itself, right? that sort of became an exercise in letting go of ego again for me, and just sort of enjoying whatever the sound was and participating in the experience.

[00:12:21] Matt: I love it. So I think what I'm hearing, and this might lead to a breakthrough for me, I'm really feeling it that when you feel the ego is coming up, when you catch yourself in judgment or catch yourself knowing that ego is coming up your trip wire, now what you've learned and train yourself to think is to let go of it.

[00:12:36] Matt: Can you go a little bit deeper? What does that mean to let go of it?

[00:12:39] Kelly: That's a great question. So one of my favorite authors, writers, thinkers, theologians is Richard Roar, r o h r. he has a fantastic quote that I actually came across on the way down to the front rod retreat. And it was the opposite of control isn't letting go, it's participation, Because letting go could be a way of holding onto control as well. the reason that quote stood out to me is that my wife has been trying to tell me something all year, and I wasn't hearing it until I heard it from that quote and what she's been saying. And my sort of spiritual work in my marriage this year is to finally break my addiction to my wife's approval, right?

[00:13:14] Kelly: To finally break my addiction to her acknowledgement and her appreciation. Because when I'm addicted to it, I treat her like a vending machine where I put in good deeds, I put in love, so to speak. I put in all of that and I expect back approval and acknowledgement, encouragement and appreciation.

[00:13:30] Kelly: And that's, a quid pro quo relationship, not a loving one. So I've been trying to break my addiction to her approval, but the way I've been trying to do it is by letting go of that need for approval. So I'm in a conversation with her. I think I've earned her approval, and she's not my fan in the moment for whatever reason.

[00:13:46] Kelly: So what I've been doing is letting go, going, okay, fine, I'm out. We don't need to talk about this anymore. I don't need to pressure you to approve of me. Like, I'm just going to let you have your opinion of me, right? And I'm gonna go now do this other thing.

[00:13:58] Kelly: I'm gonna go write a blog post, I'm gonna go whatever.

[00:14:02] Kelly: And she's been telling me all year, that's controlling. And I'm going, that's not controlling. I'm letting you go. I hear that quote and that is controlled to withdraw into yourself and say, I sever the connection here cause I'm not getting what I want. It looks like letting go. Right? But it's not.

[00:14:17] Kelly: And what she's been saying is, keep participating with me when you're not getting what you want from me. Stay in participation with me. And so that has been my calling for the last month or so is to continue to participate with her even when I'm not getting what I want. So letting go can be an ego move to retain a sense of power, right?

[00:14:34] Kelly: Withdrawal can be an ego move to retain a sense of control. But how do I truly participate in a situation where I'm not getting what I want? How do I stay fully involved in it, fully connected fully present to it? To me, that's the real challenge, that the true self is called to.

[00:14:50] Matt: I'm always on the hunt for a great question, and when I have conversations with people I respect, and you just armed us with a powerful question. How might I truly stay fully present and involved when I want to let go or when

[00:15:03] Matt: I'm challenged, in some way with my,

[00:15:05] Matt: spouse?

[00:15:06] Kelly: What you realize is that the condition you have is, I will continue to stay involved with you in relationship if I feel a sense of control over it. If I've got some sort of control, like I'm still working to get your approval, or I think I'm about to get what I want, or whatever, it's how do I stay fully present and involved with you and truly let go of control of your opinion over me, of what you're going to do, of who you're trying to become.

[00:15:29] Kelly: Coming home from the front, her dad's retreat, I realized that I was actually using my curiosity to try to control my daughter.

[00:15:35] Matt: weaponizing curiosity. This is okay. Yeah.

[00:15:38] Kelly: yes. Weaponizing curiosity. My daughter gets home from school and I pepper her with questions.

[00:15:45] Kelly: So, how was your day? And of course she does the classic, it was fine, well, what did you do in gym class? Well, who did you sit with at lunch? and there's two ways I'm trying to control her in that. Number one, I'm wanting to know everything about her day so I can fix anything that went wrong, make her feel better, if anything went bad.

[00:15:59] Kelly: I mean good things, but still wanting to get in there and tinker and control. And then number two, I want her to know I'm an interested dad. I'm wanting to put into her head. I want her to be able to say, my dad is very interested in me, which is a way of putting a thought into her head, which is controlling her.

[00:16:13] Kelly: So I'm like, no wonder she's shutting down, she's feeling like I'm trying to invade her. And controls retreat after school is anything. Tell me about your day.

[00:16:25] Kelly: Is there anything that you wanna tell me about your day that's participation? That is, I'm gonna give control to you to show up however you want, and I'm gonna sit here and wait for it.

[00:16:35] Kelly: And so what's so interesting there's a long, long pause after I answer that question. I think she's going like, is he really gonna just let me have control to not say anything, to not ask any more questions? And when she finally feels like dad's not trying to control the conversation, she starts opening up and telling me about her day.

[00:16:53] Kelly: how do we participate without trying to control the other person? I think that's the big challenge. The ego wants to control and be in control. The true self just wants to participate.

[00:17:02] Matt: How might we participate without trying to be in control and have an awareness around how the ego is in play here. Participate, not control. Understood. Good, And as you're sharing your, stories here, Kelly, I'm, putting some dots together and pieces of my own life and thinking about how I do ask some of those questions, and I do want to show, well, it's like you're, seeing through me right now or into my soul because I want to show my kids that I'm very interested.

[00:17:25] Matt: I ask questions because I want them to, and maybe I'm projecting on them what I want. Maybe this is about me, but I want them to, to grow up and, and learn how to ask questions and keep asking questions. . And then you come up with a question of, is there anything you want to tell me about your day?

[00:17:39] Matt: And as a sales professional, I'm trained to ask yes or no questions. And I know the answer is gonna be the answer that I want. Other than that,

[00:17:47] Matt: I keep it pretty, open.

[00:17:48] Matt: But I give them

[00:17:49] Matt: the control to answer. No. Oh, I'm,

[00:17:51] Kelly: Yes.

[00:17:52] Kelly: Well, and you just nailed it. Like in my coaching with entrepreneurs, the most common thing we discover over and over again is that your superpower in your entrepreneurial ventures often becomes your kryptonite at home. Right? Like the questions that you're trained to ask to get the answers that you want out in the world.

[00:18:10] Kelly: if you're people at home, sense that you have an agenda to ask questions, to get the answers that you're hoping for, eventually, at least by like age 13 or 14, they start to shut down. Cuz the teenagers can see it coming from a mile away. And now they're like, oh. At 13 or 14, a kid is wired to start to take control of themselves, right?

[00:18:26] Kelly: And so if they sense that you're trying to control them with your questions, even just getting an answer or an outcome that you want, they'll start to shut down because they'll say, no, you're not gonna control me in that way. that superpower that we have, I mean, therapists, right? my superpower is creating a safe space for people to open up about their most vulnerable feelings and emotions,

[00:18:42] Kelly: If I bring that home , and my goal is to get my kids to open up about their most vulnerable feelings and emotions, it's going to become my kryptonite, my relationship to my kids, at least by the time they turn into teenagers because they're not going to want dad to have that agenda with them. So anyways, this is all part of the growth curve for me to learn how to show up without those kinds of agendas.

[00:19:03] Kelly: Just ready to sort of be an audience for who they're and who they're becoming.

[00:19:06] Matt: You're right, I'm in the same journey, my friend. Thinking about some of the cliche statements I don't show up and try to coach my wife. don't show up and try to coach my kids unless we're on the soccer field. Literally I am dad to them. That is my role to them. Father, husband, not coach unless we're having a, a very

[00:19:23] Matt: specific discussion around that.

[00:19:25] Matt: the difference between those two hats, sometimes I've gotta intentionally take off the coach hat.

[00:19:30] Kelly: Yeah. It's the difference. It's the way that, because it's a wonderful hat, you're doing so much good in the world with that hat, right. But can sneak

[00:19:37] Kelly: in

[00:19:37] Matt: Well, it's a hat designed to help you get a result in your business or in the harmony in your life. And, when I wear it over here at the house I am not showing up as the dad or the husband hat. And that hat has the prime imperative of invest quality time pay attention, be present in the moment.

[00:19:55] Matt: And that's different than agenda. Move forward, make

[00:19:58] Matt: progress as a coach in your business.

[00:19:59] Kelly: I love that you have a gift for like, distilling it down to a really simple usable, accessible way of thinking. I like the hat, the hat way of describing. It's a really great one.

[00:20:08] Matt: Well, you had some type of breakthrough. I had a breakthrough, I wanna say. It was over a year ago. You were sharing something about the

[00:20:16] Matt: cast.

[00:20:16] Matt: And can you share a little bit about that concept of the castle and kinda mowed around it? that was a fascinating topic. I wasn't there to hear you talk about it live.

[00:20:25] Matt: I heard about it later and I'd love to

[00:20:27] Matt: dive into you with the castle.

[00:20:28] Kelly: yeah, absolutely. you know, I mentioned from 2008 to 2011 and 12 and so on. I'm. sort of doing this deep dive into what is the ego or the false self as we call it, and then as I'm talking to people about it, how can I make it sort of tangible and accessible and understandable?

[00:20:45] Kelly: Cause it's a sort of a shadowy concept. And so there's two things I'd say before describing that castle metaphor. The first is what I arrived at was sort of an awareness. And I'm not the first to arrive at this by any means, is that we come into the world with a true self is good enough and it's worthy of love and belonging exactly the way that it is, number one.

[00:21:03] Kelly: that's true of every human being. The second thing that's true of every human being is that at some point we get the message. That that true self isn't good enough for love and belonging the way that it is. that love is conditional. And that we will not belong if we are just who we are.

[00:21:19] Kelly: and we call that message shame. the message that you're not good enough. Every human being experiences it. And I write about this in lovable. and then the third truth about every human being is that we all then, I mean as a young person, sort of unconsciously, but very sort of intentionally, we say, Hey, if my true self isn't good enough to get the love I ate so badly long for, then I'm gonna have to build a self That is, I'm gonna have to build a false self.

[00:21:45] Kelly: That is in charge of number one, protecting me from more shame and going out there and getting me the love that I so badly long for. and so as children, even we start to build this false self or this ego, usually around third or fourth grade that starts. So the metaphor that I eventually arrived at sort of describe the ego and its development is the metaphor of a castle.

[00:22:07] Kelly: That at first around third or fourth grade, we start to build the walls of our castle, the walls of our false self for our ego. These are the things that sort of keep other people out, keep us hidden keep us sort of under people's radar. These are the things like the people pleasing and the fitting in and the peacemaking Yeah.

[00:22:24] Kelly: All the different ways we go into hid. In order to not stick out like a sore thumb and get hampered, this is the day that your kid comes home after going to school, looking exactly the way they've always looked, and they come home and go, I need to wear these brands.

[00:22:36] Kelly: I'm gonna try to sit at this table, I have to start playing this sport. Like, I have to start to create this persona that is going to fit in better with everybody else so that I feel like I belong. Right? it's a hard day for a parent to see your kids start to go into hiding in that way.

[00:22:49] Kelly: In addition to the ego walls, usually around middle school, you start to add ego cannons. And these are the more aggressive things that we do to sort of like, protect ourselves. You know, sort of the best defense is a good offense sort of mentality of, I'm gonna hurt other people whether it's obviously or internally, at least with all my criticism and judgment.

[00:23:07] Kelly: I'm gonna keep people at bay. I'm gonna elevate myself a little bit by hurting other people. And then finally, sort of high school on into early adulthood. And for some of us, the rest of our lives, we add a throne to the ego castle. And this is a place of elevation, of a riv, of control, of power, of respect.

[00:23:23] Kelly: any sort of corner of your life where you feel like you've earned those things and you've proved yourself good enough. So it could be in a career, a job, it could be as a parent, any of these things. and this is where we sort of arrive in adulthood. Hopefully this is like normal development.

[00:23:38] Kelly: We arrive with a true self, we become ashamed of it, and then we build a false self walls, cannons in the throne. And we have to make that decision in midlife whether or not we are gonna continue to live the rest of our lives inside the courtyard of that castle hidden away behind all of our protections.

[00:23:54] Kelly: Or are we gonna lower the drawbridge of our castle? Step out of it. and begin to live our lives more authentically, vulnerably, for sure. But authentically. and that's how I came to understand what happened to me in 2008, was my drop dropped suddenly and I walked out and I looked back and I went, that thing that I've been calling me, that was just my set of protections that I built up over the course of 20 years.

[00:24:16] Kelly: I'm me now looking at my protections and I wanna live outside this castle as much as I can. Cause this is how I wanna live a life. Right? And then the reality is there are some days where you, you just wake up and you're backing the castle and you have to sort out how to lower that drawbridge all over

[00:24:31] Kelly: again and live more authentically.

[00:24:33] Kelly: but that's, the metaphor that I shared yeah. A number of years ago at front row dads. And uh, I've shared with so many folks since then, and it seems to be a tangible way to sort of kinda. Frame it for folks to go, oh, yeah, when did I start to build my walls? What are my walls? What are the ways that I hide myself away from people?

[00:24:49] Kelly: Yeah. What are my more aggressive forms of protecting myself? And how do I sort of sit in a place of righteousness or arrogance or power over people? Like where do I do that and what would it look like to just lower the drawbridge of authenticity, step out vulnerably, and be me apart from all of that protection, like, to me, that is like the second half of adulthood.

[00:25:10] Matt: Wow. I feel like you're living it right now, and you've shared stories that let down your drawed and let us in transparently with someone who is aware of this, who's had an awakening, who studied this, and who is aware when the ego comes in that, I'm going to let go or I'm going to participate in this, to let go of control.

[00:25:30] Matt: Someone who has studied this and aware of it. What might cause you to go back inside of your, castle? If there's a, triggering type of recurring experience or something that might cause someone, once they're out and they're trying it out, they're out here authentic. But now I've gotta go back in.

[00:25:46] Matt: How might that

[00:25:47] Matt: happen? How might we go back in?

[00:25:49] Kelly: the first sentence of my newest book, which is a novel, is the past is always behind us, but it is also always within us,

[00:25:59] Kelly: right? the triggering pain, the triggering shame that led to us having to build a false self in the first place. we'd like to say, oh, that was years ago, right?

[00:26:08] Kelly: look at the life I've created. Look at all the success I've created. But the reality is that past sort of comes along with us inside. . And that is a hard reality in some ways, but it is also a brilliant reality in some ways. Because what it means is you are going to have multiple opportunities, if you wanna face it, to get to know the pain that triggers your ego, And so for me a big part of that has been like, how would I describe the particular variety of shame that I exited childhood with? and lovable. I talk about this phrase, you're not interesting enough. In other words, like when you speak up, when you show up as who you really are, everyone's just gonna get bored and uninterested and walk away and leave you, and you're gonna end up completely alone cause you're so uninteresting, right?

[00:26:50] Kelly: when that wound for me is sort of rubbed or triggered, that's when my ego is probably gonna be more likely to assert itself. So I'll give you an example. A number of years ago shortly after Lovable was published, just coming on a podcast, and it was a podcast with a very wide, listenership.

[00:27:08] Kelly: my publisher was really emphasizing that this is a great chance to get the word out there about lovable. And I got on the call, I thought in a very centered place, like I was like, I'm worthy. I just need to show up as who I am. And there was a pre-interview prep and the host of the podcast, I kid you not said this, all right, Kelly, you need to be really

[00:27:28] Kelly: interesting.

[00:27:28] Matt: Oh my God. What?

[00:27:30] Kelly: I'm not kidding you, that word. You need to come with all your best stuff. They've gotta come away with a dozen punchy takeaways. You have to be memorable. And my shame was triggered so dramatically that I sort of went into ego autopilot. and what I did was went to Throne, I went to Dr.

[00:27:51] Kelly: Kelly, who knows everything, and I went out there and I tried to be the expert. And Dr. Kelly is just not , he's a commanding character, but he's actually not terribly interesting, right? Like, what's interesting is all the real stuff that I love to talk about and the authenticity that I actually enjoy bringing couldn't do it.

[00:28:08] Kelly: During that interview, I felt so ashamed and so protected. I hang up the phone and I'm like, oh my God. I completely blew that. that was a disaster. I was pontificating and I went back to my arrogant Dr. Kelly. And my favorite part of the story is that time what I've learned is that when your shame is screaming and when your ego castle is firing and protective, if you can find enough stillness to listen for a better voice within, you will eventually hear it.

[00:28:37] Kelly: You will eventually hear it. So I spent the next 72 hours trying to quietly listen for a better voice within me, not my shame telling me I'd completely ruined my whole life. And, not my ego and beating up on me, but just to listen for that better. The voice. I call the voice of grace inside of us, each of us.

[00:28:53] Kelly: And I was sitting on a dock in the middle of a bike ride foggy morning like three days later, and I finally heard the voice of grace in me. the voice of grace never says what you want it to. It only says what you need to hear . I thought I was listening for the voice of grace. The voice of grace was gonna be like Kelly.

[00:29:09] Kelly: You know, it wasn't an a plus performance, but it was like a B and that audience doesn't really know you, so I'm sure they thought you were great. What I hear inside of me is, yeah, Kelly, you blew. It takes a lot of courage to learn on a big stage. I'm really proud of you for getting up there. Keep getting up, keep doing it.

[00:29:31] Kelly: And I instantly felt this sense of peacefulness because the voice of grace hadn't commented on what I did, it named who I am. Right? You're brave. It takes courage to get up there and learn on a big stage, and I can live peacefully within that reality, even when I've made mistakes, even when I've blown opportunities.

[00:29:49] Kelly: there you go. Your shame is triggered. Your ego comes to your defense. You feel now ashamed of the way that your ego came to your defense. You spend 72 hours, maybe 72 days for some people. Or I had someone email me not too long ago saying, I read lovable three years ago and I finally heard the Voice of Grace today. You know, listen, wait for it, it will show up. Right? that's sort of how it has played out for me in the past. I think it plays out that way for a lot of us.

[00:30:14] Matt: Wow, fascinating. I'm weaving this tapestry here. It's beautiful.

[00:30:19] Matt: today's sponsor of the Eternal Optimist Podcast. It's a personal shout out to our team of committed dads at the front row. Dads, we are family, men with businesses, not businessmen with families. Our six pillars are wealth and legacy. Intentional parenting, vibrant health, emotional intelligence, business e.

[00:30:42] Matt: And thriving marriage. We have different levels of engagement and membership to accommodate your schedule, your budget, your needs. If you're interested in finding out more on your journey to being a better father, or to the ladies listening, if you'd like to tee up a conversation for your husband or your partner, reach out to me.

[00:30:59] Matt: I love this group. And their influence will be felt for the next seven generations. The front row dads now back to the show.

[00:31:08] Matt: And I'm, feeling like the pattern overall that's coming together as high self-awareness or an attempt to understand self, to dive into self from a perspective of curiosity. When you come to a place where you can feel the shame loud, loud, and the ego is in charge and it's loud go to a place of stillness.

[00:31:25] Matt: in that moment of stillness, I heard appreciate with patients and grace, you know the place that you're in. It's here to teach you something and you have to have curiosity to. You have to be aware of yourself that you're even in that spot. So awareness plus curiosity

[00:31:40] Matt: and patience and grace equals

[00:31:44] Matt: progress on this journey to stay out of the castle and lower the drawbridge.

[00:31:49] Kelly: I think the word awareness is huge. I think you've really nailed something there. You know, you could ask, in the moment that you see your false self, your ego for what it is, it's not the ego seeing itself. So what part of you is seeing it? And the answer is, it's the true self.

[00:32:06] Kelly: the true self's main character is awareness. The ability to observe. And this is why, we talk about ego and, it can get such a bad rap , you know, like the ego's a bad thing. You need to get rid of it, and it's like, actually a couple things here. You needed the ego or you wouldn't have built it.

[00:32:23] Kelly: So let's start with some gratitude for our ego. It got us through, we apparently weren't safe enough. At some point we needed to build some safety around ourselves. So let's start with some gratitude for it. And number two, every time it shows up, now it's an opportunity for you to become aware of it.

[00:32:38] Kelly: And in that moment of awareness, you're actually stepping back into and inhabiting your true self, watching your ego. So the moment of awareness itself is the moment of transformation and, and all these other beautiful things come with it. Curiosity, compassion, understanding, gratitude. It just sort of flows in cuz those things are sort of the the currency of the true self.

[00:32:59] Kelly: I mean, if you are in true self, those things flow more naturally. So, hey, your ego just showed up. If you beat yourself up for your ego showing up, you're literally using your ego to beat yourself up for having ego. But if instead you can sort of step back and watch your ego, you are literally moving back into true self and awareness.

[00:33:19] Kelly: So the ego showing up is an opportunity. It's just an opportunity to step back into true self and to be aware of the ego.

[00:33:25] Matt: Now that's spoken like what I would call true eternal optimist, is that that moment of challenge or the moment of, of awareness of the ego is the moment of opportunity. And you said the moment of awareness is the moment of transformation. is it possible? How might I construct, intentionally construct what I would call moments of transformation or moments of awareness, if

[00:33:43] Matt: that's even possible?

[00:33:44] Matt: How would I intentionally set myself some booby traps or some places where there's going to be a moment of transformation here?

[00:33:50] Kelly: Such a great question. So when people ask me in my coaching these days, like, what's the thing you focus on? the most succinct way I can say it is I help people master the most important moment in their life. And it's this moment that you just put your finger on and it starts with an awareness that you can actually feel your ego starting to assert itself in your body way before you have a thought associated with it or an action associated with it.

[00:34:16] Kelly: and the way that you feel the ego assert itself, as in your body is usually in the form of some sort of tightening in your body, somewhere between your gut or your temples. Right? People will describe either a clenching in their gut tightening in their lower back. A pressure in their chest or some sort of like fullness in their like temples or jaw area, somewhere between the gut and the temples.

[00:34:39] Kelly: You feel that tightening. That is your cue that, oh, your ego is being called into active duty here. Your ego is about to protect you, and if you can create just a moment of awareness in that moment of tightening, then you have a chance to make a choice. Do I let the ego do its thing as I trained it to do, or do I bring awareness to this moment and observe the ego instead Well, this brings up an opportunity because you say that I help people master the most important moment of their life, which is the moment of awareness when you feel It might be the tightening in any number of the places nearby you just shared. And I can name some of those very specific instances.

[00:35:16] Matt: these are the moments I go to the front row dad retreats to get the coaching and the psychological awareness of how I might show up point in case might be this. We set out almost four years ago to create a yell free home. And I would find myself yelling and the yelling was yelling like Kelly, like if you were a young child and you were making noise and I'm on a Zoom on a coaching call, then I would say, Kelly keep it down, something of that nature.

[00:35:42] Matt: it started out with doing that a couple of times a day or a few times a day. And then now it's gone, but it's shown up in a different way. And this is where I feel the tightening is if there's a struggle with a child around a bedtime or a rule that, that daddy wants to make, or in business, if there's an accountability of I'm gonna get this, or I commit to taking this action between now and our next coaching call.

[00:36:05] Matt: Or if it's with a spouse and it's something around you know, something simple about the way that, just a tiny way that we feel about, let's just say giving out dessert. You know, it can be any number of these things that cause me to go into my castle. You know, and I guess the reason I cheer on this, the question I have is that if I know what these triggering places are, these intersections where I.

[00:36:24] Matt: Really wanna show up fully aware, and I wanna change my behavior, right? How do I do that? How do I learn to change my behavior? I know where the moments are that I've had trouble

[00:36:33] Matt: showing up, how do I change the behavior if I'm aware of the moments?

[00:36:37] Kelly: yeah. So there's a couple of steps to this. So you're aware of the moment you've created an opportunity for choice within the moment with your awareness. One way that you can wedge that moment apart even a little further and gain some insight and wisdom into what's going on is you can know that that's your ego coming to your rescue, and that's what you're feeling is that tightening.

[00:36:55] Kelly: And you can know that the ego is always doing one of two things. It's always attaching to what it wants or it's resisting what it doesn't want,

[00:37:02] Matt: Okay.

[00:37:03] Kelly: attaching to what it wants, or it's resisting what it doesn't want. So one thing you can do in that moment of tightening is you can ask yourself a question if you got your wits about you, right?

[00:37:10] Kelly: Which is what, what am I wanting right now? What do I prefer to be happening right now that I'm attached to? What do I not want to be happening right now that I'm resisting? And what would it look like for me to just open up and receive this moment the way it is and not do anything to it? To not do anything to it.

[00:37:30] Kelly: So you've created just a little bit more space, right? To become aware of what the ego is trying to do in the moment. That's number one. .

[00:37:39] Kelly: So number two, and this is where the depth work, I think really happens. The real transformation is, and I'm just gonna preface this with a quick story,

[00:37:47] Matt: Cool.

[00:37:48] Kelly: because I didn't believe this in 2013.

[00:37:52] Kelly: I didn't believe what I'm about to say. I was a trained empiricist. I only believed in things that were empirically validated, empirically proved a lot of, some of the pop psychology that I was hearing felt sort of fluffy and silly. I did not believe what I'm about to say. I'll say it in a moment. I go on the Today Show, I get connected with this great literary agent. She says, Hey Kelly, you're writing these amazing letters to your daughter. They're going viral. People really love your, parenting letters to your kids. You should probably write a parenting book. So I go home to my wife, the other Kelly, who's a child psychologist.

[00:38:22] Kelly: I'm an adult psychologist. She's a child psychologist. And I say, Kathy thinks I should write a parenting book. And my wife's like, no way should you write a parenting book. . Like, cause she's been watching me. She's at a front row seat to this train rock, right? She's like, no. So it got us talking though, and it's like, you know, you're right.

[00:38:39] Kelly: But if it's not the parenting element of these letters that's appealing to people, what is it? And so I went and I had started reading through all the letters, and I, I had thousands of them at the time. It was a widely read blog post to my daughter. And I realized that almost every email, it wasn't saying, I'm gonna save this letter and give it to my daughter.

[00:38:57] Kelly: I'm going to save this letter and give it to my granddaughter. every email was from an adult man or woman saying I needed to hear these words. I needed to be reminded that I'm worthy, I needed to be reminded that I'm not alone, that I belong, that I have a reason for being here, that I matter.

[00:39:13] Kelly: And it sort of hit me. We all still have a little kid inside of us that's waiting on a love letter. Every single one of us, that true self that we once were that young child before we got ashamed that kid isn't gone, that kid is living inside of us. So I didn't believe what I'm about to say for a while, cuz the inner child stuff just felt like Huey to me.

[00:39:31] Kelly: Right? Like, oh, come on. that's pleasant. I'm gonna go over here and do research. but I of finally had to surrender to it that we all still have a little kid inside of us that is both longing to be loved ashamed that they. That they are the way they are, and that's the reason they're not being loved.

[00:39:47] Kelly: when you have that moment of tightening and your ego is coming, being called into active duty, the part of you that is calling it into active duty is the little kid still inside of you that doesn't want to go through this, doesn't want to feel pain, doesn't want to be hurt, doesn't want to feel unsafe.

[00:40:02] Kelly: And so when you have that moment of tightening, it's actually this incredible opportunity for a depth of wisdom about what pain am I still carrying around from earlier in my life and how am I trying to manage that pain and make sure it doesn't happen again? So there's this remarkable moment for me that's happened over and over again when I'm telling my kids something and they're not listening, and I start to tighten up and I check in with my younger self.

[00:40:23] Kelly: And it's actually, it's not me dad being angry. It's the younger version of me that felt like he was n not interesting enough. No one's listening. No one's paying attention. No one cares about me. Right. So now in that moment, instead of being a dad who's gotta figure out how to be calm with his kids, I have to be a dad who can coach my own inner child Through that moment,

[00:40:44] Kelly: I have to be able to go, Hey dude, I get it.

[00:40:47] Kelly: You're feeling uninteresting right now, and you finally have little people in your life that you can demand interest and attention from, and you want to like just assert that and make that happen right now. But dude, it's not the way. We don't wanna pass our pain onto them. and you are interesting um, I'm interested in you in this moment.

[00:41:03] Kelly: You matter. You know, we literally have to coach a parent that part of us, through that moment to go, you don't need to be protected. We're good. let's show up together to this moment. the depth of work that it takes to be able to get to that point and do that in the moment. live when everything in you wants to just holler at your kids.

[00:41:19] Kelly: there's a lot of work that goes into that, but it's possible and it's exciting when it starts to happen.

[00:41:23] Matt: you've triggered some really good inner questions that, are helping me in my own work and helping our listeners, and I wanna thank you for that. one of the influences in my life around these types of questions, Mike Wagner also in the front row, dads when he taught me a question some time ago that, sounds like in the same ballpark that what's the worst that would happen if I choose not to correct their behavior right now?

[00:41:42] Matt: And I, started to become more acknowledging and appreciating of the behaviors that they were showing and not trying to nip it in the bud correct it from the start. Just let it play out and let them learn. And I feel like This is that building on that and even higher level of awareness that you've now taken the time.

[00:41:58] Matt: So thank you for that. I would like to lead

[00:42:00] Matt: into probably our, last question. We have talked about maybe doing the lightning round. I dunno if we're gonna have time for a lightning round. But I do wanna talk about the un hiding of Elijah Campbell. Cause as I shared with you before we turned on the camera, I've read one opening paragraph the forward.

[00:42:16] Matt: It's one quote, one paragraph, and I got a tear in my eye. The last word. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit, Kelly, about this book and about un hiding and why this is the book that shows you to come out of you at this time

[00:42:30] Matt: in your.

[00:42:31] Kelly: Thank you. Yeah, it did, feel like the book that chose me. I had a two book contract with my publisher, had already released True Companions, and the two book contracts said before the first book comes out, you have to pitch a second.

[00:42:42] Kelly: And so I pitched a second book about this moment in the middle of our lives. Where we realized the things that we've been doing are no longer working. Right. All the things that got us to where we, gotten to. And so they get a lot of credit. They're no longer working and so we have to cross a bridge to a new territory in our life, but we don't wanna walk across that bridge.

[00:43:02] Kelly: It's scary. It's new territory. We're not even sure what's over there. and sort of basically to, frame this midlife moment can either become a midlife crisis if we just double down on the things that we've been. That aren't working or it can become a midlife awakening if we cross that bridge to new ground.

[00:43:16] Kelly: So I pitched that non-fiction book and my publisher came back and said, interesting concept, but we think it would work better as fiction. And naturally I've wanted to write a novel my whole life. So it completely scared me,

[00:43:26] Matt: Awesome.

[00:43:27] Kelly: I said, no, I don't, think you got the right idea here.

[00:43:29] Kelly: Lemme re-pitch another non-fiction book to you. And again, they came back and said, we think it'd work better as fiction. I finally started to surrender to the idea of writing a novel started to get really,

[00:43:38] Matt: Kelly, time out. Time out. Was that in that moment when you were resisting, was that you needing to pause in the moment, coach your inner child because you were afraid or ashamed that you weren't interesting enough, you weren't qualified enough to write a fiction or something? I mean, what was happening in that moment?

[00:43:52] Matt: Cuz this is brilliant already from the people I've heard from. It's amazing. You almost didn't wanna ride it. what happened in that moment when you were resisting? was going on

[00:44:00] Matt: internally?

[00:44:01] Kelly: appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you for slowing me down around that. That's a great question. Probably a lot of things going on, but the first thing that comes to mind is I had just transitioned away from being a brick and mortar therapy practice clinician to online coaching of entrepreneurs.

[00:44:15] Kelly: Right? And the ruler in me that's trying to create a kingdom , says, no, you need to write another non-fiction book that would be a great lead magnet for coaching clients. Well, writing a fiction book probably is not the most effective way to, to attract the kinds of clients that I'm looking for.

[00:44:33] Kelly: So it was all of the calculations going on, my adult calculations on how to be successful, right? Fiction book isn't that. But then I actually check in with little Kelly who's wanted to write a novel his whole life. And he's like, dude, let's write it. Like, can you believe a publisher is asking us to write a novel?

[00:44:50] Kelly: Like they're, begging it from us. And so I sort of surrendered to his desire to do something playful and fun and exciting. And it was scary at first, but then it just became more and more and more fun. And so much fun that it was released last month and I just yesterday finished the second novel.

[00:45:08] Kelly: I am playing. I am having some fun. And so the novel that came out, the first one, the Un Hiding of Elijah Campbell, it really was a way to depict through story, everything we've talked about today. You know, the idea that over the course of our childhoods is we pick up pain, which all of us do in some form or another.

[00:45:26] Kelly: As we pick up pain, we go into hiding. Our true self goes into hiding. And at some point we face the decision as to whether or not we're gonna come outta hiding. And that's where a lot of us just double down on the things that we've been doing the same old forms of hiding and of protecting. And it's about one man's journey across that bridge to no longer hiding himself to showing up authentically.

[00:45:48] Kelly: The secrets around the pain in his life that start to emerge that he has to face in order to make that journey into being authentic and showing up. I just feel so blessed cuz feedback I'm hearing from people is like, I don't know, like this story, like, because it's a story and cuz it's fiction, it got around my head and right into my heart and something changed while I read it.

[00:46:05] Kelly: Now I've gotta go back and read it again to understand what changed. as an author, it's just such an exciting moment to be hearing that it's impact people like

[00:46:11] Matt: Yes. And maybe the pill and the peanut butter here, the, or the moment of magic might be that I'm watching you here on the webcam and I'm feeling your bilanguage and everything, your tone, everything just exploded and went into like super positive, like playful Kelly, who was totally drawbridge down and out, and you were excited and you were playful.

[00:46:30] Matt: And in that moment of surrender when you stopped resisting it You let playful Kelly come out. That feels like, and this may be jumping like to really overly simplified, that feels like that is the moment when you're curious and when you're playful, that's when your creative genius comes out.

[00:46:47] Matt: So

[00:46:48] Matt: that's true, or if that's close to true, then how might we create more moments where we can surrender and we can let our playful creative genius come out? I wonder if that were my journal question, and that's what I sought, is how to find places to lower the resistance in surrender

[00:47:06] Matt: and really unhide this interper perfectionist, this recovering perfectionist, which is my inner critic, inner voice.

[00:47:13] Matt: If I could let that resistance down and be playful, I wonder what breakthroughs that might lead to.

[00:47:18] Kelly: the toughest part about answering that question, and it has to do with that whole, the darkest before the dawn, sort of idea. I've never used this metaphor, but if we think of the true self as a donut and in pain, the pain we picked up is the glaze around the donut.

[00:47:31] Kelly: but a terrible, terrible glaze. So when most of us get to that layer of glaze over our true self or over our inner child, it's painful. And so we turn around and we go back to, hid isn't working out real great for me. I feel lonelier than ever. Fighting isn't, my cannons aren't working out and more conflict in my life than ever.

[00:47:50] Kelly: a throne is its own sort of lonely little place high up there above everybody else. Like, none of this is working. But I really don't wanna feel that pain. I don't wanna work through that and get through it. And I don't necessarily even think it's about healing the pain.

[00:48:03] Kelly: It's about moving through it to get to the donut, right? To get to the true self that's underneath it. And so, candidly, much of the last decade for me has been about learning what my pain is, facing it and going through it. I don't necessarily think it's gone, it sneaks up on me all the time.

[00:48:18] Kelly: But because I've gone through it, I get to know the me underneath it, right? the me that got hurt. and that's the version of me that just thrilled to write a novel like, we get to play. Let's do it.

[00:48:29] Matt: Yes. Awesome.

[00:48:31] Kelly: so I guess in the context of everything we've said, you feel the tightness, your ego's coming to protect you.

[00:48:35] Kelly: You choose to like, to not engage in that protection and bring awareness to the, pain that you're trying to protect in that moment. If you can stay with that and learn to abide with that pain, what naturally happens next is connection with your, youngest truist most passionate self. I mean, the grieving process works exactly the same way, right?

[00:48:57] Kelly: It starts in denial, it goes to anger, and then to bargaining, and then sadness or depression, which feels like the worst part of the grief. But it's the last part of the grief before peace and acceptance, right? Same thing here. If you can abide without pain, you will naturally transition into a connection with your truest, worthies most passionate self.

[00:49:17] Matt: Thank you. All right. For those of you who are listening to this, this is a masterclass. Thank you Kelly for coming on and sharing everything today. Absolutely amazing. The unh hiding of Elijah Campbell is the book. How do we pick up

[00:49:32] Kelly: Thanks.

[00:49:32] Matt: are other places we might be able to find out more about you and connect with you, Dr.

[00:49:36] Matt: Kelly.

[00:49:36] Kelly: Yeah. Thanks for asking. So you can get it in paperback or digital or audio, wherever you'd like to buy books. It's available. And if you wanna find out more about it, you can just go to un hiding book.com. It's unh book.com. If you just wanna find out more about it, and then you'll find all the places you can purchase there as well.

[00:49:53] Kelly: My website is Dr. Kelly flanigan.com, Dr. Kelly flanigan.com. and that's a great place to sign up for my newsletter. I just this morning wrote a blog post about Christmas and the season and what it means to me and what it could be for all of us. And that'll come out December 2nd. I think this will post after that, but about the first Friday of every month, you'll get a blog post like that if you sign up with

[00:50:13] Kelly: newsletter.

[00:50:14] Matt: Awesome. Thank you Kelly. It's been a real pleasure and honor having you on the show today. And just want you to know from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Love you. You've been amazing. And keep impacting people man. we're listening. Keep bringing it to us. Thank you.

[00:50:26] Kelly: Thank you, ma'am. Like I said, great conversation, great counseling. Appreciate it, ma'am.