How To HACK Your Emotional Intelligence TODAY
In this episode of The Breaking Point Podcast, we delve into emotional intelligence with Morgane Borzee, founder of Equanimia—an innovative app and movement that transforms our understanding of self-awareness, emotional regulation, and communication skills. In this episode (recorded March 15, 2025), Morgane shares her journey from battling anxiety to creating a platform that blends psychology, CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), and the circumplex model of emotions with stunning visual design.
Discover how Equanimia helps users decode their stress responses—from fight, flight, freeze to lesser-known patterns like submit and attach—and learn practical tools to manage the amygdala and engage the prefrontal cortex for better mental health. Morgane breaks down why labelling emotions, understanding inner child dynamics, and practicing empathy are key to breaking free from childhood trauma and stress patterns.
We explore hot topics like co-regulation, the impact of parenting on emotional development, and how society’s hustle culture fuels burnout and disconnection!
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Transcript
Hello, everyone.
Speaker A:Welcome back to another episode of the Breaking Boat podcast.
Speaker A:Today we are here with Morgan.
Speaker A:Is it Borzy?
Speaker A:I should have asked that as well.
Speaker B:It's Borz.
Speaker A:Yes, of course I should know that Borgan, Borzay, and Morgan is the founder of an app.
Speaker A:Not just an app, but partially an app called Equanima.
Speaker A:Pronouncing that right?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Probably sounds better with your accent, but we'll go with Equanimo or Equanima and more.
Speaker A:Gan, why don't you explain to people what the app is primarily for before we get into a bit about you?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So the app teaches people about emotional intelligence, main skills on self awareness, emotion regulation, and communication skills for relationships.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And why did you decide to start an app on those or.
Speaker A:Because it's not just an app, it's all sorts of mediums.
Speaker A:Why did you decide to come up with an app revolving around those topics?
Speaker B:I really fell in love with the topic.
Speaker B:Been really interested in psychology for a long time.
Speaker B:And I'm a designer by profession.
Speaker B:I like to have everything visual.
Speaker B:I'm very visual person.
Speaker B:And I had issues dealing with anxiety with for pretty much all my life.
Speaker B:And I've been on and off therapy, and in the pandemic, I found a really, really good therapist.
Speaker B:I was very lucky to found her.
Speaker B:And I remember that she was showing me through the webcam, like charts and things about this theory and psychology.
Speaker B:And I found it so insightful.
Speaker B:But of course, my designer brain was looking at this, like, white and white, black and white chart that was like, horribly designed with very academic language.
Speaker B:You know, I was thinking, like, how can we make this like character storytelling?
Speaker B:Because it was very, very insightful and really changed how I view my own relationship with my thoughts.
Speaker A:I would say, as in creating the app helped you with your own difficulties.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:It helps you see another perspective of the things that are going on in your life emotionally and also the thoughts that you have.
Speaker B:So it's all based on concepts, on different concepts from CBT, from the^ mode of emotions.
Speaker B:These are like typical frameworks for.
Speaker B:For psychology.
Speaker B:And also a structural dissociation, which is more of a trauma and cross chronic stress model, which is the one that my psychology was showing me through the camera.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, my God, this is incredible.
Speaker B:I wish I knew this sooner.
Speaker B:When I started to talk with my friends and family, they were like, oh, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker B:And I was like, right, why don't I teach this in school?
Speaker A:So that's Definitely a very good point.
Speaker A:Why don't they teach this in school?
Speaker A:And going back to the bit you said just at the beginning of what you, what you were saying there.
Speaker A:Huge.
Speaker A:Presumably in your opinion, and from a wider perspective, a huge part of emotional regulation is being able to view your own circumstances from outside someone else.
Speaker A:From a different person's perspective.
Speaker A:Would you say that that is quite important to understanding your own feelings, to be able to separate yourself from what you're feeling, create that divide?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:This is a really good start because in the brain we have two main areas.
Speaker B:We have the amygdala, which process emotions, and we have the prefrontal cortex that.
Speaker B:It's the reasoning, planning part.
Speaker B:So once we face stress normally or every emotional situation, the information always goes first to the mictala, meaning the impulsive, reactive brain, and then later goes to the prefrontal cortex, where we can actually measure and see if it's really a threat or not, or it's really, really like something to worry about.
Speaker B:So when we start to take some distance to say, ask some questions, okay, what exactly am I feeling?
Speaker B:Let's label that feeling.
Speaker B:How does it feel on my body?
Speaker B:It's already engaging your prefrontal cortex, which is the one that focuses on calm you down.
Speaker B:It's engaging it in a way where that medulla starts to lose some focus and it helps to regulate the amygdala.
Speaker B:So just the act of thinking, of labeling the emotion, thinking how the emotion feels on, on my body, thinking of possible needs behind the emotions, it's already helping sit from another perspective.
Speaker A:I really like that.
Speaker A:I like that idea of in the actual moment you label and you try.
Speaker A:And ironically, it's a time when you should try and over intellectualize that.
Speaker A:Do you know what that means?
Speaker A:Over intellectualized?
Speaker A:Yeah, like just overthink it.
Speaker A:You should actually try and activate your overthinking part of the brain because in that specific scenario, the part of the brain that's in charge is the, the chimp brain, you could say.
Speaker A:Or it's.
Speaker A:It's the, the emotional, as you said, that the amygdala.
Speaker A:So engaging the cortex, the prefrontal cortex is very important in clawing back control through a intellectual and more cognitive point of view.
Speaker A:So that, that is really good.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you mentioned an interesting word, control.
Speaker B:Because I think the attitude around how we see this is, it could change differently the result.
Speaker B:Because if we go with an attitude, for example, I have an anxious feeling and I go with the attitude like, let's control this feeling, you know, let's think of things that don't make us anxious, then the attitude is not going to be helpful.
Speaker B:The correct attitude should be curiosity without judgment.
Speaker B:How I notice this anxious feeling in my body.
Speaker B:What may be the worry behind the feeling?
Speaker B:You know, without any judgment, without any try to suppress it, control it.
Speaker B:Because at the end, the more we try to suppress, the more it gonna come in our face in a way.
Speaker B:So it's important to really have this curious non judgmental approach as almost I don't know if this happens to you, but when you have some situation, maybe there are many voices in your head like oh, you should have not done this or you should have approached this differently.
Speaker B:And there is a lot of shoot.
Speaker B:And there is a lot of maybe remorse, guilt and not necessarily helpful.
Speaker B:So if instead of that we just remain curious about the inner dialogue in our head, who is saying what, what, what is being said without any judgment.
Speaker B:You know, it's been said that I'm very like stupid because I did this.
Speaker B:Okay, let's jot it down.
Speaker B:You can have an output like jot the different thoughts down.
Speaker B:And then at Equanima we have a framework that comes from the psychology also about the types of stress responses.
Speaker B:Are you familiar with the fight and flight?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So basically these are responses to stress.
Speaker B:And people normally tend to go into a pattern.
Speaker B:Some people are more the flight, some people are more the fight, the stress.
Speaker B:But there are also other responses such as the priest or the submit, which is like I'm going to do whatever other people said, so I don't get into conflict, you know, like I don't mind my own needs, like let's do your way, like I don't want any problems.
Speaker B:That's the submit, you know, I'm gonna submit to the threat.
Speaker B:And then it's the attach, which is, oh, please don't go, please don't go.
Speaker B:Like I won't survive without you.
Speaker B:Like very like depending clinging.
Speaker B:So everybody has a different response.
Speaker B:Normally that comes from what we learn in childhood.
Speaker B:But these responses are like yourself trapped in 5 year olds.
Speaker B:So imagine that you are driving a car, you know, you are in the wheel, you have the power, you're driving.
Speaker B:And then you see on the street something that reminds you of something that happened when you were little.
Speaker B:And then you have your little five year old you on the copilot side and then this little you set, like ooh, this rings the bell.
Speaker B:Oh, we've seen this before, we know what's going to happen.
Speaker B:And then this little self Drives the wheel and tries to go the same way that it.
Speaker B:Remember that it worked in a way when he was little.
Speaker B:And then that's what happens in real life.
Speaker B:But remind you that this reaction that sometimes we judge like, oh, how could Va free lost her papers like this.
Speaker B:It's actually a little you trying to help you trying to protect you from something.
Speaker B:If you freeze on a moment where you said I should have said something, remind you that this freezing is probably a protector that helped you in the past.
Speaker B:And this shifts the whole perspective to how we have a conversation in our heads.
Speaker B:Like, you know, I shouldn't be judging.
Speaker B:I should be saying like, don't worry, I know that this sounds familiar.
Speaker B:I know that this feels threatening, but me, the adult, we can take care of it.
Speaker B:You, you don't need to worry about it.
Speaker B:So it's a totally different thought process.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You, you bring up the, the inner child and the inner child is.
Speaker A:Oh, that's.
Speaker A:I assume that's what you were, what you were, you were, you were talking about the inner child.
Speaker A:And that's a really interesting sort of phenomenon.
Speaker A:The, the way the idea that our past selves live inside us, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker A:And the past self is almost immune to time because if your 5 year old self is still in you now, it doesn't have any conception of time because it's.
Speaker A:My 5 year old self is now 20 years older than it was back then.
Speaker A:But, but in theory it doesn't perceive that.
Speaker A:And that's really interesting.
Speaker A:Just going back to the stress response because I think that there's obviously a exceptionally relevant part of what you're doing.
Speaker A:I think you, you did actually explain it right at the end.
Speaker A:There's that apparently there's another stress response sort of paradigm which is tend and befriend.
Speaker A:I think that's might have been what you said when you said attach.
Speaker A:And was it split or something?
Speaker A:What was the second to last one?
Speaker B:It was submit.
Speaker A:Submit?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Submit.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So that's.
Speaker A:I think that's tend and befriend.
Speaker A:And that is never ever spoken about.
Speaker A:I mean you're the first person who I was, who I've ever spoken to on this podcast and in general who have moved outside of the fight, flight and freeze.
Speaker A:Everyone thinks that those are the only three, which I guess they make sense from a visceral sort of in the moment perspective.
Speaker A:But the tendon befriend aspect is really also really relevant and it's obvious.
Speaker A:It's more.
Speaker A:It's a more feminine response, which I guess makes sense.
Speaker A:But that, that was, I think the whole sort of fight or flight stress response is very interesting.
Speaker A:And freeze.
Speaker A:A lot of the time people forget that freeze is a very, very common stress response.
Speaker A:And it might even be that one of the most common stress response, maybe even more common than fight or flight, because when we procrastinate, that's a freeze stress response, I think.
Speaker A:And more and more people believe that procrastination is not due to laziness, it's more due to the fear.
Speaker A:So your body just doesn't do it.
Speaker A:It just sort of stops, doesn't necessarily run away from it.
Speaker A:It obviously doesn't go towards it.
Speaker A:Just sort of maybe submit is another good one in this response, in this scenario.
Speaker A:But another thing I wanted to talk about is, do you know who Cesar Milan is?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I've been watching his.
Speaker A:I, I used to watch him the Dog Whisperer, which was his show when I was a lot younger.
Speaker A:But I've gone back to watching some of his new content that he puts up on YouTube.
Speaker A:And it's amazing how you watch dog owners and dogs interact with one another and how they're kind of like extensions of each other.
Speaker A:So what you.
Speaker A:What he.
Speaker A:The recurring themes.
Speaker A:One of the recurring themes that crops up is if the owner is agitated, on edge, the dog then goes into hyper mode, but hyper alert mode and defensive mode.
Speaker A:But if the owner is calm and stable, solid, then the owner can control and sort of calms the dog down.
Speaker A:And I was just.
Speaker A:When we were talking about the two different parts of the brain, the human, the owner is like the prefrontal cortex and the dog is like the amygdala.
Speaker A:And if you can just sort of tell the dog or show the dog, I'm in charge, you're okay, you're going to be okay.
Speaker A:Whereas if you.
Speaker A:It's a bit of a weird.
Speaker A:It doesn't quite work.
Speaker A:The analogy.
Speaker A:The analogy.
Speaker A:But I think there's something in there with that separation and how the dog is responsive to what's going on around you.
Speaker A:So I guess maybe that's where confidence comes in, because confidence is confident.
Speaker A:Seems as if it's more prefrontal cortex than amygdala because it's not necessarily emotion.
Speaker A:It's more of a state of mind.
Speaker A:So, yes.
Speaker A:That was just a random one.
Speaker A:I just wanted to.
Speaker A:Because just as you were talking, I thought that was quite relevant to what you're talking about.
Speaker A:And given that I'd been watching him recently.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And this example that you say about the dog, it's actually something that you can replicate in what happens with a child and their parents.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because the child is not born with emotion regulation.
Speaker B:The child learns from their parents and from their parents being calm and attuned to the baby.
Speaker B:But what happens when the parents are not attuned or stress themselves, carry trauma, carry issues in their lives is that this child doesn't learn about emotion regulation.
Speaker B:And that is critical because this is a skill that when you learn at a certain age, it's the age where you are specifically developing how to regulate yourself, how to learn to breathe and you copy that from the people that you have around you.
Speaker B:And one of the misconceptions in society is that trauma is something that happens through a catastrophic event.
Speaker B:It can happen through something catastrophic, an accident, a war or something really, really bad, but one time event.
Speaker B:But what most people don't see is that trauma is also when I as a kid hadn't had my needs met, my fundamental needs met about love, caring, attention, being heard, being seen.
Speaker B:So these people also have some of the same issues with anxiety, with regulation, with anger.
Speaker B:It depends because as I mentioned, it depends on what context you were born to really understand.
Speaker B:What is your strategy.
Speaker B:In my case I was in a house where there was a lot of not physical but oral violence.
Speaker B:You know, so for me expressing anger was not safe because I learned really, really little that anger was dangerous and that so I needed to submit to, you know, that's no problem, you can, you can do whatever.
Speaker B:I wouldn't even say my needs.
Speaker B:And it took me a very long time of therapy to be able to just my needs without this feeling that some, somebody's go, go wrong or something or somebody's going to get mad at me and I'm going to create some conflict.
Speaker B:So you mentioned this confidence and I don't agree that the confidence is only ration.
Speaker A:Okay, that's fair enough.
Speaker B:I think that there is a lot of body memories that are playing much into the, into the amygdala, into what the amygdala has learned is safe or not.
Speaker B:And some people have great instincts, great childhoods and make them feel safe overall, but some people do not.
Speaker B:And this is much more than thinking and having achievements in your life saying like, oh, I did well, I have a good salary, I have this and that and that I should feel confident, but I don't.
Speaker B:So it's, it's different.
Speaker B:And that's why understanding what parts are solidify, the freeze, the flat, the Submit part are getting more activated can make us understand really where is the fear coming from?
Speaker B:And as you say, normally it's not from the present, it's from the past.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The level of impact that parenting has on children particularly, it's kind of like there's a quote.
Speaker A:I think it goes something along the lines of show me the 7 year old and I'll show you the adult.
Speaker A:And the idea is, I think it's to do with brainwave states and you move through different brain waves from maybe you're an alpha between the ages of 0 and 7 and then you move into theta or delta or something like along those lines.
Speaker A:Don't quote me, but that is a really interesting point.
Speaker A:And there's loads of studies that have been done.
Speaker A:For instance, babies, certain babies that aren't loved and touched will actually die.
Speaker A:Not as in like there'll be scarred mentally.
Speaker A:They'll literally die, which is incredible.
Speaker A:And they're, they're from a.
Speaker A:What's the word?
Speaker A:And is it anthropom from anthropomorphic point of view with animal studies.
Speaker A:There are, there have been studies done on chimpanzees that very, very exceptionally cruel studies and amoral where they take baby chimpanzees away from their parents and they basically keep them in pretty much solitary confinement and then they try and reintroduce them back in and they.
Speaker A:None of them can.
Speaker A:They're basically just ruined.
Speaker A:Like they're just done.
Speaker A:I don't think chimpanzees like commit suicide, but they commit social suicide.
Speaker A:They can't be integrated back into the group.
Speaker A:They have no.
Speaker B:They become aggressive.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:They fight each other.
Speaker B:And why?
Speaker B:Because the instinct of the child, or in this case the animal is that if I don't have the love of my parents, which are like the person that should love me and protect me the most, what could I expect about the world?
Speaker B:And there are two fundamental needs for humans.
Speaker B:There is the need for attachment and connection, which is okay, attunement with the parents.
Speaker B:The parents look at the other child's smile when the child smiles, hug them, say that they love them.
Speaker B:You know, many, many things that has to do not only with the things that we said, but how like our body language, how we give the attentions to them.
Speaker B:This is the attachment.
Speaker B:It's going to be the main driver.
Speaker B:Because what happens if the child is not attached to the parents?
Speaker B:How many chances of survival it has, they don't have.
Speaker B:So it's, it's, it's a, it's wired into our brains.
Speaker B:If we don't attach with our parents, we are going to die.
Speaker B:And that's how it works.
Speaker B:The second need is the need for authenticity.
Speaker B:The need for allowing for ourselves to be as we are and accept us and accept us with our emotions, with our needs, with whatever expression we have of ourselves.
Speaker B:And when there is a conflict between the attachment and the authenticity, then there is a big problem.
Speaker B:Because what happens when I'm angry and then my parents says, like, you are not acceptable angry.
Speaker B:Go and calm yourself.
Speaker B:You know, it's like, okay, anger.
Speaker B:If I'm angry, I'm not accepted, I'm not loved.
Speaker B:Anger is out of the question.
Speaker B:And there are so many things that happen in that way that in a child there is no decision.
Speaker B:It's like if I have authenticity and attachment and there is a conflict, I will go through attachment.
Speaker B:I will stop feeling whatever I'm feeling, stop talking about the needs that I have as long as I have the attachment with my parents.
Speaker B:And by doing so in a long time.
Speaker B:There is a point where we don't know ourselves anymore.
Speaker B:We don't know what we feel, we don't know our needs.
Speaker B:We have no idea because we have been told so much to adjust in a way to be lovable, that even when we are adults and our parents are not there anymore, we keep behaving that way.
Speaker B:And that is like leading to stress, to emotional pain, because we are not aligned with our values and our needs.
Speaker B:And that's what happens commonly.
Speaker B:And that's one of the things Equanima is trying to help people with, to understand what are the emotions, the needs, the values so they can live a life that is aligned and is fulfilling.
Speaker A:I like that.
Speaker A:That's very good.
Speaker A:How do you think we're born with innate values?
Speaker A:Or do you think we learn to do?
Speaker A:We discover them as we grow up.
Speaker A:What are your values?
Speaker A:Second part of the question.
Speaker B:All right, so I believe that yes, the, the humans first are sociable by nature.
Speaker B:So we have the need to belong to a community, to contribute to other people's lives.
Speaker B:And that's something that unfortunately we are like with our society, with social media, with technology, we are losing more and more.
Speaker B:And I believe that's one of the reasons that we have such a big crisis in anxiety and loneliness, especially in Gen Z's and more so because of the pandemic.
Speaker B:So I believe that this is innate.
Speaker B:We co regulate with each other.
Speaker B:I mean, if I'm anxious or stressed or angry and I sit with another human being, that Is calm.
Speaker B:My nervous system will pick that up and will help me regulate.
Speaker B:That's a fact.
Speaker B:It's a study by Stefan Porsche in the polyvagal theory.
Speaker B:And we cannot then regulate alone.
Speaker B:We can regulate alone in some cases, but to a long time.
Speaker B:We do need people in our lives to really calm us down, to feel part of the community.
Speaker B:This is innate.
Speaker B:And then the need of attachment and the need of authenticity are also very ingrained in the self, in my own values.
Speaker B:I value boldness.
Speaker B:I like to live a life where I made bold decisions and sometimes maybe risky having starting a startup is definitely one of them.
Speaker B:Yeah, I value authenticity because this is something that has been also tough for me.
Speaker B:Really accepting my own needs.
Speaker B:There is also this word needy already kind of like doesn't help.
Speaker B:And there is a lot of that language doesn't help with all this emotional real.
Speaker B:Because we live in a culture where emotional maybe seem weak.
Speaker B:And then we have this idea that emotional maybe is more feminine.
Speaker B:And then if we cry we are not masculine or these gender ideas about emotions.
Speaker B:And then that we should.
Speaker B:That there is no pain or gain sleep is for a week.
Speaker B:So we should like our body is a hindrance, you know, like forget about your body.
Speaker B:You just go, go, go, go.
Speaker B:Like hustle, culture, style.
Speaker B:And then what happens is that people, they burn out.
Speaker B:They end up with a heart attack because they don't listen to their bodies.
Speaker B:And our society is full of these mantras about not listening to our bodies, about disconnecting, about chasing some goals that we think that are going to make us happy.
Speaker B:But at the end, if we are not connected with our needs and values, no goal that society puts us in front is gonna fulfill us.
Speaker A:I really like the word that stuck out to me during that.
Speaker A:And I honed in on it and tried to remember it was co regulation when you said.
Speaker A:I thought that was really, really interesting.
Speaker A:There is, there's a.
Speaker A:Nowadays we believe that our emotional state and mental health is primarily an internal concept.
Speaker A:So if you don't feel right it's because of what's going on internally.
Speaker A:But actually.
Speaker A:And that's a very.
Speaker A:That's a psychological sort of point of view.
Speaker A:So the psychoanalysis is analysis, analysis.
Speaker A:People like Carl Jung and Freud, they were very internally dependent and centric.
Speaker A:He thought mental health was more or less a result of you.
Speaker A:But then there's a.
Speaker A:There's a line of philosophical thinking it might be existentialism that believe the complete opposite.
Speaker A:It believed that your mental health was to do with what was going on around you, it was nothing to do with what was going on inside you and it was to do with the people you were around, the places, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker A:And obviously they're both true, they both have truth to them.
Speaker A:But I think one of the problems that we get wrong with mental health nowadays is we are too egocentric in the sense of we're focusing on what's going on up here more than what's going on around us and who we're affiliating ourselves with.
Speaker A:So I think that's really interesting.
Speaker A:I didn't, I didn't know that that was scientifically proven that we can co regulate because that is definitely, obviously going to be the case given how sociable we are as animals.
Speaker B:Lino Cabormate, have you listened to his podcast or books?
Speaker A:What was it again?
Speaker B:Gabor, mate.
Speaker A:Gabor mate.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I can see a bit of him in you actually.
Speaker A:Yeah, yes, he's good, isn't he?
Speaker B:He has a book, the Myth of Normal, about trauma in this society and how basically it's normal to be abnormal, to be in this mental health crisis due to the circumstances that we live in, given the society that we live in with the, the different mantras and like ideas and even the way we have moved from socializations to phones to.
Speaker B:So it's, it's really interesting.
Speaker B:I recommend that you.
Speaker A:Yes, well, I think that's.
Speaker A:No, definitely, I will check that out.
Speaker A:I had someone on my podcast like last year, maybe two years ago now and in the early days and she was like a child development specialist or something and she said that children need emotional regulation once every 30 seconds at least they need help with their emotional regular.
Speaker A:Once every 30 seconds.
Speaker A:And she wrote a book, that was it.
Speaker A:She wrote a book called why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years of Life is Essential.
Speaker A:And her sort of the doctrine, not doctrine, but the ideology she was promoting was that children really need help with their emotional regulation.
Speaker A:And part of the reason why they're struggling so much because.
Speaker A:And they are struggling so much.
Speaker A:And like Gen Z, I'm a Gen Z, I guess, but whatever the generation below me is because I've worked in schools as well a bit on and off.
Speaker A:They're really going to struggle, like really going to struggle.
Speaker A:We haven't seen anything yet.
Speaker A:So your work is going to.
Speaker A:This whole sector is going to be even more important in 5, 10 years time because they're, they're fucked.
Speaker A:Sorry, sorry guys.
Speaker A:But they're going to, they're going to find it Hard.
Speaker A:But so yes and okay.
Speaker A:So that, and I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker A:Once every 30 seconds, mind blown.
Speaker A:How are they going to get that if they're at childcare with a, with like 15, 20 other children or nursery or whatever?
Speaker A:Just within the first three months, three years.
Speaker A:So that was, that was her point which, which to be fair a lot of historically kids go to school at 4 so that works out pretty well.
Speaker A:But all this childcare and stuff, maybe that's not ideal and I certain that that's part of the reason why children are struggling so much along with other things.
Speaker B:If the mother or the father are also stressed and if they are home, it also doesn't help because the kid learns watching the adults calm down and being soothing and being like no worries, there is nothing wrong.
Speaker B:You know, they copy the behavior.
Speaker B:It's not like you're gonna tell them this is how you're gonna regulate your emotions.
Speaker B:It's by, by you being able to regulate.
Speaker B:So if you're an adult and you don't have those skills yourself, you need to get them.
Speaker B:Especially if you're going.
Speaker B:If you plan to have kids and, or even educate kids or be with people honestly.
Speaker B:Because that's one of the things that we see at Equanima is like it's not just the individual.
Speaker B:Like if you are an individual and we can through our platforms, we have physical games, we have tools, web tools and apps.
Speaker B:Whatever the platform that you feel more comfortable, learn to understand what are the emotions, what are the needs behind how to have an empathy, language and especially how this trigger works.
Speaker B:It changes your behavior toward other people.
Speaker B:Because now if I see a friend or somebody like completely going into a fight mode, you know, like what I'm going to think I'm talking to this person when they were five year olds.
Speaker B:So how is my approach going to change?
Speaker B:Because it's not what is wrong with them, it's what has happened to them for them to go into this pattern because it's.
Speaker B:And it's a whole changer.
Speaker B:Because then I'm not taking it personally.
Speaker B:I'm becoming curious and I'm also with empathy.
Speaker B:And this is something that we need so much empathy because we have lost the ability to understand each other.
Speaker B:And I think this is fundamental for people for the society to try.
Speaker B:So it's by helping one member of the family, it starts irradiate to the other members and the other members start to get curious.
Speaker B:Huh.
Speaker B:You know, I think she's changed.
Speaker B:Like I wonder what she's been doing and Then it grows, it grows, it grows to other families, it goes to their friends and that's how you make it through inspiring and impactful movement.
Speaker A:Yeah, empathy is another key word.
Speaker A:And I definitely think, and I'm sure you do, we're becoming less empathetic as a society.
Speaker A:And I think the reason is because we're actually becoming more brutal where we're sort of reverting a little bit back to our prehistoric nature because everyone is so bit of a dark, not dark, but stark claim, bold claim.
Speaker A:Everyone is so dysregulated.
Speaker A:So we don't have time as such to be more empathetic.
Speaker A:Empathetic.
Speaker A:So empathy is probably like everything's on a spectrum.
Speaker A:And you've got some people who are going to be really, really empathetic and they'll be empathetic regardless of what's going on from a wider perspective.
Speaker A:And then you've got some people who are just not empathetic and you're not going to get near them.
Speaker A:But then you've got like the majority of people that are in the middle and those people are a bit more, they sway depending on, depending on, I guess, how, how, how satiated they are in themselves in any given moment or generally.
Speaker A:But also what the social, what's the word?
Speaker A:What the social sort of mood is, I guess.
Speaker A:And I think that maybe the social mood, I mean, you're in sunny Barcelona, sunny Spain, so I'm sure the mood is always a little bit better generally than it is over in rainy England.
Speaker A:But what, how do you think we can help more people be more empathetic towards others?
Speaker B:First, let's define empathy.
Speaker B:Because empathy has to do with the skill of recognizing emotions in others.
Speaker B:So first you start with a problem that a person has a very limited vocabulary, like hey, how are you?
Speaker B:Great, awful.
Speaker B:It's like, okay, like two, three, four words.
Speaker B:Then empathy is not possible.
Speaker B:So one needs first to cultivate their own self awareness through really practicing a broader emotional vocabulary.
Speaker B:Is it that I'm nostalgic, that I'm gloomy, that I'm feeling pessimistic?
Speaker B:So becoming very accurate with one's emotions allow us that it's easier to perceive them in others.
Speaker B:So once we perceive them in others, there is also this false idea of like.
Speaker B:Empathy means like you need to give your needs up for helping other people because it's a matter of balance.
Speaker B:Yeah, I have my needs, you have your needs.
Speaker B:But I can choose to be compassionate in a way as long as it's also not going through like to My own detriments.
Speaker B:For example, in this society we value altruism a lot and we don't like selfishness.
Speaker B:Like selfishness.
Speaker B:But so, but it's really not that.
Speaker A:Way for a more complicated than that, isn't it?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:A healthy person needs to have their needs met, but also be aware of other people's needs and then be balanced on that.
Speaker B:Because if you compromise too much your needs, you are also going to end up in emotional pain because obviously you're not getting your needs met.
Speaker B:And this is what unfortunately happens a lot with the women because the society thinks like, oh, they are the caregivers, you know, like they need to do this and that and they have to be the emotional support of the family.
Speaker B:Or there are all these conceptions about what means being a woman, but it's not really healthy at all.
Speaker B:So either whatever gender you are, you need to take care of your needs as well as the needs of other in a balanced way.
Speaker B:And then when looking at other people emotion, not evaluate or going to judge because we, we, we've been told in school all evolutive, you know, is this true or false?
Speaker B:Is what's the correct answer?
Speaker B:You know, fix this, solve that.
Speaker B:So we go into an emotional conversation and it's like, hey, I feel this.
Speaker B:Oh, I think you should do this and say this and do that.
Speaker B:And that's like, okay, that's not, it's the person asking for advice is another thing.
Speaker B:But once we're telling a story, especially if it comes with emotional pain, the ideal thing to do is to validate other people's feelings.
Speaker B:I understand that that could have felt awful, that would have felt hurtful, that would be disappointing.
Speaker B:And then when you repeat or rephrase the other person's feelings, then they feel hurt.
Speaker B:And that's already so much better for that person.
Speaker A:That's 50% of the problem, isn't it, really?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that also happens when you don't necessarily agree.
Speaker B:So in conflicts you could have a disagreement and still validate other people feeling.
Speaker B:So I don't agree with how you think this way, but I can understand that this can have made you feel disappointed.
Speaker B:Yes, I'm not, I'm not agreeing on anything.
Speaker B:I'm not just validating the other person feeling.
Speaker B:Even if I disagree with their theory that because our feelings are always true, there is nobody that can tell you, no, you don't feel this way if we feel it's true.
Speaker B:But it doesn't mean I have to like sacrifice myself for anything.
Speaker B:It's just like Validate your feelings.
Speaker B:And that's also helping a lot.
Speaker A:Validate your feelings, but also understand that all they are is feelings in the sense of, don't become too attached to your feelings.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because they are information.
Speaker B:At the end, every pleasant feeling informs you about the needs that have been met, and every unpleasant feeling informs you about the needs that have not been met.
Speaker B:So if I'm feeling angry, maybe I needed respect, maybe I needed fairness.
Speaker B:What is the need behind.
Speaker B:So there are pieces of information.
Speaker B:Are we aligning with our values?
Speaker B:If I get angry because a friend of mine got insulted in the street, it's a good emotion to have because it means that I value my friend and I found that disrespectful and I wanted respect for my friend.
Speaker B:So it's about seeing the connections between the needs and the emotions, and that's where we can take action.
Speaker B:So instead of feeling, oh, I feel anxious, and I keep the feeling, okay, maybe I'm needing stability.
Speaker B:I'm needing peace around me, needing order.
Speaker B:How can we get us to that?
Speaker B:Okay, what little things in my life can I start doing to get to that feeling of stability, to that need of order?
Speaker A:For example, there's a thing.
Speaker A:There's like a rule or a piece of protocol in lifeguarding.
Speaker A:Go back to the thing you said right at the beginning about not letting other people's energy basically zap yours.
Speaker A:And there's a.
Speaker A:There's a rule in lifeguarding where when you approach someone who's drowning, if you're a lifeguard, you approach them with your legs out.
Speaker A:And the point is, is you say to them, I'm going to save you, but you need to stop kicking and screaming, otherwise, I'm not going to save you.
Speaker A:Because if it's between you dying or me and you dying, is going to be you dying.
Speaker A:So that's kind of.
Speaker A:Obviously, that's a very, very immediate and dramatic example.
Speaker A:It's not like that in real life most of the time, but that's a good rule of thumb to go.
Speaker A:When you approach someone who's in.
Speaker A:Maybe not quite, because you don't.
Speaker A:You need to have that sort of unconditional acceptance of them in the immediate, short term, at least.
Speaker A:But I always thought that.
Speaker A:I remember when I hear that, I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker A:Yeah, approach them with your legs out.
Speaker A:Fights.
Speaker A:Let's talk about.
Speaker A:I haven't even answered.
Speaker A:I haven't asked any of the questions on here, I don't think.
Speaker A:Which is a very good sign, actually.
Speaker A:So this is why I wanted To.
Speaker A:Yeah, how necessary is it for people to begin to recognize that?
Speaker A:And how can equanima help with people recognizing their emotional patterns?
Speaker A:So this scenario takes place and I have this thought, that thought, this feeling.
Speaker A:Da, da da, da, da, da da.
Speaker A:Because it's all a chain reaction, isn't it?
Speaker A:So how's, how important is it to work out the beginning?
Speaker A:What starts?
Speaker A:What sets that first domino off, so to speak.
Speaker B:It's like a muscle emotional intelligence indifferent from IQ test is something that you can practice and you can learn over time.
Speaker B:So and this skill is going to help you in every aspect of your life.
Speaker B:So what you need to do first is to build that language of emotions to be really able to say, okay, I can start distinguishing.
Speaker B:And some people come and said, like, you know, I don't even know where to start.
Speaker B:And that's why we have a cards game where you can start browsing body signals.
Speaker B:Different feeling, different needs.
Speaker B:And in the app, actually the AI helps you go through it.
Speaker B:So you, you, you put a, put a little prompt and then the AI can suggest you need somebody signals.
Speaker B:And then once you start to say, like, hey, every time I get my palm sweating, I'm getting anxious.
Speaker B:Or every time I start like clenching my fist and getting angry.
Speaker B:And then you can start to be more proactive because normally what happens is like we found ourselves in the impulsive.
Speaker B:So like, my God, I already did this horrible thing.
Speaker B:I should have waited or whatever.
Speaker B:So the more that we practice this, the more that we cock ourselves before the impulsive reaction happens.
Speaker B:When that happens, you have a choice because you know that, okay, this is something stressful happening.
Speaker B:I know that I always going to submit so I can make a really well thought say, like, what are my needs in this moment?
Speaker B:What is happening in this moment?
Speaker B:And not react as the pattern reaction.
Speaker B:And that's what's going to help us move away from these like child survival parts to our grounded self in Equanima, our main character.
Speaker B:Because every of these parts have a character.
Speaker B:The main character is the elephant.
Speaker B:The elephant's showing resilience, showing strength, showing clarity.
Speaker B:And it's about going back to your adult self.
Speaker A:Cute elephants.
Speaker B:Yeah, a cute elephant.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:Muy buonito.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So of course, if you are looking to live a more fulfilling life, if you are feeling stressed or purposeless or that there is something not completely right, your body, no, you know, your body's the full wisdom.
Speaker B:So if there is something on your body telling you, you know, like, maybe there's something in my life, maybe there's something about the people that are in my environment, the work that I have that is making your body react in some way.
Speaker B:Listen, listen carefully and then take action on that.
Speaker B:Start to be more aware.
Speaker A:Listen.
Speaker A:So that the body keeps the score.
Speaker A:Sort of the.
Speaker A:The idea.
Speaker A:What's your.
Speaker A:I was speaking to someone the other day and we were talking about the idea of the subconscious and the subconscious mind.
Speaker A:And no one really knows where the subconscious mind exists or presumably it's definitely in the amygdala because the subconscious mind is, as we've sort of alluded to, is primarily emotional.
Speaker A:Over not.
Speaker A:It's not logical, it's emotional.
Speaker A:But there's also other ideas that the subconscious mind is like an energy field around you.
Speaker A:This is a bit of a rogue question, but the subconscious mind is very, very important with emotional regulation.
Speaker A:Especially in the beginning.
Speaker A:You were talking about just a minute ago, the choice, and I think emotional awareness in a large part is there's like a gap.
Speaker A:It's like a sensory neuron and then a motor neuron.
Speaker A:And before you have.
Speaker A:If you have zero emotional regulation and awareness, they're like attached to each other.
Speaker A:So it goes from one to the other.
Speaker A:But the whole point of learning and increasing your knowledge of everything that you're teaching and helping people with is that that the idea is probably, maybe that gap gets bigger.
Speaker A:So it has to be a really dramatic stimulus in order for you to be able to sort of like go to the.
Speaker A:To the motor.
Speaker A:Nor at least you're creating a bigger gap.
Speaker A:So I can't remember what my first question was, but I know what the next one will be.
Speaker A:What's.
Speaker A:How important is that the choice used the phrase the choice.
Speaker A:Go into that a bit more detail.
Speaker B:I would say the choice is the ultimate point where you want to be, but it's not the first.
Speaker B:At first, what's going to happen is that after you make that impulsive reaction, like maybe a half an hour later, it's like, I went into a flight, totally a flight, or, you know, or fight or whatever the reaction was.
Speaker B:So you're going to realize maybe half an hour later, then with more practice, maybe you're going to realize in the moment, but you're not going to be able to stop yourself.
Speaker B:It's like, I know I'm in a fight, but look at what happening.
Speaker B:I know, but you are conscious that you are in a survival pattern.
Speaker B:You're conscious of that, but you still react.
Speaker B:And with time you start to become more predictable.
Speaker B:Like you.
Speaker B:Okay, okay.
Speaker B:This type of thing.
Speaker B:I know that this.
Speaker B:You, you also know to understand your triggers.
Speaker B:Oh, whenever a person is with loud voice or ignoring me or said this specific thing or, or, or has this specific expression in their face, I snap.
Speaker B:And then you are going to see that and you're going to hopefully with the Kwanima, for example, you can learn some copying strategies.
Speaker B:Okay, in this moment, let's go to a coping strategy right away.
Speaker B:Not even try to reasoning because when we are in such a stress state, and especially if it has some childhood wounds, to try to reasoning out maybe not the best idea, but to go outside on a walk, to go take a warm bath, to have a cup of tea, whatever works for you, to get you more regulated, then that's the ultimate choice point that you have.
Speaker B:Okay, I'm going to choose not to go into my typical stress reaction, but actually to use a coping strategy that is healthy for me.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And every time you, you make the choice that.
Speaker A:What would you say?
Speaker A:I don't say.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:I want to say the right choice, but I think that's a bit unfair.
Speaker A:Every time you make the healthier choice, you grow the part of your brain and the part of you that can continually make that healthy choice and you shrink the part of you that doesn't make the healthier choice.
Speaker A:And that's, that's really key.
Speaker A:It isn't just every single time I have the same battle.
Speaker A:No, that's not what happens.
Speaker A:The battle gets smaller and smaller and smaller and that's great.
Speaker A:But on the flip side, the battle can also get bigger and bigger and bigger if you don't make that choice.
Speaker A:So the key is to you have to get your something pulling you towards a better response and also pushing you away from a bad response.
Speaker B:And it's important that you say that it's not only about going into that response because we have to.
Speaker B:This neural path that you have created, it gets stronger with practice.
Speaker B:But it's important what you say about the subconscious because once you have reacted in a way that is healthy and perhaps it, it was, it took you some courage to do.
Speaker A:Yes, definitely courage.
Speaker B:You need to talk to that child again.
Speaker B:Say like you see this work, this is safe.
Speaker B:This, this is another way because this part of you, I don't know if you've seen inside out, but I love this, this medical core about the belief system because this protector part, the fight, the flight, whatever has a belief system.
Speaker B:The submit part is like conflict are bad.
Speaker B:We need to avoid conflict at all costs.
Speaker B:This is the Main belief.
Speaker B:And this belief, even if you're conscious that oh no, conflict is natural, it helps a relationship grow.
Speaker B:It's in the unconscious, very, very deep rooted, you know, and there is not only the reasoning part that's going to help, but the practice.
Speaker B:And then looking back and saying, you see, like this helps.
Speaker B:This was better, this, this.
Speaker B:And then you reinforce what is a healthy belief like that conflict can sometimes lead to good outcomes, you know, can make people grow and change.
Speaker B:And that's actually the better self awareness.
Speaker B:Because once you know the emotions, the body signals and you know and, and you write down because in your inner dialogue is where you're going to find the beliefs when you're in the stress, I want to kill them.
Speaker B:And you note, wrote this down, wrote this down, wrote this down.
Speaker B:And then you will see what are the beliefs in that part.
Speaker B:And then you can create healthier beliefs and practice those.
Speaker A:Yes, writing things down when you're in that state of heightened emotion is really important.
Speaker A:Not only because we have this idea that we can think things away and we can rationalize things, but actually human beings aren't very good at thinking.
Speaker A:We have to say things.
Speaker A:Which is why like free speech is so important.
Speaker A:Not even from a political perspective.
Speaker A:From a.
Speaker A:You have to be able to say things to your people, to your friends and the people you have relationships with.
Speaker A:And there has to be an element of, I'm going to let this person say something and I'm not going to judge it straight away.
Speaker A:If they say it a few times, then maybe I'll come back and go, you said this, why are you saying this?
Speaker A:But if they just say it once, you just have to go, okay, that maybe because the amount of times where I'm thinking something going round and round around in my head and I say it out loud and I'm like, actually no, I didn't think that.
Speaker A:And writing it down is the same thing.
Speaker A:So writing it down and speaking are exceptionally more effective ways of processing things than thinking things through.
Speaker A:It's not a very effective way of thinking things through.
Speaker A:And I love the inside out analogy.
Speaker A:I think that's perfect.
Speaker A:Inside out is a phenomenal film and a very accurate film with regards to how our brain works.
Speaker B:Yeah, and you mentioned so the part of the conflict and talking things out with the people when something bad happens, you know, so here are two parts and this is where language becomes more important than ever.
Speaker B:Because one thing is what you think and you say aloud without judgment and everything.
Speaker B:But then once this is all out, you need to Find a way to rephrase it in a way that will.
Speaker B:That will really make empathy flow.
Speaker B:And this is one of the examples where we have different games about emotion versus interpretations.
Speaker A:Because there is one of my questions, actually.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:There is a big confusion about that.
Speaker B:So if I tell you only I feel mistreated, is that an emotion on our interpretation?
Speaker A:I think it's an interpretation.
Speaker A:Is it an interpretation?
Speaker B:It is an interpretation.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:It is an interpretation.
Speaker B:Whenever I have a sort of feeling that has to do with another people's behavior towards me.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So if I say I feel abandoned, I feel humiliated, I feel betrayed, of course it has some feelings behind, but it's actually judging another people's behavior towards me.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:And that what happens if I say to somebody is that destroys empathy because the other person most likely is going to get defensive.
Speaker B:Hey, Morgan, no, I didn't abandon you.
Speaker B:I didn't mistreat you, I didn't humiliate you.
Speaker B:And then there is no ability to understand each other because we have gone into a defensive mode.
Speaker B:If instead of that we go to the real feelings and the needs behind.
Speaker B:Hey, Oli, last night I felt very disappointed because I didn't go to the cinema with you and I felt I needed connection at that point.
Speaker B:Your response is totally going to be different, that, hey, Oli, you abandoned me last night.
Speaker B:What happened to you?
Speaker B:Like, you know, so, so it's very important that we, like, we have one part.
Speaker B:One part is we think everything through with ourselves, like, write it down however it comes.
Speaker B:No judgment.
Speaker B:But then after, it's like, we need to find the right way to pick that up and put the better language to really make empathy be possible in the conversation.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker A:Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker A:And there's an even more sort of accusational stance that people take, which is they go, you never, you never show up when you, when you direct it on the person.
Speaker A:That's like, that is a great.
Speaker A:That is a great way of getting someone to sort of roll up.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:And fight back.
Speaker A:If you go, you never show up for me when I need you.
Speaker A:Some people will get defensive of that.
Speaker A:Whereas if you say, I feel like, what would you say?
Speaker A:What would you say in that instance?
Speaker A:I feel.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker B:The feeling.
Speaker B:What's the feeling?
Speaker B:First real feeling.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I feel, I feel.
Speaker B:Is isolated a feeling or interpretation?
Speaker A:That's an interpretation.
Speaker A:Oh, God.
Speaker A:I need to use the app.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So we're at the 57 mark.
Speaker A:I don't want to go much more than an hour.
Speaker A:So do you want to talk about anything you want to talk about on the app and the what you can get from it and give you a give you time to promote what it is that you want to promote.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:At Equanima we are a movement about making emotional intelligence simpler and more accessible.
Speaker B:We have as I mentioned, different platforms.
Speaker B:We have our web@EQUANIMAIO and there you can subscribe for the app.
Speaker B:It's currently in beta testing but we have a form for people that want to try it out.
Speaker A:I'll try it.
Speaker B:We have also physical games that you can find both in our website and at Amazon.
Speaker B:We have the Emotional Intelligence Toolkit for people that want to go into Software Awareness Journey.
Speaker B:It has all sorts of activities.
Speaker B:You can play it alone or with crafted ones.
Speaker B:Then we have also Relationship Playbox meant for couples and families to play together and we have a triggered response card with all the characters to really understand what are the parts driving your stress reactions and how you can take a better coping mechanism in your life.
