EP261 America in Therapy with Psychotherapist Phyllis Leavitt, MA
In this episode, attorney and mediator Mac Pierre-Louis hosts psychotherapist Phyllis Leavitt to discuss her work, including her new book, “America in Therapy: A New Approach to Hope and Healing for a Nation in Crisis.” The conversation delves into the current social and political divisions in America, drawing parallels between national crises and family dynamics. Phyllis emphasizes the missing national discourse on our collective mental health and the importance of addressing issues through nonpartisan psychological perspectives. She discusses the role of deep listening, self-responsibility, and the dangers of censorship in resolving conflicts. Highlighting models like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Phyllis advocates for a national commitment to conflict resolution using psychological principles. Anyone interested in understanding why conflicts occur, especially from a psychological perspective, will find this conversation interesting.
LINKS:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/world/asia/what-is-nihon-hidankyo-hibakusha-japan.html
TRANSCRIPT:
0:02 America in Therapy, a Conversation with Psychotherapist, Phyllis Leavitt, that is our topic for today.
0:10 Welcome to the Lawyers and Mediators International Show and Podcast, where we discuss law and conflict resolution topics to educate both professionals and everyday people.
0:21 Catch regular episodes on YouTube, and any way you get your podcast.
0:24 Just remember, nothing in these episodes constitutes legal advice So be sure to talk to a lawyer, as cases are fact-dependent
0:37 Hey, everyone.
0:37 This is Mac Pierre-Louis, attorney, mediator, arbitrator, working throughout Florida in Texas.
0:41 And today I have a special guest with me today.
0:43 And that is Phyllis Leavitt.
0:46 Phyllis is a psychotherapist.
0:48 And she has been doing this psychotherapy work for at least 34 years.
0:53 And I’m glad to have her on today to discuss what she’s working on right now, which is a book that she is an author of called America in Therapy.
1:02 Phyllis, how are you doing today?
1:03 I’m doing great.
1:04 Thank you so much for having me on your show.
1:07 Yes, absolutely.
1:08 And it was good to talk to you yesterday, briefly, to kind of discuss what you’re working on and why this is so important.
1:16 But first, let me give a little bit of a background from what I understand and why your work is so important.
1:22 So we live in divided times, right?
1:25 We have the election coming up next month.
1:29 We’re just a number of days away and
1:34 While we’re all waiting, we can see, I think everyone can see clearly for the last number of years, there’s been so much division in this country.
1:44 Sometimes outright hatred between left and right,
1:48 between the genders, between race relations, everything has just been topsy turvy, upside down.
1:56 And in your work, in your book, you specifically describe a lot of this dysfunction is due to America being a family that’s in turmoil.
2:08 Just like a regular family might have conflicts and problems and interpersonal disagreements and conflicts and problems, you see that at the national level, we have the same kind of thing happening.
2:20 So I wanted, I was fascinated by this concept of you taking the micro-level family dispute component and applying it to the national level and helping people understand, here’s how we diagnose the
2:36 problem, and then here are the solutions, and here’s how we can potentially try to resolve some of these problems that we see at our national level.
2:46 So I wanted to just give you the floor, talk a little bit about your work, and why and how is America in crisis, and how is a national therapy able to be done from your perspective?
3:01 So please, floor is yours Thank you so much.
3:04 Well, let me start by saying that one of the premises of the book is that I believe that our collective mental health is really the big missing piece from national political conversation.
3:18 And the reason why I say that is because the whole field of psychology and psychotherapy and family therapy is nonpartisan.
3:28 It’s not about choosing sides.
3:31 not about having one person win an argument.
3:34 It’s really about fostering a safe environment for deep listening in service of conflict resolution rather than having one person dominate and another person have to submit or one person being, you
3:50 know, blamed and shamed and attacked and told to be wrong.
3:55 It’s really about resolving conflict, bringing us into deep understanding and compassion for one another, a commitment to resolution, compromise if necessary, and reconnecting if possible.
4:10 So the whole field of psychology is really about healing our human relations, not feeding divisiveness, violence, hatred, and shame and blame, which is a lot of what we’re suffering from right
4:24 now.
4:24 So I took the lens of family systems and looked at our country through that lens.
4:30 because I think we’re all pretty much aware that in a family, a healthy family, and again, none of us ever do it perfectly.
4:39 We all have missteps and we have to come back and apologize or correct things or make them right or examine ourselves and rework our dynamics with other people.
4:51 But in a relatively healthy family, everyone is included.
4:56 Everyone is cared for All voices have a place at the table.
5:01 That doesn’t mean everybody gets everything that they want, but there’s a respect for where they’re coming from as much as we can muster that.
5:09 And if there’s really severe disagreement about needs or beliefs or values or behaviors that we still are committed to resolving those conflicts without violence
5:25 And with really with deep listening is one of the ways to resolve conflict.
5:30 without violence because when people are in a safe container where they feel like they can be heard, they’re more apt to listen to other people the way that they wanna be heard.
5:41 And they’re more apt to talk to people the way they wanna be spoken to.
5:46 And it’s when we are attacking and mobilizing our defenses that families become really filled with hostility and tension and sometimes very severe acting out, whether it’s verbal violence, physical
5:59 violence, sexual violence, outright ostracizing people or silencing them.
6:07 And
6:09 silencing people’s voices when we disagree is one of the attributes of an unhealthy family and sometimes I’m a very dysfunctional abusive family.
6:19 Let me ask you about that.
6:20 So when it comes to
6:23 silencing, so at the family level, when people don’t have a chance to get things off their chest,
6:29 in a healthy way because sometimes we lack the skills to effectively communicate our emotions.
6:36 But when people do not have the ability to express themselves, they can get frustrated and things can get bottled up.
6:42 And when things are suppressed, they can then come out
6:47 in very negative ways.
6:49 So at the national level, how does it look like for people to be able to express themselves?
6:55 And I asked this in the context of the topic of censorship, because we talk a lot about whether or not people should just be able to say whatever they want.
7:05 Or versus whether or not people should not be able to say whatever they want, especially on social media platforms.
7:13 What are your thoughts on how do we get things off our chest at a national level without creating danger?
7:23 And I think that’s a really big question, because a lot of what’s on social media is sort of designed to – fan the fires of divisiveness and hatred and discrimination and exclusivity and
7:36 leading people out or seeing them as inferior.
7:40 So I don’t think censorship itself is the answer.
7:44 I think we, when you’re dealing with something that’s really destructive and harmful to other people, then we have to look at the roots of where that kind of violence comes from and try to address
7:57 the roots of that kind of violence.
7:60 Silencing people,
8:02 just shutting people up is not an answer, just like smacking someone is not an answer, just like shutting the door in their face is not an answer.
8:10 And so many of the answers in the best psychology are really about how do we heal the wounds in ourselves, in our families, in our communities, and in our nation that are generating these really
8:25 hateful behaviors.
8:28 So that’s one aspect of the issue of censorship.
8:33 And the other one is where books are being taken off of the shelves because
8:39 they don’t fit one person’s ideology or religion or gender expectations.
8:45 And that’s a different kind of censorship.
8:47 And I think that also though, we have to look at where’s that coming from?
8:52 What’s so terrifying about an alternative point of view?
8:57 And I think we have to look at where we’re coming from.
8:60 And honestly, if I was gonna put one word on the key to conflict resolution that’s healthy, it would be self-responsibility.
9:10 Who am I in the conflict?
9:13 Who am I being?
9:15 Am I in my own integrity?
9:17 Am I acting out my own unhealed wounds on you?
9:21 Am I projecting some horrible negative belief onto you?
9:26 because you’re a woman, because you’re black.
9:28 because you’re gay, because you’re a Christian, because you’re a Muslim, because of whatever.
9:33 Am I projecting my own stuff onto you and then believing that that’s true when none of us want that to be done to us?
9:43 There’s nobody who wants to be the recipient of a horribly destructive negative projection.
9:50 And so one of the reasons why I say that psychology in mental health is the big missing piece in national conversation is because we condone as a nation doing things to people that we would never want
10:05 to have be done to us, ever.
10:08 And that’s a mental health issue.
10:10 And we’ve been told that it’s an ideological issue and a partisan issue and it’s not.
10:16 Mentally healthy people don’t murder other people.
10:20 They don’t bomb them in their homes.
10:22 They don’t withhold clean water from them you know, on and on and on.
10:28 So a lot, a lot,
10:31 while you were talking, I’m thinking about at the national level in South Africa, for example, they had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, right, where that was their attempt to try to
10:41 bridge the division that had caused so much destruction, and at the family level, you know, I’m not a psychotherapist, but I would assume that when you’re trying to help mend wounds between family
10:56 members, you’re going to have some type of intervention where you’re going to help them heal.
11:02 Is America in need of that kind of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or what do you think, where should energy be placed to try to drive people to have that kind of sit down if it’s necessary?
11:17 Well, I love that you brought that up because I actually talk about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa in my book as a model for where to begin.
11:28 because what is so powerful about that model and
11:33 I didn’t read everything about it but what I read, it wasn’t perfect because we’re working on trying to find the right model for human relations but what was so incredible about that model is it made
11:47 it safe for perpetrators to come to the table and not only hear the effects of the abuse that they had perpetrated but to own it in a safe place and I think that is one of the things that is so
12:04 missing from our whole cultural, political discourse and value system.
12:10 We all make mistakes and I’m not saying everybody murders other people or discriminate highly or does you know really really atrocious and you know commits atrocities, but we all make mistakes and
12:24 what if we could create a culture where it’s safe to come forward and say, I did that, and I’m willing to take responsibility for it, and let’s figure out, together, what that responsibility
12:38 would be, so that I can heal as well as you, my victim can heal.
12:44 And that’s really what’s one of the big things that I think psychology has to offer.
12:49 I was part of a family session at one point, and it was a model that was used, I don’t know if it’s still used or who uses it, but it was a model that was used for sexual abuse that happened in
13:02 families, where the family sat down together with the abuser and the victim.
13:09 And it was very similar.
13:11 The abuser heard the effects of what they had done, but without being targeted or attacked or shamed or ostracized or anything negative, really like with the commitment that the perpetrator would
13:28 take responsibility by hearing and owning what they had done and then getting their own help to heal the wound in them that had led them to act out on another person.
13:42 And that’s what I see as really the commitment that our criminal justice system should be having.
13:48 Yeah, so like healing circles can do some of that work I was thinking when a
13:57 victim statement or a family of a victim statement is gonna be, you know, put before a court in front of the abuser or the murderer, whoever it is.
14:09 Usually that’s happening after conviction, but before sentencing.
14:15 But what you’re getting at is we need to be more proactive to do that much earlier, right?
14:20 When the problem has happened, bring people together.
14:24 And so back to deep listening.
14:26 How do you get people to sit down and listen and consider the opposing viewpoints instead of people being so stuck in their silos?
14:35 That can happen at the family level.
14:38 I think we all are privy to that.
14:41 But how do you do that at the national level when there’s so much division at so many different levels?
14:49 Well, for one thing, I think we have to talk about it as a possibility, and I don’t see that in the news The news just seems to exacerbate the divisiveness.
14:58 He said this, she said that atrocious thing.
15:01 He did this terrible behavior, whatever.
15:04 Without ever saying, what can we do to heal this?
15:09 This is a national crisis in and of itself, this divisiveness, which I think most of us know.
15:15 But I think I would just say the same thing that I would say applies to an individual or a family and that is people don’t usually sit down.
15:25 and actually make these efforts to reconcile and to make a compromise and commit to actually reconnecting for the sake of everyone until there’s enough pain.
15:38 That’s usually what brings people to therapy.
15:40 They’re in so much pain, everything they’ve done has not worked, and they’re at their wit’s end, and they’re ready for help.
15:48 And my hope is that we feel this way as a country, when we get to that point where we say this amount of divisiveness that generates this much ongoing escalation in violence and hatred and, you know,
16:03 walling certain elements of our society off and not listening to the cries for help that are coming from so much of our population, when do we feel enough pain that we say we have to sit down and
16:16 work this out?
16:17 And, you know, that’s one of the hopes of my book my talking is that we can actually feel that pain instead of keeping on blaming somebody for it.
16:26 Yeah, absolutely.
16:28 When there’s too much pain, it blows up and a lot of times it’s when people think they need to help.
16:35 And your other discussions I’ve heard you talk about how if we’re discussing this at the national level,
16:45 we can take it a step further and talk about it at the international level.
16:48 Right.
16:49 You’re saying that one of the consequences could be nuclear proliferation and nuclear destruction because there’s actually something much worse on the other side.
16:57 Incidentally, today, it was announced that the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
17:04 is, I’ll share my screen,
17:09 I was thinking about, you know, you’re coming on today to discuss this, but New York Times, Nihon Hidankyo, Japanese group, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And these are
17:21 folks who lived through the nuclear attack of 1945 and dedicated their lives to trying to help people, you know, step from the brink.
17:31 And so the fact that, you know, today’s when they announced the Nobel Peace Prize and you were coming on to discuss, you know, getting people, you know, off their soap boxes and into a
17:47 conversation to talk about therapy is important because it can’t get any worse than that, right?
17:52 When you start shooting nuclear bombs to each other, but go ahead, can you talk a little bit about that?
17:56 No, I love it.
17:57 I love everything you’re bringing up because really that’s part of the motivation for why I wrote the book and I really think that if we don’t reverse courses and sit down and try to work this out,
18:10 really not just as Americans, but we have so much strife here that we should begin at home, but as a world community, it’s very likely that we won’t make ourselves extinct.
18:22 And what could be more motivation than that?
18:25 And I think we have to look at that squarely in the face.
18:28 And I love that – thank you for pointing that out.
18:30 I’ll read that article.
18:31 And I love that those are the people that
18:35 got the Nobel Peace Prize.
18:36 And I’ve said many times to myself, why do we not actually talk about what happened in Japan?
18:45 Why do we not see pictures?
18:47 Why do we not actually inform ourselves about what we could proliferate on a much larger scale than what happened there?
18:56 Because that’s a healthy deterrent.
19:00 Yeah.
19:03 I would think.
19:04 And I think it’s critical, absolutely critical.
19:09 With the perspective,
19:12 nuclear radiation is probably not the way to go.
19:14 And so we need to step back from the brink in more ways than one. So, so, but back.
19:22 to deep listening, because I am a mediator who does work, helping people make peace.
19:30 I’ve had,
19:33 in the last eight days, I’ve been in part of three to four different mediations, where I was either the mediator, or I was representing one of the parents, okay?
19:44 In once instance it was for a dad, another case it was for a mom.
19:48 So it’s always the same kind of dynamics. Folks are
19:53 oppositional, they have their positions, and the job is to try to get them to a place where it’s mutually beneficial, where the agreement
20:07 makes more of a rational sense than taking it to a judge and having a third party who doesn’t know y’all’s kids, who doesn’t know your personal lives make a decision for you. So at the national
20:17 level, what is the point?
20:22 At what point is
20:25 it? How do you get people to understand the point where there’s value and actually sitting down, versus what the alternative is, where the benefits outweigh the cause of not sitting down?
20:37 I think about the Civil War, for example.
20:39 In the 1850s, Americans were polarized on the question of slavery.
20:43 And I’d like to quote my law professor who said that the civil war was a war we had to fight because we needed to end that scourge. Well, are we at that point in America to where it’s gonna come to
20:57 a point where the negatives and the consequences of a potential possible civil war will outweigh the
21:05 benefits of just sitting down and talking.
21:07 Where are we on that spectrum?
21:10 Well, I think we’re in danger, for sure.
21:13 People are talking about civil war.
21:16 People are talking about there’ll be a blood bath if this happens or that happens.
21:21 It’s just as dangerous as if a family member, let’s say a young person in a family goes and gets a gun and says they’re going to shoot their parents if they don’t get their way.
21:35 I think it’s just as dangerous.
21:36 And I think it’s a call for help,
21:40 societal call for help that we’re even talking this way.
21:44 And I think that’s one of the benefits also of looking at this through a psychological lens. The most symptomatic people in a family, and I worked with, I’ve told this story a million times, and
21:55 you may have heard it.
21:56 But I’ll say it again because I think it really applies nationally.
22:01 I started my practice working almost exclusively with children.
22:04 And 99. 9 of the children that were brought for therapy were symptomatic because of ongoing conflict between their parents.
22:14 Parents fighting, not resolving it, custody battles, unresolved divorces.
22:20 ongoing conflict that they couldn’t do anything about, but they were absorbing and scared, scared about the consequences and helpless.
22:30 And they became symptomatic and they had a variety of symptoms, wedding the bed, nightmares at night, being aggressive toward other children, not thriving in school, being loners.
22:40 You name it, these children had all these symptoms and there was nothing wrong with them.
22:46 They were having a normal response to a highly conflictual, scary, dangerous environment that they were living in, unhealthy, emotional environment that they were living in.
22:57 And so their symptoms were actually a call for help for the family, for their parents to get help.
23:03 And so I ended up not doing so much work with children but doing much more of the work with their parents because they’re the ones who could actually help the children.
23:12 If we take that same picture and we look at our country, The war between the parties going on right now and between You know, the verbal assault and attack and the lack of truth telling in order for
23:26 one person to win to make sure the other person loses, that win-lose paradigm, is what’s killing us.
23:33 And I think we have to know that.
23:36 And the general population, I think in America
23:41 today, is highly symptomatic.
23:42 As a result of
23:44 this ongoing conflict, people are terrified about what’s going to happen in this election. And because you hear things like, if the other side wins, it’s the end of everything.
23:55 The country is over, end of democracy.
23:57 No more elections.
23:58 I’m going to leave the country.
23:59 You hear
24:01 this.
24:01 And I do hear from both sides, because I literally, the other day, scratching my head, you know, like two folks, two different sides of the aisle, but they were saying the exact same thing.
24:16 But I don’t think they realized it. So that’s what’s sad, right?
24:19 And so if we did see the political parties as two parents and the rest of us just start acting out, because we’re trying to cope.
24:30 Yeah, I definitely see the connections.
24:35 And so I have a lot of cases where kids end up exhibiting some of these things
24:44 because they live in fear, unpredictability.
24:47 They don’t know what comes next. And it’s going to manifest itself somehow, right?
24:53 And so we then shouldn’t be surprised if we’re having school shootings every other weekend, right?
24:58 I mean, every other week I guess, because it’s going to be a symptom of the chaos that even our own children are experiencing.
25:08 And that’s why I think we have to look at this from a family systems point of view of the country because it’s not just what’s happening in the home while that is extremely important.
25:20 but it’s what’s happening in our communities, on the news, in social media, and what the role models are from the people who are in the positions of the most power.
25:30 And those role models are not healthy.
25:34 Yeah, so let me ask you this.
25:38 In conflict resolution, we talk a lot about affirmation.
25:44 When,
25:47 if somebody says something that, and they’re putting their heart out there, they have a position and we attack them for it when they say it or we, you know, downgrade it, it’s gonna cause them to
25:60 have one kind of reaction.
26:03 But if we affirm them, not necessarily agree with them, but if we validate,
26:11 you know, what it is that they’re saying, it’s going to let them feel that they’re being listened to, that oh finally someone’s
26:20 appreciating my feeling, like my feeling has been validated. Doesn’t mean they’re right, but it brings credibility and credence to their position.
26:31 Do you think that that ultimately is one of the roots as to why we have so much dysfunction, that both sides, you know, when we talk about sides, I’m talking about politically left and right,
26:45 just start off from a position that the other side is evil.
26:52 When we bring, it’s called demonization, right?
26:54 When you demonize the other side and social media gets involved in the news media gets involved and everybody who has, you know, a stake in the game just gets involved and just, and we live in our
27:06 little silos, right?
27:07 That’s what social media does.
27:08 We live in our silos and our little bubbles and the algorithms then keep pumping into us and we get a dopamine rush.
27:15 And we
27:17 just want to, what was the phrase?
27:21 confirmation bias, right, whatever we already feel is right, we want to hear more of it. Is that, I think, maybe it is, is that the problem that nobody is giving the other side any benefit of
27:39 the doubt, that nobody is listening to the other side, they simply go off on the attack, and it becomes tribalism, you just stick to your, you know, to your side and the other side be damned.
27:51 You know, that’s how I see it, what are your thoughts?
27:53 Well, I think it’s, I think, absolutely, I think it’s a symptom as well as a cause.
27:58 I think it’s a symptom of our mental dis-ease or mental lack, lack of mental true mental wellness that we don’t want to listen to an alternative point of view and listen, like you said, with some
28:13 kind of respect, I may not agree with you and this is such a part of couples therapy, what you’re talking about, just exactly what you said.
28:23 We often say, what you may not agree with your partner, but is there anything in what they’re saying that you could validate?
28:31 Can you talk in I statements?
28:32 This is what I think and what I feel rather than you’re a jerk because you did blah, blah, blah.
28:37 Right.
28:38 And these are all parts of non-violent communication and conflict resolution, and I’m sure they are parts of mediation. And one of the things that I would love to see is I would love to see
28:50 mediation happening in Congress that we actually have trained facilitators that guide these kinds of conversations to help people learn the skills of deep listening with the goal of resolving.
29:04 And I think part of why we don’t do that, and there’s many reasons why we don’t do that, but one of the big overarching psychological reasons why we don’t do that is because we still live in a
29:17 win-lose paradigm.
29:19 we don’t live in a win-win paradigm.
29:21 And I think mediation is about win-win.
29:24 How can you both come out of this with something that you want, feel heard, feel resolved?
29:32 Nobody’s probably gonna get everything they want.
29:34 Can each side get something of what they want and leave each other in peace if you really can’t reconnect in any way.
29:41 And often, you know, when people are divorcing, they don’t wanna reconnect.
29:46 But can they leave each other in peace for their own well-being and definitely for the well-being of their children?
29:52 Yeah, so I think of, in a divorce without kids, there’s one kind of detachment where the parties can move on.
30:02 Right.
30:03 But in divorce with kids, you’re still having to work together.
30:08 So you have to learn how to co-parent, okay?
30:10 That’s right.
30:11 And so when people say things like, well, we need a national divorce.
30:15 We need to just split the country in two,
30:18 The problem is, we
30:21 can’t quite do that because the country is interconnected.
30:26 Right?
30:27 And so because of that,
30:31 like, I love the Civil War. I mean, not the fact that it happened, but I love the Civil War history.
30:38 But one of the reasons Lincoln justifies going into the Southern States is because he’s like, well, there are American citizens in those states.. Meaning you can’t just take them hostage, all
30:50 right?
30:50 And so in our context now, we can’t just split up the country.
30:57 We have people, families that intermixed throughout the entire nation.
31:05 So we have no choice, we can’t just divide.
31:07 The question becomes, how do we co-adapt, co-live together?
31:14 How do we do that?
31:15 And that is going to be the issue.
31:18 So, but I guess we talked a lot about the problems, but what are the solutions?
31:23 Yes, and I think, I mean, I think there’s many, there’s many, and more than half of my book is actually devoted to some of the paradigm shifts that we need to make in order to find the solutions,
31:35 but we don’t have time to talk about all of that right here today, but I’ll just say that one of my chapters is really completely about conflict resolution. And I think where we need to start is a
31:48 commitment to conflict resolution rather than this win-lose paradigm, which just generates more hatred and war and power over, you know domination of one set of people by another.
32:03 And I said it earlier, but I’ll outline it a little bit more clearly right now.
32:08 The key elements – and I’ll quote a teacher that I had in graduate school who was taught a class couples therapy.
32:16 And what and of course you know, people who come to therapy want to resolve the conflict.
32:22 So, you know, hopefully we have more and more people who actually want to resolve conflict here.
32:27 But what he said was the couples that did the best in couples therapy were those people who focused on taking their own responsibility for their part in the conflict rather than the you-you-you blame,
32:43 blame, blame And that’s really the bottom line.
32:48 So in my chapter, I outlined six elements of how to actually address repair, repairing conflict in a relationship, whether it’s a country or an individual person in their own life in their
33:01 relationship.
33:02 And those six elements are, 1, that we restrain our most destructive impulses.
33:09 That means we don’t do verbal violence.
33:12 We don’t threaten, we don’t don’t bring arms, because there’s if there’s no safety, there’s no working it out.
33:20 People just become defended when they feel unsafe.
33:24 And that was the beauty of the Truth and Reconciliation.
33:27 It was safe to speak your pain and it was safe to speak your perpetration.
33:34 So restraint is absolutely critical and we really need that.
33:40 And we want that in our own lives.
33:42 We don’t want people to unleash on us, right?
33:45 Exactly Like go on X, if you’re going to, you’re not going to go get therapy there, right?
33:50 Because no one feels safe, you do drive-bys.
33:54 You attack and you run and hide.
33:57 Right.
33:58 Right.
33:58 Right.
33:59 So restraint is 1.
34:02 2 is reflecting on myself, where am I coming from?
34:08 Am I projecting something onto you?
34:10 Am I intolerance?
34:12 Am I unwilling to compromise?
34:15 Am I prejudice against you?
34:18 Do I see you as inferior?
34:20 Am I acting out some old wound of my own?
34:23 I feel inferior, so I want to make you feel inferior, or whatever it is.
34:27 But it’s reflecting on myself.
34:30 Where am I coming from?
34:31 How am I behaving?
34:33 How do I speak to you?
34:35 How do I respond to you?
34:38 That kind of thing.
34:39 And then the third one grows out of 2, which is then I take responsibility for what I see.
34:45 If I’m being, you know, talking to you in a really harsh, critical tone of voice, I take responsibility for that.
34:52 I don’t blame you and say I’m talking that way because you, you, you did this, you did that.
34:58 I take responsibility.
34:60 If I don’t want to be spoken to that way, then I have to find a way not to speak to you that way.
35:06 And then the fourth element is maybe I need to make amends for something.
35:11 You know, maybe I did yell at you or call you a name or slam the door or whatever I did.
35:17 Can I actually say, I’m sorry, that was my fault.
35:22 Because we all want people to do that for us, right?
35:25 So we have to lead the way.
35:28 The fifth element
35:31 is reconciling.
35:32 Can we make some agreement here?
35:35 Can I meet you halfway?
35:36 What do we think would resolve this issue between us at least well enough?
35:42 Even if we don’t reconnect in deep love and friendship, is there a solution?
35:49 Or is there a solution that actually would bring us back into the last element, which is that we reconnect?
35:56 Because we all want to – we all really want to be connected.
36:00 Nobody wants to be left out or shunned or blamed and seen as less than and ignored.
36:10 We really do want to belong, and we want to belong safely.
36:14 So those are the six elements of repair that I see.
36:17 And it doesn’t mean you can’t stand up for yourself.
36:19 It doesn’t mean that you have to accept agreements that really go against your life force or your
36:27 well-being.
36:28 But it does mean that you take full responsibility for who you’re being in the conflict.
36:33 And I’ll tell you, in my own personal life, with my husband and with so many people that I’ve worked with, when one person even tries to do those things, it changes the whole dynamic.
36:48 Yep, it’s reciprocation, right?
36:50 When you see that being done for you, you’re going to naturally.
36:54 Right.
36:55 Lots of, just so much we could talk about, but because of time, we’re going to take off.
37:00 Okay, so the best way for people to get in touch with you is gonna be how?
37:05 It’s gonna be through my website, which is phyllisleavitt. com.
37:08 P-H-Y-L-L-I-S-L-E-A-V-I-T-T. com, and
37:16 it’s www. phyllisleavitt. com,
37:19 there’s many places on my website where you can contact me and I’m really happy to answer any questions or just be in touch.
37:29 If you do contact me, you’ll get my newsletter and I really try to write important and interesting content in my newsletters.
37:38 You will also get a free PDF which outlines those six steps that I just talked about.
37:45 Thank you.
37:45 Well, that’s very helpful.
37:47 Absolutely.
37:47 And then I’m on all the social media, you know, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever.
37:51 Yeah.
37:51 Yep. Yep. And we’ll share that.
37:53 This video to those places as well.
37:56 All right.
37:56 Phyllis Leavitt, thank you so much for coming on the LMIPodcast. com.
37:60 Appreciate your time.
38:02 Thank you for having me.
38:03 Everyone else out there?
38:04 Check out more videos and more recordings with people like
38:08 Phyllis and who come to share their knowledge. LMIPodcast. com.
38:13 Until then, signing out.
38:14 Take care
